Within the gloomy silence of a wretched swamp nothing made a sound - not frog or owl or bird of night, nothing. A waxing gibbous moon barely reflected off the surface of shallow water, through the foggy mists that were brooding over the bogs. There was only a stench of rotten vegetation that was typical of swamps.

It was within that silent, stench-filled gloom that a shadow appeared in the middle of the night. It was the shadow that had caused all normal sounds to cease, for nothing wanted to attract the shadow's attention. That which was darker than the night slowly wove its way though the trees that had long dwelled untouched and rarely visited in this place of desolation.

The shadow wore a long cape with a cowl covering his head, and he approached a cottage; small, isolated, and meant to remain secluded from all eyes. But nothing could hide from the dark eyes within the cowl. Noiselessly he approached...closer, closer to the door. He stood there for a moment and listened.

Then knocked.

The cottage was warm but as the morning slowly approached she thought it might not hurt to add more wood to the fire so the baby didn't catch cold. While Marius played with his blocks and crawled around on the rug before the fireplace, she knelt down to add to the fire what was left of the wood in the basket. She told herself she would have to go find more wood the next day, and because it had been a long time since she had to make a decision like that by herself, she frowned.

Already she missed Talomar and the comforts of their home. She was just about to get down on the floor and play with the baby when there came a knock at the door. She looked up in surprise. No one knew of this place and it was completely cut off from the rest of the homes in the area, so she wondered who it could be. She approached the door, and having no way to look outside of it without opening it first, she had no choice but to open that door. The cool night air came in and she drew the robe she wore tighter around herself as she regarded the figure standing on her porch.

Tara Rynieyn: "What business do you have here?"

Talomar Longden: The voice was a hiss, for it came from a man whose heart had been ripped from him. "I've come looking for my wife and child," the low hiss replied slowly and methodically so that there could be no misinterpretation. "I've come to bring them home once more. Where they belong," the hiss added with emphasis.

Tara Rynieyn: She did not recognize the voice and could not see whose face it was beyond the hood. This concerned her especially since the man seemed off somehow. "I am by myself," she said softly and her eyes darted to where Marius was hidden on the floor. She was sure he could not be seen from the door so she was confident in lying to this stranger. "I do not know where your wife and child are. I'm sorry. Please go. My husband will be home any moment and he would not wish for me to be speaking to you without him being present," she said and started to close the door in the man's face.

Talomar Longden: He held out his hand from within the sleeve of the cape and the door froze in its place. He had followed her scent all the way here. He could sense where Marius was with pinpoint accuracy. He would not be turned away. "Yes, I believe you are right. In fact, your husband has already arrived." The shadow that was outside disappeared before her eyes.

Tara Rynieyn: "Talomar?" She hoped her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. "Why are you in disguise?" she asked and wondered why she did not sense it was him from the start. "You should come in. It is cold out there." She stepped to the side gestured.

Talomar Longden: The voice came from inside the cottage. "I'm inside already, my wife. Close the door."

Tara Rynieyn: She blinked, looked behind her and closed the door. "I will get you something to drink," she said hurriedly and walked over to a cabinet that was caddy corner. Inside of it there was wine, at least there was the last time she was here.

Talomar Longden: He removed his cloak and set it aside over a chair. "Thank you, my dear. I would like that." He smiled at his son, "Marius, come here and see daddy. I have missed you, son." He bent down and picked up the boy and held him in his arms. A kiss was applied to Marius' head.

Tara Rynieyn: Her hands were shaking as she opened the cabinet and retrieved the wine bottle. She knew that her leaving would eventually lead to a confrontation but she never expected it would be here - perhaps at the tavern or even at the castle if she ventured there again, but not here. Now as she poured the wine for him, she worried that he was too calm. Normally when she did something without his permission he erupted, so the fact that he wasn't, terrified her. When she turned and saw him with Marius in his arms, she felt better. He wouldn't scream or get violent with the baby in his arms. At least she didn't think he would. She smiled and handed him the glass. "Are you hungry? I made Marius some stew earlier. He seemed to like it."

Talomar Longden: He took the wine from her. "This is perfect. Thank you." He just walked around the room for a few minutes, sipping his wine and softly sung a little song to Marius.

?Come, little leaves,? said the wind one day,
?Come o?er the meadows with me and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold,
For summer is gone and the days grow cold.?

Soon as the leaves heard the wind?s loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the glad little songs they knew.

Tara Rynieyn: He was singing. She had never seen him do that. Her eyes grew wide and she swallowed the lump that was in her throat. He was going to kill her for sure. She gathered some of the fabric of her robe in her hands and began twisting it over and over as her eyes searched the floorboards.

Talomar stopped, but Marius said, ?More, da. . . more.?

?Cricket, good-by, we?ve been friends so long,
Little brook, sing us your farewell song;
Say you are sorry to see us go;
Ah, you will miss us, right well we know.

?My dear little lamb in your fleecy fold,
Mother will keep you from harm and cold;
Fondly we watched you in vale and glade,
Say, will you dream of our loving shade??

Talomar kissed his son?s cheek and heard another little ?more?.

Dancing and whirling, the little leaves went,
Winter had called them, and they were content;
Soon, fast asleep in their earthy beds,
The snow laid a coverlid over their heads.

He stopped the singing and turned to look at Tara. "My angel. What are you doing here?"

Tara Rynieyn: She listened to him and saw he was close to coming unglued. When he started yelling, Marius, who had started to play with his blocks again, looked up, frowned, and rubbed his eyes. She looked from her husband, to her son, and back. "On our wedding night, as we were making love, you said to me, you said 'You'll never again feel loneliness, or feel deserted or unwanted...you'll never again go another day without knowing that you are loved and the most important thing in this man's life'...an' yet I do feel these things now, Talomar! I am not coming home with you! Tonight or any other night! Not until you live up to the promise you made to me," she said and hung her head, beginning to cry. "You never listen to what I say. It only matters what you want."

Talomar Longden: "How dare you! Do you think it's my lot in life to entertain you day and night? You need to grow up, girl! Do you think that I like having to do all this work and being away from you and Marius all day? Do you think I'm off somewhere in a damn clubhouse having a tea party?! I would love to be home with you and Marius all day. But that's not going to get the work done and the money coming in."

He was now furious. She acted like she was the victim. She was free to do whatever she wanted while he had to pull all the strings on a multi-billion credit organization. "I'll give you one more chance. Get up and come home with me now."

Tara Rynieyn: "Why, so you can fuck me like a rented whore! No! Absolutely not!" She, too, stood up and glared at him. Now he was giving her an ultimatum and she didn't think she liked that very much. "What are you going to do if I don't come home with you, Talomar? I want to know. You tell me. You're going to go away? You do that now. You're not going to speak to me? We hardly do as it is. So tell me. I'd really like to know."

"My children aren't going to have a father that is never there! I don't give a shit about your company! We aren't starving to death! You're a Count for Christ's sake! You don't need to work but collect taxes!"

Talomar Longden: He looked at her in disbelief. "Do you really think that I'm just a Count? That was the cover I adopted when I settled on this planet. I have kings and rulers of countries and planets bowing to me so that I don't pull the lucrative trade business from their planets."

He tried to calm down for Marius' sake. He picked up his cape and put it back on. "What am I going to do, you ask. I shall have to have a valet once again to head up the household and take care of my affairs since you won't be there to do it. I shall have to learn to live alone once again. I shall have to find ways to get by. But so help me, I'll do it. You don't want to be my wife? You want to live in this hell hole and play with young boys? Fine. You're on your on. I'll not bother you again other than to come and see Marius." He pulled up the cowl and walked to the door.

"You're throwing away the only man who ever really love you, who worshipped you, who took all idiosyncrasies and counted them all endearing. Very well. You've made your choice."

Tara Rynieyn: Her eyes narrowed at his words. His last valet she hated and was extremely jealous of, so having that thrown up in her face was not something she wanted to hear. Nor did she want to think about him being on his own, or her being on her own, she needed him, she did know that. He was not going to let her win. "I do want to be your wife. I'm not throwing you away. Why do you get to have the last word and you never see my side of things! I want us to be a family and for you and I to regain what we once had."

"Please, Talomar, don't go," she said softly and walked over to the door where he was. "I want to work this out with you but so that we're both happy. I have not been happy. Doesn't that bother you?"

Talomar Longden: He stopped and looked down upon her, "Of course it bothers me that you're not happy. I hate that I've failed you in that way. Do you think that I've come all this way to track you down because I don't care!? It is because I care so damn much that I've tracked you down and have come to bring you home with me where you belong. How can we work on our marriage when you're living in a swamp like some little mud turtle? Has our marriage miraculously become better with you here? Come home, Tara, and we can work on it."

Tara Rynieyn: "If I come home you will forget and things will go back to the way they have been." She reached up to touch his lips, something she always did. His lips were always so warm whereas her body was cold. Even now standing a few inches apart she could feel his warmth coming off him and she wanted to be enveloped in it, held tightly against him by his strong arms and to feel his lips against her own.

Talomar Longden: "If I give up my work I'll be just another bum on this sick planet that is full of bums and worthless beings who are doing nothing but using up good air. You wouldn't love me and I wouldn't even love myself. You'd get tired of having me hang around the castle. We'd be wasting our days away getting drunk in that damnable inn that has become nothing but a Lesbo Gay Bar filled with sorry ass people wallowing in sick drama. I will not lower myself to slip into their pond of filth. I can't give up that which makes me whom you fell in love with in the first place. I must not only keep my position, but I've got to get back to what make me the feared Talomar, the space pirate. I'm sick of mediocrity. Sick of it!" He turned back to the door, "If that's the life you want me to accept, I just can't do it."

He went to Marius and gave him a kiss. He knew he could take Marius and be gone before she could blink her eyes, but he'd not do that. In spite of the recent arguments, he loved her deeply - more than life. That had not changed. But he'd not become something that she'd only grow to hate.

Tara Rynieyn: "Then we could do something together. You an' I. I am bored at home and it is not that I do not love our child and cannot wait for our second to be born, but my days are different from yours."

She blocked the door when he went to kiss their son. "Stay with me here tonight, Talomar. It will be dawn soon and I know the sun does not bother you, but too much of it cannot be good for your skin. Will one day away from your company matter? If I mean so much to you, you would do this for me." She wanted to see if he could separate himself from his company for just one day. As it was, he was obsessed with it and she thought that was silly. "There is a bedroom in the back, the bed is large, and you can even fit in it. Don't go, my love."

Talomar Longden: His hand reached out and he held the side of her head, his fingers slipping through her hair. She was tearing his heart apart. He'd like nothing more than to stay here and make love with her all day long, but that was not going to solve their problem. They'd be happy for three weeks and then back to another fight.

He pulled back the cowl and shook his long back hair back. Deep, dark eyes stared into her violets. "Tara, I love you. I love you with all my heart and I'm going to love you forever. To stay here with you tonight is not going to solve our problems. It will only add to them."

He stopped talking and kissed her - he kissed her hard, wrapping her up in his arms, enfolding her in his love and strength and protection. Then he released her. "If you want to work on our marriage, you'll find me in our castle," he said in a voice that betrayed his desire for her. "Good bye, my love." He took her face in his large hands and kissed her again. "You are my love . . .my angel." He turned and walked out the door.

Tara Rynieyn: His lips felt so good, just as she imagined they would when she had touched them. Although making love with him was exciting, so, too, was kissing him. He was so sensual, which was rare for a man. They were normally rough and aggressive while hers took his time with her. It was one of the qualities she saw in him that drove her mad with desire.

She thought he would stay after a kiss like that, but once he started talking she knew he would not be. And when he walked out the door, it became real and her heart was broken. "I thought you would stay," she whispered and shut the door before she ran after him and made herself look like a fool.

There was a window which she walked to and looked out after him. She lifted her hand and pressed it to the glass, watching him leave. She was crying silently now and wondered if they would ever work their problems out.

Talomar Longden: Never had he hurt so much and so deeply. He stopped at the edge of the bog, a shadow amongst the trees. He stood there a long time wanting to turn back and take her into his arms and forget everything but her. He was literally leaving his heart behind him. Yet he had to at least try to become the man she really wanted. It wasn't going to happen here in this swamp. He hung his head down and moved forward, disappearing into the last of the night.

Tara Rynieyn: It took her some time to move away from the window because there was a hope that he would come back, but after a half hour had passed and he did not return, she realized he was serious about what he had said. She moved over to Marius, picked him up from the floor and brushed her lips against his cheek. He was by now tired and laid his head down on her shoulder as she walked to the bedroom she spoke of and brought him in the bed with her to sleep.

He seemed to like when Tal had sung to him, and she never had; so since his father was going to be making some changes, it seemed like a good time to make some of her own.

"Hush, little baby don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockinbird.
An' if that mockinbird don't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond..." she paused and yawned. "...ring...."

Her eyes closed, as did those of her son, and the both of them fell asleep in the dead of the swamp, just like two little mud turtles.