He rather liked the market place here, it suited him. The central point for a city in a realm far more filled with chaos than he could have imagined, he spent days watching the open cobblestone areas change. The vendors and hawkers, the storefronts, all of them were no more immune to the sweeping changes the people of this place reflected. No two visits for him granted him the same shops or the same stalls and for a ...person such as he, this pleased him greatly. One could say it even pandered to his particular nature.

The tinkle of water from fountain wove its way through the bright early morning light. Spring had sprung, as the humans liked to say, leaving the Market place awash with even more activity. There were so many bodies it might have been very easy to overlook the nondescript, mousy looking woman outfitted in drab brown lazily meandering his way.

It might have been easy, had she not been who she was, had she not been approaching him of all people...And if she had not been wearing a piece of jewelry glaringly out of place. A small platinum band on her middle finger of right hand: a seven pointed star.

He was leaning against the cold river rock side of a bakery, the smells of bread and butter lingering like lovers perfume. He straightened considerably and rolled to the other shoulder to lower the mousy looking woman a grin that spit across his face widely. She of course, gave it a cursory glance and he felt his grin falter a little. Oh, she was in one of those moods....He did so like it when she was not so serious.

For the longest time there were no words between them at all. They watched the stream of mortality and those not-so ebb and flow through the market place, into the bakery and out. They watched those that fluttered throughout their day unaware of the eyes that watched them so innocently from the shadow of a wall.

"Why?" The single worded question was low and threaded with the unfathomable emotions that made up her being. Plaintive almost, mixed with strained anger and, of all things, perhaps a hint of curiosity.

He considered not so much the question, but the woman who posed it. "This form doesn't suit you," he teased. "Where are your silks?"

She looked at him, settled burning blue upon him that held little patience for his mischief today.

He sighed at her. "Why not? I wished to know something, I wished to create something...And I did." He spread his hands to encompass the unknown, the wonder in which such a thing represented. "Something new and wonderful!"

It was sharp, the movement from her heels that swiveled her toward him. "And at what cost? Do you understand the implications? Do you have any idea what will happen if it falls into the wrong hands? Do you understand that we should not even be here--that the patterns and Weave is torn in some places, jumbled in others? Do you understand how many you have unwittingly pulled into this? Did you even stop to think--?"

"I didn't," he told her quietly. It was so unusual the level of seriousness that it momentarily startled her into silence. "I didn't." He repeated firmly. "I do, now."

"Then what will you do to right it?" Though hushed, it did not take long for those odd fires to burn behind blue eyes. He looked away at that question.

"If I cannot manipulate things to have it back in my palm...then..." He trailed off.

"You'll destroy it," she murmured. It was not a question. "You will do what needs must be done."

Lines around his eyes not there previously appeared and tightened. "I will," replied in same quiet tone.

She nodded then, as if some sort of pact had been sealed, as if some unspoken sympathy had been exchanged.

After all, it was never easy to kill your own child.


((Part of the They Fall Like Rubies SL))