The return to the hated room came many hours later, as the sun began to rise, filling the perishing night with a strange grey gloom. Her reasons for avoiding her bed were far different than the torture of the subconscious so often thrust upon her. She was alive, awake, in the most electric way. The beloved bottle, barely touched, was placed on the table for one near the window, and as her finger touched the label, no- caressed it, she truly felt as though she were touching an old lover rediscovered.

But it wasn't the wine. Maia had been touched. Not just her cheek, or that shock of white earned through so many taxing times. Her heart had felt a distant memory, she knew it only in dreams and rarely were they good. Without pretense or ado, he had reached through the stone veil she wore and reminded her it was there. His sorrowful eyes sparkled in her gloom, and made her shine again. Nothing in her experience had warned her that could happen.

god, the light... it would burn her alive.

Keen senses could fib, and memories told terrible lies. She knew better than to trust either, and over the next few days, any little time she felt uncertain of what had passed, she slipped her nimble fingers down her leg, into that pocket sewn inside her boot, and she touched the dry, sharp corner of the card. The address could bring her there.

She knew she was not ready to willingly alter her fate. Chance was one thing, but walking up to a door and asking to be let in was another. At least for a while, the stars would decide whether she would see The Ghost. Yes... she had always followed the slumbering stars, and until a better reason presented itself, she knew that was the wisdom she must follow.

The Day of Saint Valentine. A national excuse for foolish people to behave even more foolishly than was their usual custom. And also, pink, so much wretched pink- a violent color, in Maia's mind. The color of viscera. It assaulted the senses. She preferred all colors to pink.

This day of rampant, raging romance, of hearts and promises, of the madder, less important parts of love; this day caused great thought in her. For the past fortnight, she had watched Eros strike in the frantic manner of all great procrastinators. The shots fired were hasty, sloppy, indiscriminate, and those felled seemed somehow off target. Those battle hardened, savvier soldiers of love were spared, only the fools were wounded, and with extreme prejudice. Kissing and sweet nothings abounded in furious volume. She watched them, and she thought of only one thing.

It was one of her greatest secrets that beneath the armor of her hard words, violent wit and sharp tongue, Maia was, at the heart of things, a romantic, an optimist. Despite the hell of her recent existence, she had held fast to this part of her, the very part that he had awakened from a long sleep in a glass coffin with his kiss. Just like a fairy tale, he had rescued her and carried her away. They had saved one another.

He was selfish, prideful, lustful, callous even, his appetites insatiable. He was everything she despised in a man, and yet, their merry war of words challenged her as no other ever had. His barbs stuck to her, and hers to him, each drawing them nearer and nearer the inevitable. He gave up the women and she gave up the sea. They created their own tide. A force of nature. Never would the world be the same.

Maia paid the man at the quiet Inn, south of town, where they had once escaped for a weekend. Room Four, corner of the South Wing. In that bed, she had admitted that she loved him, and they had spent the night in one another's arms, making love with their words, finding words for their thoughts. Laughter, wine, passion. Between tangled sheets and limbs, and locked gazes, their souls entwined. She had always considered that place their cathedral, the sacred ground where they had promised themselves to one another, before all the powers that be.

She had kept her promise long past the hour they had parted, against both their wills. He had never given away his pride, and it cost him his life, and her the world. There had been tender moments, since. Maia had loved, but never been in love, never touched the fire, drowned in another. She had touched, comforted, laid beside men, but she had not made love since him. She had never found a reason. For all intents and purposes, she still belonged to The Rogue, body and soul.

The door opened once she turned the key, and the overcast light of winter spilled over the bed. Tight lipped, she locked the door behind her and crawled into that bed, fully clothed. She clutched a pillow to her, and alone in her cathedral, a memory her confessor, she admitted every sin she had committed since they parted. A secretive stoic, she had long suppressed this torment, and the tide washed it out of her in shuddering waves of grief.

Too many days and too many nights of late had been spent alone. There were no ghosts to keep her company, to fill the hours when the quiet might madden her. She was impossible to please. Maia hated the quiet or she hated the noise, all depending on the fickle pendulum swing of her moods.

Worst of all-- the quiet, the noise-- all of it just made her itch.

Sitting in the inn, sipping her poison of choice, her cold gaze would cut through the crowd and find that which she had trained for years to see. A twitch, and her muscles flexed, pupils dilated just slightly. The thirsty blade, devil sharp and ready to rain a righteous wrath upon something that deserved it, felt infinitely heavier as it hung from her hip. Virulent virtuous violence, three inches from her hand. The terrible ecstasy of it would cause her to shudder, she was nauseous, she was ready. That sick feeling had never gotten easier to bear, not once in eight years.

Every instinct told her to watch, to never let it out of her sight, to wait for the opportune moment. Twitch. She defied those instincts, tore her gaze away to one in an endless parade of doxies, drunkenly laughing or flirting with some lucky slob. A flash of crimson lips, or sometimes the vile pink. Empty laughter. Eyes grope where hands oughtn't in public. She wished, for once, to be distracted by the sight of a pair trapped in one another's eyes, rather than the promise of one another's loins. Two souls entwining, not star-crossed, but something more solid. Sea-crossed, maybe, vast and full of promise. That would be a future worth fighting for.

Her head throbbed, and she went for a walk, leaving the hunt behind, ignoring the sounds of darkness as she tried to shake it off of her. Let it rain, she thought, let it purge the darkness from every bit of me and leave me again to walk in starlight, unstained. She clung to that thought, her prayer for baptism from above. Deus ex machina, dropped into the narrative to save her mortal soul from devouring itself.

Hoofbeats on cobblestones. Clip-clop, fuller and more lively than the dull tick-tock of a grandfather clock. Their woodblock sound resounded blocks away, out of sight, but she heard them all the same. Two sets of hooves, working in concert. A cart, a wagon, a small coach. The sweet rhythm calmed her like a childhood song, and a small smile of relief slipped into place. Hope springs eternal.

Some called them tramps, thieves, low, but the woman herself had been called such and worse. Darts that flew from the tongue never bothered her much, and she appreciated these nomadic cultures for their more abstract gifts. The gypsy she had once named her brother had been possessed of the same Sight, something useful and terrible all at once.

During the years exiled to darkness and her covert rage against it, she had employed the gifts of such Seers to help make sense of the terrible, abstract dreams that pointed her to the next cause. That was one of the unwanted gifts recently and happily returned to the givers. As she sat in the little cafe looking for the man with the cards, it was everything but business that compelled her to wait at that corner table with her pot of tea and her thoughts.

Her luck had yet to expire, and indeed he emerged from the night. This one was no brother of hers, but he was trusted with one of her charges and had done well in his task. His blue eyes, luminous but distant, his boyish smile, the jaunt in his step; this gypsy presently lived in a moment of content. Maia would not call him friend, though she did like him, and his good fortune pleased her.

Niceties were exchanged, but as the hour grew long, she requested the favor of his talents, knowing full well that his were developed to a remarkable degree. He was not just gifted by Sight, he was cursed by it, ruled by it at times, she suspected. A burden he bore with grace. He began the task, eager to help her and somber as he sensed a tense reading ahead.

With interest, she watched as he rifled through the worn deck, the cards as much a part of him as the eyes with which he noted them and the lips he used to explain. Like her own blade to her, she thought. Everyone in this place carried weapons of one kind or another. The man, slight of form and soft of voice began to speak of what he could See, and he was beautiful and fearsome in his own way.

Foolishly, that nagging spark of hope had wanted something more optimistic than what had followed. Five of Cups, Four of Swords, Hanged Man, Page of Swords, Seven of Wands... metaphors all, and she knew their meanings in passing. His words were more specific to her than the strange pictures; he was earnest and caring. The gypsy foolishly thought on her tenderly, apologetic with the truths that were not his to control. A sweet man with a vile message. Maia thanked him, and left there beneath a dark cloud. A less experienced reader would have been written off, but she knew that she could not entirely ignore the words of this one. They were words she had left unheeded once before and that had culminated in an ill cadence.

Through the night she walked, back to her new place, her collar turned up against the winter air. That suffering was noted on the periphery did not haunt her- it was the nature of the living to suffer, it was what made pleasure and joy so very sweet. One phrase, in particular, would stick to her for ages.

You leave someone to shoulder your responsibilities, and they will try...try and fail.

The words left a bitter taste, for at the crux of things, Maia believed still that none of the burden had ever been hers to bear, but she had done it all the same. No one could claim she had not done her share, and then some. Despite her efforts the detach herself from these responsibilites, already she could sense that she was needed. The posters all over town about death, destruction, and disappearance cried out to her, a compelling argument to take it all upon herself again, and fight the good fight, to surrender her life for the call.

It isn't mine to bear.

A long time spent in thought revealed plainly to her that it was not the time for action. The bitter taste in her mouth, the hollow nature of her thoughts, the overcast sky that hid her stars- these things needed to be addressed. She could not fight for people anymore if she no longer cared for them, and Maia fast approached the point of no return. She grew weaker by the day. The Seer may have been right, but so was she. It was still the time to lay down arms, reconnect, and heal the only part of her that was truly scarred. Then, and only then, would she be able to carry what another could not.

Just the moment that you give up on an idea, or a person, or an idea of a person, something can happen to alter the fabric of your reality. Like a glitch in the nexus, only seemingly less random. The impassioned creatured had abandoned the idea that anyone might truly know her and still choose to stay near. And yet, the Ghost had made it abundantly clear that he had no intent to flee. He was a magic man, who turned the tide with his words and swept her away with a kiss. Hand in hand, they walked to her home, and it was almost a feeling of reclaimed innocence, as though all that awful time had never passed. Maia felt quite like herself again. More to the point, they were now on level ground, and the coachman could call on the once-pirate as easily as she could call on him.

It was in this calmer state that she found a very large piece that had been missing from the puzzle, waiting on the porch swing while singing an old hymn. Proper surprise and delight ensued. She threw her arms around the Norseman, and they did a fair bit of catching up in the time that followed. As she looked on the venerable old bastard, she recalled with what depth she loved him. Maia loved him for his nobility and his stubborn nature, for his unfailing sense of right and the generous heart that beat in his chest. He was also one of the only men in history to ever successfully engage in an argument with the frightful woman and come out on the other side with both his dignity and her respect. Not an easy feat. It was safe to say that she would do nearly anything for that friend.

Before she knew it she was in grand company, indeed, having a pint with the Norseman, catching up with the shy niece- no longer a girl and yet still so bashful, it was hard to think on her as woman. As old friends were rediscovered and savored, the warmth of the new was to her left. The arm of the coachman was draped comfortably across her, yet more of the long absent tenderness present in the gentle movement of his fingers on her shoulder. For once, she focused in, all attention on the little booth the four of them shared. The comings and goings of the tavern went unnoticed, and for that quiet minute, the woman was genuinely at peace.

It could not be long before that gentle tide would turn.