A dreaming angel
Lying curled in the circles of Hell
I must protect her
Watch her back for any cracks to occur.
For in the witching hour
She slips into the underworld.
A pearled Persephone
Deflowered by the powers
Hat around her
Down her
Whirl
- Cradle of Filth

Red Dragon Inn: Weeks earlier.

Tasha had just presented Viki with her Blood lapel pin, the one that would transport her to the Manor if ever she were in trouble (and that seemed to be a constant theme these days).

"I am Blood?"

Mr. Howe and Lucien Mal's conversation turned black the instant Viki uttered those words. Violence was threatened on both sides, and now, the air of the Dragon was heavy with tension.

Tasha's voice: "Well.. Tara is, so it's only right you are too... Don't ya think?"

Violence was closer than that too. She felt it beside her, from her Sandman lover. His dark eyes drifted to measure the exchange between Howe and Lucien, but the heavy blanket of shadow he had draped over the seer began to withdraw.

It was something she did not miss.

"But I am protected. Skado protects me well." Viki's head dipped into a furious nod and she looked to Domikai with ever-wide eyes.

The seer continued. "Xas, right for being with family, but naut for only protection. I have protection. I want family. It fits. Will pieces of me be here and there if I call on this pin?"

Tasha was distracted by the outraged Howe, and hesitated before answer. "That's just it.. You are family. Tara's family and her family is our family. Follow me?"

Viki's hands cupped the pin in place, and she looked to Tasha, perhaps a little torn. "I would be family, xas. But Skado is packmate. Protector. Always." She sensed something else besides his well-hidden anger: wounded pride.

"Well of course. I ain't saying he isn't. Thing is Viki honey... He can't be with ya all the time right? Would be nice but not always possible is it?" Tasha replied, though still seemed terribly distracted.

Domikai snarled under his breath, but his face held no emotion, not even when he turned to look at Tasha.

But then Howe grabbed Lucien by his jacket, and Tasha was instantly on her feet, drawing her weapon...

"I want your silent parts
The parts the birds love
I know there's such a place"
- Interpol

Unhome: Later that day.

By now Viki had memorized this path, and walls beckoned and cobble called and soon the area was all flora and fauna. A structure lay ahead, a structure which seemed to be both a part and apart of things: Unhome. She chased him as best she could, with slippered feet altogether slippery over earth and rock, and eyes - midnight seas - trying to pierce darkness. Why did he turn so far and fast away? That question took form and shape and substance and became a partner in the chase.

Domikai did not seem to notice his pursuer, not even when he ducked through the doorway - one that was devoid of a door - and she followed. A single candlelight illuminated the desertman as he fell into the chair by the far wall. Only after he had removed both his shirt and his boots did he look up and finally See.

She was standing in the doorway, in the in-between, her breath a bit hard and heavy from the exercise. One hand pressed against the frame, and for a moment perhaps it was glad for the touch, never having a door or hinges to fill its void. She only half noticed, blew a bit of hair from her flushed face, and stared quietly, taking note of the surprise on his face.

"We are more than we.. began," she started to whisper. The words were there, clinging to the tip of her tongue. It wasn't much of a struggle to give them a voice.

"I think.. it is this.. and I see you pained by the present," she gestured to the Blood lapel pin, which was pinned to her dress above her right breast, "and the other," she added, speaking of Manon's mark.

The Sandman watched, detached, though still listening. "We confess to be puzzled at your choice to remain.."

If a third party had been present in the Unhome, a third party without a second Sight, a perfectly ordinary person, it would appear to this third party that the Sandman and the seer were exchanging simple, calm words, in simple, calm ways. He sat perfectly still in his chair, and she stood statuesque in the entryway. This was a civilized, well-mannered exchange.

Wrong.

The seer and the Sandman, who was a seer in his own right, spoke these words as an afterthought. The reality of the situation was far more emotional, intense, and abstract. The tension between these two was so thick, a previously mentioned hypothetical third party could slice right through it if he or she desired. Domikai was a pack creature. Victoria had a new family, a stronger family. She no longer needed him in the way he understood.

"I love you." It was such a simple thing for her to say. One-two-three. It was only half uttered once, but she wore it constantly.

"We are more than we began." She reiterated between the tension, and then, her frame abandoned the undoor's, and she approached. She would be the knife through the tension. She would cut across the room and reach him.

"Mark me too," she whispered with a hovering hand just shy of his face. It trailed across, but did not touch him, and followed the path of ink.

"Why? You belong to a stronger pack." His dark eyes narrowed in an attempt to decipher her desire. He was a pack creature, through and through.

"Naut like you. Different." She did not attempt to close in on his space, especially since the shadows surrounding them now lashed bright warnings against a candle flame. She would speak with such softness to lessen their glare.

"You protect... Always." Her words were quiet. Did this concept of love not factor into the equation? Viki wasn't a wolf, wasn't like him, but would try to make him See. These ties, they did not matter, and frustration fled her face. Now, there was only a small sorrow.

Don't turn away. Lost.

She was lost, and at a loss, and could only muster that word again.

"Always."

Movement followed. Her hands were quick for the ties and cloth trappings of the dress, and soon it was loose about her small shoulders. Her fingertips trailed the pathways of tiny scars, scars that were made from their rough lovemaking, evidence that her lover bore claws.

He moved too. He lifted and turned from her, pacing from the chair to the edge of the pallet, where he settled at last. Though he sat, his frustration and detachment went with him, and his eyes held suspicion for her words.

"I am too familiar with Forever and Always leaving."

Those words struck her hard. Aqua eyes held the threat of tears, but she stepped forward nonetheless, clutching fabric to her chest to prevent it from falling.

"I won't ever!" Her words built up a strength that her eyes did not portray, and she stepped to the edge of the pallet, directly in front of him. Soon, the cloth was released, let go, offered up to the floor. Consequentially, the (mostly) smooth surface of her skin was offered up to his eyes. This display was not a product of desire, but one of demonstration. Her hands dipped and fingers began to draw shapes of his tattoo upon her skin.

"Mark me like you. For all to see. Yours."

He watched her for a while, but Time was a relative creature, especially for these two. Time elapsed, but folded them in, and the Sandman seemed at war with his own thoughts and desires.

"We do not know if we can still make such marks..."

Ah, Time.

"You will remember..." She dipped down to a half kneel, naked but for the shoes. "If you do naut, then, another way.." There were still many ways to make such marks, said the way she looked at him, with a tilting head and large imploring eyes and hair that fell just so over a shoulder.

Scent, their scent, still touched the surfaces of this place. It was home, and she clung to it like she clung to him. He was the only being who could walk these roads with her, and oh how winding they were...

"And will your family have remarks upon them?" He asked, still quiet and distant, with his mind on his brother Irrykin, though Viki didn't seem to catch this, did not hear the jingling of silver at the end of his question.

He wants to know if your family will make you choose. Him or Them. We already know your answer, but he does not.

He reached for her, but paused, and his hands hung in the air, the touch incomplete. She took them into hers, and soon her slinking motions and coiling limbs would finish the touch. She made her way into his lap, with one arm encircled over a set of shoulders, and the other left at his chest. Fingers now traced his tattoo in the real, whereas before she'd only been drawing pictures of it on herself.

"Nau. Your marks stay as I do. You will see." She was a persistent little thing, and she pressed against him, instantly warm by the touch.

"You above all," she said. What he didn't know was that this was a mockery of the old LeFay family motto, "Family above all."

There, your cryptic answer. Family or the Lover. And you would choose Lover.

"We will try to See." He moved to lay back and pulled her along. Her small smile grew ever larger as she curled atop his chest, her arms tangled at his sides, and her ear just shy of his heart's cage.

"How many passings of the coin?" She said with a cheek to his chest, which seemed so littered with scars and the wanted design for her own skin. When? When would this thing be done? How long must she count the sides of the coin, black and white, marching over his familiar knuckles? It wasn't there, the coin, but she saw it. It was a fixation, this thing, Time.

"We do not know a solid number..." He inhaled as he held her, his hands drifting until they rested atop her back. Sleep was only received in part.

"Completeness is a virtue, is it not?"
- Dream, in SANDMAN #60: The Kindly Ones

Unhome: The Time That Matters

The seer stood to the far corner of the structure, a few feet from the undoor, her bare feet atop a puddle of mismatched patchwork fabric. She was gloriously devoid of clothing, shoes too, but this was not a time of want, and when she lifted her head to look at him, it did not appear there. She debated moving at first, and silently observed his preparations with mixed awe, intrigue, and some quiet misunderstanding. The length of the blades did not matter, but perhaps she thought more of paintbrushes, less of knives, although he did say it was to be unkind.

She lifted her chin and stepped free of the clothing, then strolled to the lover and his too-warm figure. Her fingers curled at the end of the table. She surveyed the ingredients. Her eyes flickered to the bowl of ink, and for a time blue-green reflected the swirling, then still, black. The circling motion was a distraction, and could've easily induced a trance, had it not stopped, giving her time to watch him watch her.

Viki nodded back, a small understanding passing between them, and curls of twin color would've bobbed forward, had she not gone the length to take care of this beforehand. She tied up her locks in a wild bun between her neck and the top of her head - off center, not quite round, but it worked. She offered him a half smile for reassurance, and then that little face exhibited a look of such utter sincerity. Yes. She wanted this.

The girl climbed atop the with ease, and then turned to lower herself, spine meeting the table, though the surface was soft, for the sheet. Her toes twitched in the interim of time and she turned her head to one side so that she might still look at him, follow with odd off-blue eyes.

The patterns they formed as they fell illuminated his mind: a landscape strobed by flashes of distant lightning.
-Sandman #39, by Neil Gaiman

She knew the outline was a prelude. She'd been watching without movement at all, watched the quill draw pathways and patterns over her exposed skin. Understanding came slow, in spite of her Sight. Her breath was steady, normal, though her heart fluttered some in anticipation. When he had finished, when his black eyes - once white, but how had she known that? - met hers, she kept silent and still.

Then, when he finally spoke, she whispered her determined reply.

"I will naut."

Her arms rested straight at her sides, and her fingers curled into fists, in preparation. She inhaled, slow, and released. The butterflies that filled her stomach did not take shape in the air. They died in the exhale. She only blinked, and listened perhaps, for the ghosts he spoke of.

Then, as promised, there was no sound nor twitch of muscle nor bat of eyelash as the blade slid and lifted skin along the lines pre-drawn. Pain was quick in its path to her brain, but it was not quite unlike the slashing of his claws during one of heir romps on the pallet, on the wall, on the bare floor... Though, this pain was a bit more concentrated, slow, and just the tip of the iceberg. But beneath his practiced incisions, she still drew breath.