"I think you're very nice. I think twinkle's a nice word. So's viridian. I met a lady once who had an imaginary fish."
-Delirium, in Brief Lives, by Neil Gaiman.

"Is that so?" Tara asked the strange woman with the light hair and the curious spectacles which rested on her nose.

"When love tries to pass through a ring, it strangles..." She replied softly and sipped her gin.

Tara turned back to Viki. "Ayreg doesn't love me. Where did you get that idea?"

"The speckles on his shoulders spelled it out for me."

"The...speckles...on his." Tara blinked.

Meanwhile, Viki had been staring intensely at the stranger, and now, she was interested. The woman spoke in riddles. Riddles made more sense. She inquired: "What happens when love really does pass through the ring an' it doesn't get strangled at all?"

The woman laughed. It was a soft one - the laugh of a lady. She wore white gloves like a lady. "When it passed through the ring it changes, and will never be recognized again, like a friend met again after too many cities and too many years."

"What happens when it gets recognized for what it changed into?"

"Ah, then the other will sometimes remember what it was in dreams, and a hole will be carved in her waking life."

"Wait." Viki squinted. "Do I know you?" The words that had poured from the lips of this mysterious stranger stuck with her. That was an accomplishment to say the least.

"I think not. I am Alma Stuart. I have been fortunate to meet the fair Tara before." She smiled.

"Oh! I'm Viki. I am cousin to the fair Tara. Nice to meet you!" Her painted lips curled into a genuine smile. It was nice, wasn't it? She wasn't so sure why.

Enter Count Talomar. Tara's ease was almost immediate. Viki gave him a shy smile. Things were a little odd between them, and Tara wasn't to know why, but out of concern, Viki would supply him with the necessary information to care for her cousin. Unfortunately, it came out like this:

"Tara looks pastey and I think tha' she looks like someone else in her body..."

Back to Alma. The woman's words seemed the only ones of importance.

"Viki...I trust that is victor and not victim."

"Nau, it's Victoria actually."

Tara and Talomar were carrying on about things Viki didn't quite understand. Tara was sick. It was quite obvious. But somehow, Viki's wild imagination was to blame. Fine. Her eyes were for Alma now, for her strange tweed attire and her alien spectacles.

"Can you see people insideout with those things?"

"I like to think so, when I wish to."

"I saw a person insideout once, but they didn't look very nice. It was all a mishmash of blood and guts and wriggly things that got there after they died."

"Victoria...you are very strange...but in a good way, I assure you." Talomar. He irked her. Where was David anyway?

"Thank you, Count Talomar. I think you are very strange too, because you keep bottles of wine in your... " Her hands flew to her mouth. She was doing it again! Quickly, she turned back to Alma, hoping The Count did not hear all of it.

"It is rarely a pretty thing to see a person on the inside, though it is sometimes entertaining and always educational..." The woman's tongue flicked at her glass. Somehow, someway, it was classy.

"Is it? The only thing I learned was that I didn't want to be dead."

Talomar again. Uh oh. He was glaring! "You were saying?"

Viki repeated it for him accordingly: "That.. I.. didn't.. want.. to.. be.. dead."

"there are worse things than death to be seen within people, and often what one sees makes one wish it for them." Alma was laughing again.

Viki inched closer. "You mean, black evil shadow things?"

"Or, worse yet, nothing at all." Alma's eyes had found her face.

"So whats inside of you?" The girl's delicate features were done up with curiosity. A temporary sanity sparkled in her eyes.

"Those who have seen it always ask to see it again."

"So, does me asking mean I saw it already?"

"Like a rock at the edge of a falls, there should be something we can grapple at and steady when we would be swept away. How much worse to make that grab and find nothing than to look in a mirror and see no one there?" Then, Alma added, and very softly, "and only you know what you have seen, dear."

But Victoria was shivering. "I hate mirrors." Her little face held a look which bordered on terror. "And sometimes when you fall, there aren't any rocks. I have trouble finding rocks alot."

"The price for each night is startlingly high, Viki, and terror is thought small coin with which to purchase little pleasures." Alma's pretty smile. "We have all grappled and found nothing beneath our hands on occasion."

The floorboards whispered. Alma whispered. Then she laughed. "I call it morning."

Viki's terror had morphed into confusion. "You talk like whispers of things that dun always want people to know..." She stood up, approaching. "Because you see, dun you?" She placed an emphasis on the verb and her look was one of I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know.

The woman's slender legs were crossed, uncrossed, crossed again, her eyes ever watchful, always studying.

"Sometimes I look so hard that it wrings tears from what might just be my soul, so desperately do I try to see," she laughed. "And sometimes I sing pretty lies because I like the sound they make."

Victoria had stopped in her tracks, as if the woman's movements had distracted her, but in reality, it was the tweed fabric - how perfectly lined and straight and odd. She had never seen tweed before. But then, words. Laughter? The girl's head dipped to one side, so as to hear it better. Then, it came quite naturally:

"If lying is a song, then truth is a cry."

Alma applauded, like a shrink for a breakthrough. Viki's brow raised, but then, she was all smiles. She had said something spectacular and not even known it.

By then, Tara and Talomar had taken their leave for the evening, leaving Victoria and Alma to each other. Goodnights were passed all around, though one in particular stood out:

"Goodnight to you Miss Tara, I will keep her singing prettily for a time."

Victoria redirected her attention, her eyes falling back to Alma, a certain amusement dancing across her young features. "I can sing!" She exclaimed, then twitched. A thought: "I can cry too." She said it most quietly.

Then. Clarity: "You smell like the garden." Victoria said to Alma, completely sure of herself. "But there's nothing underneath. Like.. the rocks."

The woman seemed to dismiss her with a wave of her hand. "Perhaps I am not swimming just now?"

Viki squinted, temporarily mesmerized by the trail of color Alma's white glove made as it moved through the air. Then: "Nau. You are always swimming I think."

"Perhaps the rocks appear when I choose to swim; and the scent when I wish to lead one by the nose?"

"Am I being led?"

"And you, you smell like a green limb twisted, like grass weeping against the blade. If you were being led, would you not recognize the rocks?"

"Sometimes the rocks look like other things." Viki blinked. "Is that really what I smell like?"

"I can only answer for myself. Is the scent in the object or in the nose? Is beauty in the beloved or the lover's eye?"

Viki titled her head, poised and thoughtful. "I have a lover." She was grinning, and it wasn't at all coy.

"A lover do you? I hope it is a patient and thorough as you deserve. I suspect any but the most complex of lovemaking would seem stagnant soon to such a swimmer." Alma was standing, straightening her cape and her clothes, and she did so with such a simple grace.

Viki's feet were shifting positions. She was still watching the woman with genuine interest, though some of what she said made her nervous and she wasn't quite sure why. "I do not quite know if I do deserve such things, but it is not a simple thing tae keep my head above water.. Sometimes you get distracted by what is below. I think you've been below. I think that's why you smell like flowers and nothing beneath."

"My bed is devoid of rocks just now, but it is the better for sleeping...." Alma's lips were at her glass.

"It is never better to sleep on or with rocks." There. That was the last of it. All the wisdom from Victoria had run dry.

Alma placed a kiss upon her own fingertip, then gently traced it along Viki's wrist. "You might just discover another
scent yet pretty one, and two swimmers can sometimes hold in a current where one would be swept away. But the rock free bed before dawn for me." She started for the door.

Victoria's eyes were focused on her wrist, watching an invisible trail the fabric might've left behind. "Goodnight whisperer." She did not look up.

"If you wish as I wish, it will be until we meet again."

"I wish it very much!"

Slave your slumber, it is ruin in miles.
Holding her blank like memory.
I saddle illusion.
(And I burn delusion.)
They were always one.
Flint is a root, the type of wrath in your smoke.
I burn like one pawn.
Seeking taste in imagery.

Alma entered quietly, wearing the usual stocking and tweed ensemble, her signature spectacles at her nose. Meandering through the crowd and toward the bar, she settled into a stool, appearing to scan the populous.

Viki had noticed her almost immediately, killing her focus on Belial and Talomar. Alma caught her gaze, smiled, and proceed to glance behind the bar.

Pffft.

The girl dipped out of the crowd, the crowd consisting of Belial, Talomar, and now Tara, and moved toward Alma. Her slippered feet took her closer and closer and closer, and she was on tiptoe when the woman turned. Viki froze.

"Have you come to join me little fly?"

"Are you a spider? Will you spin me 'round an' 'round until I'm stuck and then bite me hard and drink all my insides?" She approached her in any case, laughter in her eyes.

Alma patted the vacant chair beside her with a single gloved hand. Viki hoisted herself up happily, her fingers lacing over one another into a delicate clasp of hands which she set into her lap. The white lace of her strangely sewn dress dusted across her bare knees and bare legs. Alma's blue eyes regarded her briefly.

"Do you find my web comfortable, then?"

"I like webs. They are tricky and full of secrets and I think yers is especially." She dipped her head into a soft nod. Yes. That was absolutely correct.

Alma ordered herself a drink. Irrykin was the tender. Viki liked the man, and considered him a skilled artisan, especially after creating an origami bird for her.

"A drink for you as well?"

"Nau. I doubt I should drink anything if this lady here is going to drink up my insides because it might do something to the taste. But thank you!" She finished fast, cheerful, peering back at Alma with wide eyes.

The woman's laugh was music. "Ah, and is that the form of foreplay here in RhyDin?"

"Was there ever anything else?" A wrinkle of girl-nose. It should have been a joke but it sounded more sincere.

"Perhaps you should ask her what might make the taste all the more... enjoyable." Irrykin replaced a bottle behind the bar and was busy gathering a tumbler.

She took this into consideration before her eyes returned to Alma. "What should I taste like?"

A moment of brief study, and then she replied: "Peaches and bittersweet chocolate I would think," she smiled before adding, "and if not we can find a sauce..." Her words trailed off, always meaning more than what was spoken.

"I like chocolate alot. I like how it breaks up into pieces that should fit but don't anymore. " She'd make a query to the tender: "Do you have any of that?"

"Chocolate?" He ducked behind the bar in search.

Suddenly, it dawned on her that the sauce comment was strange.

So, she asked: "Sauce?" Those eyes of hers, an aquamarine blaze.

The woman appraised the girl. "I could paint you with it, perhaps." Then, adding quickly, and with a small laugh, "Oh not a mess of chocolate, a sheen."

"Paint my skin with chocolate sauce?" The laughter that poured from her lips was musical as well. It was a symphony of sound! "Okay!"


Alma applauded her eagerness, genuine delight playing across her pretty features. Viki grinned and bowed her head.

"I think it is more likely the lady may have more chocolate than I. " Irrykin leaned over the bar as he spoke, nodding softly, perhaps chuckling. Viki wasn't sure. He was a strange sort.

"I must find us a confectioner!"

"Where can we find one of those?"

"There must be one in the market, one there who will know." Alma looked pretty and pensive with her chin perched atop a fingertip. "If we could find one that goes on warm and quickly hardens, I could make casts of my favorite parts."

"Oh." Viki's fingers had trailed down her dress in an attempt to straighten and tidy her appearance. She was going to be painted after all. "Parts?"

"I find the left earlobe quite fetching."

"It's pointy. Some people dun like my ears very much." Her eyes flickered heavenward, as if she could see them from up there.

"Well, one would have to taste it to be sure."

"What other parts do you like?" Viki leaned in, her head canted to one side, her curls spilling down a single shoulder. She giggled. "Are you going to do that to all of me?"

"I think any further declarations of my admiration might ask for more privacy." She was always so proper, even the way she sipped her gin was proper.

But all the blood seemed to rush to Viki's face, and a brilliant pink hue was now decorating those delicate features. That last comment was really something, wasn't it?

"You are very very beautiful." She swallowed. "And you still smell like all the flowers on the surface." Her eyes had fallen and she shifted on that bar stool, her teeth digging into her lower lip. She had no poetry. It was all too hard to paint her a picture with words, as her words were wild and lost.

Kristia, her friend of old, was at the Dragon that night and had probably been eavesdropping for quite some time. She interrupted the two, quite suddenly, and shouted.

"Viki! You didn't even say hello!"

She lifted her head at the sound of her name. It was all instinct. "Oh, gee." She gave Kristia a faint smile. "Sorry! I did nuh see you there!"

Alma's blue eyes were back and forth, on one then the other, but all the while she sat silent and sipped her gin.

"Were you here all night?" Viki gestured to the ethereal creature, Alma, beside her. "This is Alma. She's going to paint me."

The ethereal one lifted her hand. "Alma Stuart. How nice to meet you..."

"Alma, this is Kristia. She and I go way way way back to when mebbe I was more collected in consciousness."

"Alma, hello. I'm Kristia... " They shook hands. It was odd and unplanned and didn't quite match. Alma's other hand had fallen upon Viki's knee.

Kristia blinked. "She's going to paint you..?" It was a logical question. With Viki, no one knew whether that meant she was going to paint a picture of her, or she was literally going to paint her.

"Yes. At first I thought with chocolate sauce but I was very wrong." Viki wouldn't give her any help in that department.

"I have only had the pleasure of Viki's company for a short time, and yet I'm quite smitten." Alma's voice, and a perfect smile followed. "We will make an Easter rabbit of her!" The smile was replaced with a silly grin, proving her delight was genuine.

Viki's laughter filled the surrounding air. It was a bubbly laughter, much like... bubbles. Catch them? She peered up.

Kristia stared between the two. "Hmm.. well.. good luck with that." She inched away and retreated back to her booth, leaving Viki and Alma alone at the bar once again.

Alma had begun to draw little circles upon Viki's knee. The girl's eyes could've burned a hole in the back of the woman's hand. Her gaze was that intense!

"Where do you go when you're not here?" Where do you live?

"Close, on the edge of West End, I have a place." She glanced back at Kristia. "Perhaps your friend knows a confectioner?"

"Oh. Yes. Talomar said that David went there today, but I do naut know why, because he keeps things from me and I do naut like him very much.' She turned, following Alma's gaze. "Mebbe. You'd have to let me know what that is."

"A candy maker." Alma was as sweet as her implications.

Viki took her hand then. It was sudden, unexpected, as if she were possessed. Then, with no readable expression on her face, she planted a small kiss to the lady's third knuckle.

In one single, perfectly timed motion, Alma turned her hand to catch Viki's chin. "Shall we look for the
candyman, then?"

"Tonight? I cannot go searching for strange men tonight. Maybe tomorrow. It is very late. " She gave her a small pout. "But now I know where you live, so I will come find you, and holler your name to all the buildings."

"I will give you the address, dear, come early tomorrow evening, we will talk of the confectioner's art." She slipped to her feet, straightening her skirt. "Yes, an early evening for a night of sweet sculpture."

But they won't let you.

"Okay but can you write it down because I don't remember things so very well." She produced a rather large purple crayon from a pocket of her dress - a pocket she had added to it all by herself, and it was apparent - and slid the instrument toward her, complete with a napkin from the bar."

Alma's directions were brief and precise, but somewhat strange. They were more a list of sensations than streets. It was a puzzle which appeared to Viki. A lost which would confuse most only delighted her. She tucked the napkin into her pocket, crayon and all.

"I will listen, I will wait for the scent of green glass beneath a blade."

More water... Love above morning beauty ...Than a watch.
She never asks, she swims to me.
Give us skin. Seperate. Elaborate. Poetry.
Blue goddess, I manipulate this full finger.
Will this open you?
Sense this timid structure, this hard chain of magnetic white.
Will this open you?
- Folly