"C'mon, Joy. We're gonna be late." Brian Scot herded his sister down a long stretch of warehouse sectioned into booths and shops that housed the popular culture of Bordertown, the Elflands and the World. Moving his sister through the pressing crowd was like fighting a rip current. They were constantly being pushed back by humans and elves and half breeds and everything in between dressed to cosplay their favorite characters from their favorite comics, television and film. Even characters from popular plays found fans who could not tolerate electronics or its opposite at Bordercon.

Brian and Joy were no different from the other cosplayers. Brian dressed as the brooding Sterling Astrophel from the popular Gothic drama Midnight Garden of RhyDin or M-GoR as it was known by its Twittering fans. His costume a perfect — so Brian thought— hand-made replica of the one worn by the actor Benjamin Piers , who played Sterling with an intensity that sang to the young man. Sterling Astrophel was a mysterious man of grays that a silver boy like Brian could relate and wish to emulate.

Joy, the dark to her twin brother's light, stopped abruptly — again! — much to Brian's ire to search through her giant bag printed with paisley flowers and unicorns. She, though dark of hair and eye, was dressed as the shimmery goddess Celestial, sometime cohort, sometime rival to Sterling. She wore bone white extensions in her black hair that mimicked Celestial's two-tone tresses and a diaphanous gown of porcelain linen and spangles. Her pale skin made paler by white powder and sparkle dust. She seemed to glow just as Celestial did on the show.

The bag had to go, Brian vowed. It spoiled the look and could lose them the contest. He grabbed for it.

"Wait, I need to find my phone," she said and pulled so hard on her bag that it tore from her brother's grip. Her elbow jabbed into something soft and furry. Contents, including her tiny spell-boxed phone, tumbled out of her bag.

"Eep!" She turned abruptly to see what she hit. "Sorry, sorry!" She said to a large werewolf. Her dark eyes turned huge. She stepped back onto her brother's foot. "Joy! Come on. It's just some guy dressed as a lame Child of Fenris." The Children of Fenris were reoccurring villainous henchman in the world of M-GoR. This wolf man bent down to gather Joy's things and stuff them, and a surreptitious note scribbled on the back of a Bordercon flyer into her bag.

"Oh. Sorry. Thanks!" Joy/Celestial smiled and waved at the costumed wolf and let Brian pull her away. "We have to stop. I promised Lirenel that I would text him updates. That was the deal."

"Later. It's starting!" Brian, with a vice grip on his sister's wrist, ran them down corridor to where the costume contest contestants amassed. Neither noticed the wolf pushing and shoving its way back through the crowd.

Brian didn't win the contest, but he took third place. Joy was happy to flash her VIP badge all over and spend time with her favorite actor Benjamin Piers while he signed autographs and mingled with his fans.

Her brother, always broody and moody and sometimes just mean, spent a few minutes at the signing, declared Piers lame and nothing like the extremely cool and schway Sterling Astrophel, and said he was leaving to check out the new art cards for the M-GoR card game.

"You can't, Brian. We have to stay together and I want to stay here," she whispered, pleading in a low voice so Benjamin wouldn't hear and do something horrific like make her go with her brother. She held onto Brian's sleeve. "With Benjamin."

"I'm not staying here, Joy. This is lame."

"But Brian, mother said ...,"

"I don't care, Joy." Brian pulled free and stalked off in a fair imitation of Sterling Astrophel's storm.

Joy sat and pouted at Brian's back. "I'm going to tell Lirenel!"

She didn't. Benjamin Piers was there and she was no tattletale. He let her be in charge of handing him the stills for him sign. *** —Text to Lirenel from Joy, accompanied by a photo of a bracelet of woven hair wrapped around a thin wrist.— OMFGlk wut BenjiP gv2me!!!! —- That night, long after the convention was over. Joy sat, cross-legged on her feather bed in her room at the Brownstone in the Westend, laptop on her knees, editing the selfies she'd taken with Benjamin Piers for her blog. She paused for a moment to admire the braid she'd fashioned into a bracelet to wear on the wrist opposite the sleeve of ribbons she always wore on her left arm.

The werewolf's note caught her eye first as a bit of trash she had collected. She grabbed it from the bag that sat open next to her and started to crumple it up. Hasty writing on the back made her stop. Her lips made a perfect 'o' when she read what had been written.

Bran waffled momentarily between two choices: wait outside until he saw her coming — he knew what she looked like, they'd sent selfies back and forth — and then join her; or, wait inside. Eighteen and confident, if nervous as all the abyss and heavens alike, he went inside. He ordered a blended chai latte for himself and an iced mocha latte for his fairy princess — skinny, if you please! She mentioned it once during one of their many conversations. He saved every one of them. Stupid, if his ....if Lirenel ever found out. But, he couldn't stand to delete her words. Even her badly spelled texts. He smiled to himself and checked messages on his cell.

They worked it all out, just so they could meet. They'd chatted on the MGor website where he found her after he met her and left that horror of a note about which he'd yet to confess. They got to know one another. Despite her parents restrictions and concerns, Beautiful Joy, fairy princess and harbinger of Spring, burgeoning weather witch and the Dark side of the Moon, suggested that they meet. She planned it all. Brian would distract once-nanny, now guardian Faye so Joy could duck into the coffee shop. She bribed Brian with something—she didn't tell Bran what—and that brought him on board.

The skinny iced mocha latte waited, as Bran waited, condensation trickling down the cup. Bran sipped his and occasionally and ignored the "condensation" that dampened his shirt. He cast his eyes up to the window to watch the street just when the door shut and the bell jingled that announced her arrival. It chimed with the bells she wore strung in her dark curls.

Stunned, overwhelmed, wide-eyed and speechless he sat—a full fifteen seconds! His brain screamed at him: She's here! She's here you fool! Stand up! His chest felt tight. In numbingly slow motion, he rose, mouth suddenly dry. Fortunately, his body had the wit to raise his hand in a subtle wave of hello and his slow rise seemed more courteous than struck stupid. She held the large flowered bag he recognized from Bordercon against her chest. Her eyes opened wide and he fell into the black of them—deep, starless night.

She saw him. Her smile blossomed, the sun through a Spring shower just ended. Her smile said she knew him; would know him anywhere. He breathed again and repeated his wave. It worked like magic. It tugged her from the door to his table. "Hi."

Likewise, he knew her face. He looked at her picture every day and night since she'd given it to him. He smiled, ducked his head, and glanced to the table for a split-second. Still, his eyes couldn't be anywhere else but on hers. He swallowed nervousness. "Hi," he said, his voice a warm bass.

"This is weird."

And wonderful. Seeing her face, hearing her voice, and putting them together. In texts and on Skype she was a chatterbox with always something to say. Now, she stood almost mute lower lip between her teeth.

"Is it?" He grinned. He couldn't stop smiling! He felt stupid and didn't care. That was a good sign, he thought. So, after a moment more of staring at her, he started a little and laughed and invited, "Sit down and tell me why?"

"Oh, okay." She wore a pink t-shirt with raccoon dressed up as a one-eyed pirate with a crow sitting atop its grandiose hat and a pair of blue jean shorts. Pink socks and sneakers rounded out the ensemble. Ribbons of every color she wore tied around her arm from wrist to elbow. She flopped the bag onto the table; jostling the drinks but not spilling them thank all the gods. She mewed and fell into her chair. "I was going to say all these things and I ....I forgot." Her cheeks went gloriously pink.

Bran sigh-smiled and his freckles stood out across his nose as he did so. "I'm happy to listen to you say anything, Beautiful Joy," he told her as he reached for the chair he'd been sitting in. He changed his mind, then and took the chair at an angle to her, rather than across. He slid her latte over. "Skinny iced mocha latte, m'lady," he intoned as if it were very serious and immediately thanked the gods that the pink tinge didn't go away when the realization that he remembered what she liked to drink flooded her expression.

She reached for the iced coffee. "Bran," she made his name sound like the sighing of wind through the daffodils, "you don't have to sound like that. We're not in court."

He clutched at his heart and bowed his head. "Taken to task, already!" And he peeked out from under reddish blonde bangs that hung in a seductively sweet manner over his long red-lashed eyes. He knew they did. He'd practiced the look in the mirror! and sapphire deep. Rings of navy-royal circled his irises. He hoped she looked long enough to see.

"No, no," she gasped.

He heard the mortification. Afraid he might take offense. That was a very good sign. Then, she stared into his eyes where humor danced in an array of blue from stormy to clear to brilliant robin's egg and he saw her pulse beating in her throat, so very fast

"You are more handsome than your picture."

"Thanks," he grinned, teeth white and perfect since his braces came off only a year ago. "There are so many colors in life that pixels cannot show," he murmured as he lifted his head, entranced by the sound of her voice and the depth of her eyes. "You're more beautiful than even 'Beautiful Joy' tells."

"That is so true," she nodded vigorously and the bells chimed sweet and true. "Well, not the beautiful part. I'm not."

"I think you are," he said. "It's inside and it comes out in how you write and talk. Seeing you in person like this," he shook his head. "I see it even more."

"The girls here are so glamorous and pretty..." she stopped. She sipped her iced coffee and kept looking into his eyes.

He leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, and drummed his fingers against his cheek. "What girls" I don't see any other girls."

She giggled and then clamped her hand over her mouth. Her words came out muffled. "I do not know how long Brian can stall Faye. Did you have trouble getting here"'

"Don't hide your laugh, please?" He whispered, "I like it." Then he shook his head and leaned back in his chair to stretch a little. "I've got kinda a gps in my head. Sorta always know where I am. Besides....there's no one to care where I go anymore."

"What' Why not?" She blurted out the questions and then in a smaller voice. "I care."

He hesitated, then leaned forward again. He slid his hand out, palm up, open to her. "Thank you," he whispered. "I dunno....I mean....My father cared, but he's gone. Wyllam says I have to grow up, so I'm growing up. On my own."

She took his hand with no hesitation. Outside, the day turned brighter. "Who is Wyllam' Why isn't he helping you?"

He dared to brush his thumb over the so-soft back of her hand. Warmth speared his belly and crept downward. Never had he felt such things....he trembled and blinked in surprise. "Wyllam is our head groom. He takes care of the horses and runs the horse side of things with my father. He has ever since I was little. Though, back then, my father had Da—my step-father's help too. He got sick, though and had to go away, for his health. Then he ....got a job...." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Wyll is really busy since Pop died. And my step-dad, well, he can't seem to be bothered with checking up on me."

"That's horrible. Oh, Bran." Her fingers clenched around his hand. Her forever-dark eyes glistened with unshed tears of empathy. A gray cloud drifted beneath the sun. "You must be so lonely."

"I was," he nodded. "Big house, anything I want for the asking. We have plenty of money. But," and he swallowed, overcome. All he wanted was his family—and they were gone.

She looked to her coffee and kept a tight hold of his hand.

So many times they talked about her family. She had one, even if they didn't understand her or what she was going through. They didn't let her out without guardians because they freaked out over his stupid note—though she didn't know it was his. He knew he should tell her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He sniffed mightily and scrubbed his eye with his free hand. "But then I met you. I'm glad I did."

The clouds that had abruptly darkened disappeared. All became blue sky and bunnies. Her smile just as sunny. The bells a constant chime. "I am glad too, Bran." She reached into her hair and pulled out a string of those tiny bells: silvery jingle type bells strung on a fine black silk thread. "Here. You can make them ring and then it'll be like I'm with you. When you get lonely."

The moment weight heavy with import, that she should give him her bells. "I—" he choked up again and had to swallow several times. His eyes shone. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a worn braided leather necklace. At the end of it dangled a black onyx horse, a minature Titan. "Tie it onto this for me?"

Her bells chimed true and tinkled lightly. The pendant caught her eye, a dark shadow amidst Bran's golden glow. "Oh, that looks like Titan."

"You—" he blinked twice and his lips parted. "You know Titan?"

"Oh yes. He lets me ride him. His gait is as smooth as Star's, smoother!" She smiled bright.

Bran understood several things at once. His blue eyes clouded over stormy and his jaw bunched. He squeezed her hand, maybe just a little too tightly.

"Ow, Bran that hurts." She tried to pull back and glanced around, a little frightened and trying to take comfort in the crowd. All the bells chimed discord.

"He is here?"

"Titan is in Summer."

"Oh," he started once more, apology written throughout his face, but for the storms in his eyes. "Oh, Joy, I'm so sorry."

"No, no. It's...it's okay."

He brought her hand up and rubbed it, tender, worry set his features softer, younger, unsure.

"Did I do something to make you angry' Are you okay?"

Before he could answer, her phone vibrated the tabletop, and the look on her face told him her guardians were coming. "No, I'm not, but it's not you, Joy. Believe me. I'll Skype you tonight, okay' You'd better go!" When he had her in his arms, he wanted to hold her forever, but time allowed only a quick hug. He watched her leave, and then got up, lattes left to the abyss on the table, to follow her out the door. Further down the Rhydin street, she met up with her brother moments before her guardian stepped out of a shop.

He let the coffeehouse door go and turned away or be seen. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. The brassy bell discordantly echoed the sadness and darkness that settled on him when he turned back and she was gone.