The morning brought with it a new sense of closeness for the Champion of Avalon and the Priestess who was his wife. They had loved and talked late into the night, stirring only when the sounds of the Isle at work intruded into the quiet sanctuary of their home on the edge of the Temple grounds. Breakfast was taken with Rachel and Zachariel, and Ana was claimed as theirs once again, wrapped up warm against the cold. It was time to visit the Lady herself, and no visit would be complete if they did not take the precious little girl she had delivered by her own hand with them.

As had become the usual way of things, they had not been summoned, and yet the Lady was ready to meet with them when they arrived at the Temple, keeping them waiting only a few minutes before the interweaving vines that held the heart of the Isle so close unwound to allow them passage. With Ana balanced on her hip, Nat gestured for Rhys to go through first, her smile just a little impish. She had no idea why he had been so eager for this meeting all morning, choosing not to ask but to wait, instead. He wasn't exactly patient when he wanted something.

Patience was definitely not Rhys' strong suit. He had been almost as excited as a kid on Christmas morning right from the moment he got out of bed. Though he'd been tight-lipped about what he wanted to see the Lady about, he didn't think it was all that hard to figure out considering his conversation with Nat the night before. He had a feeling the Lady would already know what he wanted long before they arrived, and he was hoping she wouldn't deny them. He'd been especially affectionate with both Nat and Ana and had the little girl giggling almost before she'd finished her breakfast. "Ladies first," Rhys insisted as the vines parted to allow them entry.

"Such a gentleman, Sir Rhys," his wife teased him, carefully removing one of the vines from Ana's grabbing hand before doing as she was bidden, reaching back to take his hand as she passed into the garden of the Chalice Well, the Lady's sanctuary here on Avalon. They knew the path by heart; so well, in fact, that Elaine had taken to meeting them on it rather than wait. But today, there was no rustle of skirts and a wide smile to greet them until they reached the Well itself, finding the ageless beauty kneeling beside the pool, watching the dance of a single feather across the surface.

"Sir Rhys," he echoed with a grin. "I like the sound of that." No one ever called him Sir Rhys, not even here in Avalon. It was always the Champion this and the Champion yet, which was fine, but to have an actual title - like Sir Lionel - was something to be proud of and made him feel important. "I'm not even English and I have a Sir before my name." He held the vines back so that his wife and daughter could enter without difficulty, though it was really unnecessary to do so.

"I thought you knew you were a knight of Avalon," Elaine's gentle voice commented, amusement thick in her tone. Her smile was audible before she looked up to show it to them, though she made no move to rise. She knew why they were there, even if Natalya did not. "Welcome home."

"I suppose," Rhys replied as he stepped through the opening after Nat and Ana. "I just never thought about it much. No one calls me Sir, unless I'm in line at the bank." And he wasn't sure if that was just because they were being polite or because Nat was loaded. "I hope we're not intruding," he added with a worried frown, though she had yet to tell them so.

"To be Champion, you must also be a knight," the Lady told him warmly. "You are Sir Rhys, Champion of Avalon. If you wish people to use another form of address, simply ask." She turned her smile onto Ana as Nat knelt down with her, sparkling lights rising from her palm to amuse the baby girl while her parents were in conference with the Lady of Avalon. "Before that," she added, raising her hand to Rhys, "come here. Look at this feather with me."

"Yes, I know, but..." He trailed off, his attention drawn to the sparkling lights for a moment - as distracted as a child at times - before she beckoned him closer. "Feather?" he asked, furrowing his brows curiously. He turned to Nat, looking a little puzzled before stepping forward. Why the heck did she want to show him a feather"

Amused by the way her husband could go from confident and determined to utterly bemused in seconds whenever they were in the Lady's presence, Nat turned her own attention to keeping Ana entertained with the lights that sparkled around them. Elaine took Rhys' hand, drawing him down to kneel beside her, gesturing to the feather that spun its way gently over the surface of the pool. "Do you recognize it, Rathaniel?" she asked him gently. "It is yours."

Rhys knelt down beside the Lady, turning his almost child-like curiosity to the feather spinning gently in the pool. "Mine" What do you mean?" he asked, realizing a little belatedly that she was referring to him by his angelic name, though he had no memory of ever being an angel. He quieted a moment, reaching toward the pool and the feather that was spinning on its surface, but pulling his hand back before he could touch it. "No," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't remember anything about-about that," he said, hesitant to use the word heaven or angel in reference to himself. He still found it hard to believe he could have ever been like Zachariel. He only ever remembered being Rhys.

Elaine smiled her gentle smile, once again mother, daughter, and sister rolled into one being as her hand touched his cheek. "I offer you a memory, my dear friend," she told him. "You do not have to take it, nor will there be any claim on you should you decide to make it your own. I have no power to restore to you the entirety of what was taken, but this one thing I can give you, for it is where your journey to Avalon truly began. All you need do is take up the feather, and you will know this little piece I have saved for you. Or you may let it drown in the pool, lost to all."

The last few days seemed to be all about memories, it seemed, first in obtaining the Rod and now with this innocuous looking feather. "A memory?" he echoed, once again, looking puzzled. "I don't understand. My journey to Avalon began when I..." He broke off a moment as he tried to understand, glancing toward his wife and daughter. "When I met Nat."

"In a sense, yes." The Lady's smile was understanding of his confusion, but offered little in the way of explanations. "I have not seen this memory that I offer you, for it is yours alone. But I believe it has everything to do with the soul that has been constant in your life for millenia."

Her explanation, what little of it there was, only confused him further, but he found his heart racing with excitement at the possibility it implied, especially considering what he had come here to ask. But as all things where the Lady was concerned, she could only tell him so much, and it was up to him to decide if he wanted to know more. He trusted her as much as he trusted Nat, and he knew she wouldn't offer him this if it would not benefit him in some way. "All I have to do is touch it?" he asked, uncertainly.

She nodded, the gentle gesture of her fingers calling the dancing feather across the rippling pool toward them. "It will return to you," she told him. "Become a part of you once again, so that no other may take it from you. And by that, I do not mean you will grow wings." There was a snort of laughter from Natalya - it seemed that the Lady knew Rhys a little too well these days.

"No regrets?" he asked, needing to know, despite everything they had said to each other, everything they had been through, everything they had shared. There had been other relationship, other women, but none of them had worked out, and now he knew why. No matter how much he thought he'd been in love before, all of them paled in comparison to Nat.

Her eyes were soft as she smiled at him, wondering if he truly needed her to say what he already knew. "How could I possibly regret you, Rhys?" she asked him, heedless of their audience, secure in the knowledge that the Lady would never repeat anything she heard, and Ana didn't understand what was happening. "I've been waiting for you far longer than I can possibly remember."

"But I remember," he said, tangling his fingers with hers. Or at least, he remembered enough to know all of this had been decided and arranged long before either of them had been born. In the end, all that really mattered was that they were together - just like Zach and Rachel - for always, or at least, for as long as she could put up with him. There was going to be a little fear of that for him for some time to come, but it was no fault of hers. "I have loved you forever, and I will love you always," he told her softly, unafraid to speak his heart and mind in front of the Lady, who knew all of it already.

For someone who had not known real abiding love before him, that was almost too much to take in at once. Unashamed of the tears that spilled from her eyes, Nat slipped over to him, wrapping her arms about her beloved husband in a tight embrace. "Forever, dusha moya," she promised him, her voice a broken but happy whisper by his ear.

The tears on her face were mirrored by those in his eyes, as he drew her onto his lap and into the circle of his arms, no longer wings to wrap around her in a protective embrace. He'd been told so many lies all his life, only to learn the truth once he'd come here to Avalon, and for that alone, he owed the Lady his life, his loyalty, and his love, but not the same kind of love he gave to Nat. For a moment, he only held her close, both of them crying happy tears, knowing they were connected not only by a vow, but by a bond made in heaven that could never be broken. "Thank you," he told Elaine, once the tears had subsided. He wasn't sure how she'd known what it was that they'd needed, but he was glad that she had.

The Lady watched them as she rocked their daughter on her lap, happy to let the little girl play with the burnished sunshine of her hair as two halves of the same soul came to the same conclusion. She smiled at Rhys with just a little mystery. "You should thank your friend, Lailah," she suggested in amusement. "She contacted one of Avalon's agents and had the feather to sent through the mists, though she could not possibly have known where it would end up. I knew the time would come to give it to you eventually."

"Lailah?" Rhys echoed in surprise. He hadn't seen or heard from his guardian angel since they'd rescued Rachel from the coven. He hadn't forgotten about her exactly, but they simply hadn't needed her. "Why didn't she tell me?" he asked curiously. If she'd sent that feather along to Avalon, she must have known how important it might be.

"Because orders are impossible to disobey for one such as she," Elaine told him gently, her smile softening at the way Natalya had curled into his arms, at once separate and at the same time one being, quiet in the wake of that revelation. "She was not created to have free will, and yet she did this thing for you. You touch people in interesting ways, Sir Rhys."

"Neither was I," he murmured, more to himself than to either of them. Whatever he'd been originally created for, all that seemed to have changed - or perhaps, it had all been meant to happen, after all. There was that age old question of Free Will versus Destiny again. It was too much for him to think about right now, and he wasn't sure he even cared. "The only one I touch these days is my wife," he replied back, a soft smile touching his face, both for Elaine and for Nat.

"And your daughter," Nat pointed out with a quiet laugh, though she knew the touching he was teasing about had nothing to do with Ana. Elaine laughed at the gentleness of the pair's affection, bouncing said daughter on her knee as the baby girl giggled joyfully.

"Not the same way, though," he countered with a grin, pressing a tender and rather chaste kiss against her cheek. He'd save the passionate kisses for later when the Lady wasn't there to witness and Ana was tucked into bed and wouldn't interrupt. "Three of my favorite girls are right here." Not counting Rachel and Gina, Aurelia and Lailah. Though he wasn't too sure about Lailah just yet, she had certainly made points with him today.

"Girls?" Elaine laughed at that, her rare open laugh that was shared with so few people. "You are one of a very few people who can call me that." Or at least, a part of him could call her a girl. To the mortal soul that resided within him, she was ancient, her journey long and filled with promises.

Nat smiled, both for the kiss and the laugh, gently slipping off Rhys' lap as a wave of belated embarrassment for their display of affection swept through her.

"Sure, you can't fool me. There's a girl inside you somewhere. Besides, I'm probably older than you are," he said, daring to stick out his tongue at her playfully, though he recalled very little of his angelic past, despite the slide show she'd just given him. His smile softened as Nat slipped off his lap, and he crossed his legs there on the ground, looking very much an overgrown boy.

"A part of you, possibly," Elaine smiled, letting Ana slide off her own lap and make her way over to her parents. The baby girl wasn't at the crawling stage yet, but she had mastered rolling. Her turn of speed was alarming at times.

"Thank you, Elaine," Nat said quietly. "I do not know how you knew what we needed to know, but thank you."

"Probably seems kinda silly," Rhys added, a little embarrassed, leaning forward and stretching out his arm to snatch his baby girl up off the ground before she hurt herself; he was forever worrying over her. "We just..." He glanced at Nat again, unsure how to put it in words without sounding selfish or silly. "We don't want to take any chances."

"There is no chance to take," Elaine assured them both. "The promise was made, and it has been kept. As Zachariel and Rachel will move through the world, forever joined, so shall you. It was a covenant made in recognition of the sacrifice that would be necessary for success. Not even they would go back on their word in this."

Rhys didn't have to ask to know who "they" were. He furrowed his brows at the thought of that. Angels and demons - they'd messed with his and Nat's lives enough. "Well, at least they have no hold over this place," he said. Avalon wasn't just a refuge from life on Earth, but a sanctuary from everyone and everything who might cause them harm. "Isn't that right, Anabanana?" he asked as he scooped the little girl up off the ground and gave her the raspberries.

Elaine chuckled gently at their reactions to her small admission of watching them on occasion. "They seem knowledgeable in a way few who do not partake in the secret are," she agreed, though for once she did not have all the information. The power that held its hand over the Bristols' neighbors was not one of those that had built Avalon.

"Yeah, well, I think they only came by that knowledge recently," he said, glancing to Nat, as he wasn't sure if he should go on. If Elaine didn't already know about the Dalys' secrets, who was he to divulge them'

Watching the couple exchange glances, the Lady smiled once again. "Should it become necessary, in time I will know what I need to of your friends on Earth," she assured them gently. "They pose no threat, nor do they draw threat to you. That is all the Lady of Avalon needs to know. And they are your friends. That is all I need to know."

"If it becomes necessary?" Rhys echoed, assuming she was referring to their next-door neighbors and not to Adam and Gina, who'd already been to Avalon. "He's a cop, and she's a nurse....or was a nurse, so I think they're pretty normal." Though he knew there was an ironic connection to Rhy'Din, and there was something about Bethany's father. He assumed the Lady knew all that already, and probably a lot more, so there was no point in explaining.

"I do not know them, nor do I have them in my eye," Elaine told him quietly, her gaze flickering to where Ana was working on prying his belt open with chubby, indelicate fingers. "They are protected by a power as old as those whom I serve."

"Her father is someone important in the supernatural world. Vampire hunter, I think, or connected to them. I don't know much more than that, but I do know he's one of the good guys." And he only knew most of that because of Adam. He followed Elaine's gaze to where Ana was playing with his belt, and he laughed. "Oh, no, you don't, you little mischief maker." He looked to Nat with a small frown, realizing their young daughter was starting to get bored. "We should probably get going," he said almost regretfully. He truly enjoyed the time they got to spend with the Lady, and he always hated when it was over.

"There will be other times, and plenty of them," the Lady assured him, rising onto her feet gracefully.

With a good deal less grace, Nat joined her, stretching awkwardly before reaching down to rescue Rhys and the security of his breeches from Ana's tugging hands. "Come here, malyutka," she laughed, tucking the little girl onto her hip. "Let Papa keep his dignity in the Lady's presence."

"I doubt she's too worried about my dignity, Nat!" Rhys pointed out with a chuckle, re-buckling his belt once she took the little imp from his lap. Once that was done, he found his feet, facing that awkward moment where they had to say goodbye. He really hated goodbyes, even though he knew they were free to visit anytime. "Thank you again," he told the Lady, almost shyly stepping forward to offer a brotherly embrace, if it was allowed.

For her part, Elaine welcomed the embrace he offered with a warm smile and open arms, gently touching a kiss to his cheek before she drew back. "Do not forget that Avalon is always open to you, whether we call for you or not," she reminded him, understanding that Nat did not need to be told. "You are our Champion. And you are my friend."

"I won't forget," he promised as he, too, drew back, smiling fondly for the ageless Lady of Avalon who he loved like family. Though he was proud to be the Champion of Avalon, he was even more proud to be called her friend. "We're going to spend the night and visit with Zach and Rachel before we go home. Do you want us to stop by and say goodbye before we go?"

"If you wish it, then I would welcome your company for a little while before you leave," she told them both, turning to embrace Natalya and Ana briefly before drawing back. For the briefest of moments, her expression was saddened as she met Nat's eyes, but that was swept aside, her decision not to speak of what she saw or felt in the other woman made in an instant. She gently stroked Ana's cheek, returning her smile to Rhys. "You will find your sister on Temple grounds," she told him in amusement. "Zachariel in the library. I think they should both take the day, and you should be the ones to tell them so."

Rhys didn't seem to notice anything wrong with Nat at the moment, nor did he seem to realize that the Lady had noticed anything wrong. All he saw was the two of them embracing and Elaine affectionately stroking Ana's cheek. "We'll see you soon then," he promised with a warm smile of his own, before turning to Nat. "Do you want me to take her?" he asked, of the little one on her hip.

His wife smiled at him, offering their daughter back into his arms without needing to say a word. "Should I pry Zachariel from his books, then?" she asked him in return, inclining her head to the Lady as she watched them move away. "Allow you the pleasure of stealing Rachel away from her duties?"

"I have a feeling it'll be easier to tear Rachel away than Zach," he replied with a grin, reaching for the little girl and balancing her against his hip. "Wanna go say hi to Auntie RaeRae, Ana?" he asked, brushing a wisp of hair away from his daughter's face.

What he got for his efforts was a raspberry blown on his nose and a cackle as the little girl found a fistful of the laces on his tunic, tugging as her little feet kicked. Laughing, Nat fell in behind them, casting one glance back to the Lady before they left her in peace. Something passed between the women, some understanding that not all words had been spoken, not all pains aired. But a promise, too, that those words would be spoken, in time.

Once again, Rhys was oblivious of anything going on between Nat and Elaine, his heart light and happy now that he knew they really had been given the same gift as Zach and Rachel, even if it had been given in another way. If he thought about it hard enough, he'd realize that he had everything he'd ever wanted - friends, family, a wife who adored him, a child and the promise of more as time went on, a home both here in Avalon and on Earth, and he was a hero. What more could anyone want"

((What more, indeed"))