It was yet early for the night flower to be up and about this particular day, but having her duties to attend to at night, all the hours of the daylight become the geisha's free time. Visits to the bath house were
Sakura's favorite daytime activity, the langorous hours of scrubbing, massage and soaking in hot baths a delicious meditation and preperation for the evening. It is a return from just such an excursion that found her entering the inn this afternoon in particular, long, long raven hair still damp, pulled over one shoulder to hang down to her waist, its droplets
dampening the front of a pretty, if plain blue and white cotton kimono.

A Scathian warroriess and a young girl had been sparring in the near empty tavern, with a small crowed gathered round to watch the lesson. Sakura hummed to herself happily as she pushed the door open and left her geta beside it to walk with respectfully stockinged feet into the tavern. Her skin glowed with a fresh scrubbing, the dew of steam and moisture still clinging to its golden surface, cheeks pinked with the warmth lingering against her. Long, elegant fingers toyed gently with her long locks as she worked a jade comb slowly from ends to roots, gently untangling any snarls and loops as she goes. Mincing, careful strides took her to a booth in the sunlight coming in from an open window, the warmth of it perfect for drying hair.

Amongs the crowd watching the match, Lucy Ravenlock's eyes had slowly panned away from the sparring - her friend against - someone. Her hood shifted back from the scarlet and brown hues up to Sakura - bells rang in her head and she pushed from the door - smirking over to the spar one last time before she had come to interject Sakura on her advance to - wherever she was going. A bow of her head and body.

"Hello, Miss Sakura... How are you today?"

She looked up at the familiar feminine voice, dark eyes rising to greet Lucy with a warm smile.

"Hello Lady Lucy! I am very well, and yourself?"

Sakura paused in her combing to return the bow, as well as to move aside in invitation to be joined at the booth in the ray of warm sunshine that fell across its seats like a slice of heated honeycomb. A smile from the paled lips of the girl - the teenager's face covered up mostly by
the hood and cloak. She entered the booth along with Sakura - settling in a chair across from her. A timid bowing of her head again - averting her eyes from the fight and to the ground between Sakura and she.

"Please, do not call me Lady Lucy... Lucy will do just fine..." A waver of her voice into a whisper, "I have felt better."

Sakura's warm smile faded into an expression of concern, the graceful arch of dark brows furrowing together as she leaned foward to place an inquiring hand upon the girl's own.

"Whatever is the matter?"

A blink to the hand - and she looked up to her between shocked and... Well... Thankful for the mere touch... Or concern. "It is nothing to concern yourself over, not from someone such as me... Who my Master, is angry at..." Eyes jumping up to her - a hopeful expression passing those oddly mixed colored hues, "Have you seen him lately?"
[
Now those dark brows knit in ernest, pretty mouth puckering into a thoughful pout. The last she had seen the girl she had professed in confidence her lust for Erich Von Locke, one of Sakura's favored patrons. The geisha had been far from put off - what right or claim had she upon those she entertained? None save her promise of silence and confidence...yet she saw the age and the innocence of the girl and had gently warned her to be careful with her heart, knowing full well the tolerance or lack thereof of the Lord for childish things.

"Your...Master? You mean the Lord Von Locke? I was unawares you were..." Dark eyes drift away as she searches for a tactful and appropriate title to the match, " Ah...courting."

She smiled gently at the girl as she finds the word, a gentle teasing in her eyes.

"So you got your desire to catch his eye after all?"

A nod of Lucy's head and then a lowering of that head away from her, but she smiled.

"Courting? I wished, Miss Sakura..."

That hood hung over her eyes - thanking the man who invented such a thing to be added upon a monk's robeing.

"I did. I didn't... I don't care, I am with him that's all that matters to me."

A dark brow arched high. THis was not normal behavior, especially for the formerly bouncy, bubbly young woman.

"Lucy...you deserve to be courted, anything less and you sell yourself short to your own damage."

She ducked her head slightly to peer under the depths of that dark hood, reaching a hand to lift its brim with a friendly smile.

"Did you say you had angered him?"

Lucy kept her voice almost in a whisper - not wanting for others to hear her own submission to the man.

"... I have to prove myself him to... He is indeed angry with me..." She
glanced up to her as the hood was lifted, "Have you seen him lately? Is not okay? I haven't seen him days and I am worried - his skin condition worries me..."

Sakura frowned and touched the girl's chin, her expression turned serious.

"Lucy... it is men who must prove themselves to us...not the other way around. As for yours question..." She sat back with a soft exhalation, folding her hands in her lap as she glanced away, "I have not seen the Lord in several days. I fear he is angery at me as well, though I know not what for, but I have felt the heat of his dissapproval most keenly. He will not even acknolwedge me when we share a room now."

There was a light glare from the love-sick teenager, she really couldn't
fathom the idea of him proving himself to her. But then her face softened and her eyes lowered slowly to the ground yet again.

"I am afraid it is my fault that he is angry - I was sorry if you have
suffered his wrath..."

A shudder, as if she knew all too much, again a whisper - did she waver in tears? She made sure that hood was hiding half of her face now, her fists clenched at atop of her thighs.

"I am sorry my Master has ignored you... Forgive me..."

Sakura looked troubled, but more so saddened and perhaps a bit angery, her lovely expression muted with thoughtfulness, dark eyes low.

"I would be untruthful if I did not say it worried me...and even more so if I didn't admit to feeling angry at his sudden coldness."

She glanced up at Lucy in shock, shaking her head.

"It is not your fault the Lord is angry with me, Lucy."

She studied the girl's trembling, repressed rage in concern, and leaned foward once more to place soft hands over each of her clenched fists.

"I will not forgive you, there is nothing to forgive. Why do you blame
yourself, so?"

Lucy glanced to those hands atop of hers.

"Do not worry yourself over me Miss - I'd think you would be shocked if you know what I was truely like." A little dry chuckle after saying that, "If anything his coldness makes me feel the want into showing that I can make him happy..."

Eyes flashing up as her head raised up.

"I'm sorry to ask you this but you cannot say we discussed about him, to him..." A little forced smile from her again, "... I blame myself because my own actions had brought this on all of us..." A little shake of her head, "It's my fault. I should feel guilty."

Sakura frowned. Why was the girl so afraid of Erich? Sakura had only ever known gentleness and civility at his hands, and while she resented his sudden coldness she certainly did not fear him, nor his anger and it made her worry to think of what may have befallen Lucy, who had been so carefree and joyous before, to cause her to hide beneith cloak and hood and tremble with self hate and fear. She stroked gently over the hood of the cloak in immitation of stroking the girl's hair comfortingly

"Why do you say these things? What could you have done?"

"My Master would be further angry if I had discussed this with you... In public, Miss Sakura."

Another timid smile offered as the robes of what should be worn by a monk were adjusted into a more comfy position.

"Then perhaps a more private place? My room perhaps..."

Unwilling to let the girl who had treated her so kindly go in need, and honestly more then a little curious to know what was going on, Sakura gestured toward the stairs.

"It will do you no good to hold this within, Lucy. Perhaps I can be of help. Come, let me make you tea and we will talk?"

"Tea?" A curious question, "That stuff made from leaves?" Wrinkle of nose... But she stood though at her gesture. Awaiting for her to lead the way, not looking half as enthusiastic though.

Sakura smiled with a soft laugh and takes the girl's hand in her own, convivial and comfortingly feminine as she tucked it into her elbow, leading the way to the stairs.

"Yes, but I think you will enjoy it, it is a drink that heals the soul and give strength and calm."

Lucy Ravenlock gave a grumble as she was led - kinda feeling like the kid right now.

"If it does that then maybe I should invest in buying for my kind... They could do with it." A light giggle.

Up the steps and onto the landing the geisha drew the hooded girl along, pausing at door number four, the entrance to her humble rooms. Releasing Lucy's arm she retreived a key from her obi and unlocked the door, holding it open for her guest with another soft peal of laughter.

"Perhaps! Try it and see what you think."

Lucy smiled and nodded as she placed down the cup back onto the table.

"... I'm the Queen of Shadows, the second one... my Mother was the first... I, am not liked around here. I assume you have heard of the attack on Jewell Ravenlock?"

Sakura poured slowly and shook her head, that small line of
thoughfulness forming between her brows.

"No...I have been away, in service of another patron. I have not heard about any attack, nor have I met a Jewell Ravenlock."

A smile and nod - that's why the woman wasn't detesting her at this moment in time.

"Jewell's attack, the destruction of her home... The murder of countless of nomadic tribes... A few destroyed merchant ships..." She cleared her throat now, "It was done by me, and my family... Well, just me and my
Uncle."

The tea stopped its flow abruptly as Sakura looked up sharply, shocked.

"What? Why would you and your family do these things? And to your own mother?"

"I'm not a real Ravenlock, my adopted parents are Brian and Charlotte..." Head still tilted down, away from Sakura's gaze, "... I was created to do it. Miss Sakura. I was born a Monster - a weapon - I am not even... Normal..."

Sakura set the teapot down slowly, absorbed, listening.

Lucy's eyes closed, "I am created to continue my real
Mother's true purpose in life. I was born to surpass her... And now I
have - but I got no one... Save for my Uncle, and my Master..."

"Oh, Lucy..." She sighed softly, dark eyes saddened, "I don't
understand it all...but you must realise you are your own person,
surely? You need do nothing you do not wish to, no one not even
those you call Master can truely bend your will without your
consent..."

She frowned, looking down into her teacup and its serene depths to the small leaves floating in the bottom.

"What was your mother's purpose?"

Lucy's head tilted up and slowly she pushed her fringe from her forehead. Under it, upon her skin was a scar. A pentagram.

"It's a mark. It marks me as damned... I am just an incarnation of my Mother. I look exactly like her, I got her memories... I am her - in a way... That's why I said I was created. I was never born... My Mother's true purpose in life, was a cult's dream of creating a God... She was a Demon, Miss Sakura. Once human, possessed by a Demon... To kill everything that was not of our kind."

That black gaze glanced up again sharply.

"And you would fulfill this duty, Lucy?"

"... It's built into me. Miss Sakura. To kill. To be a weapon... I tried... I'm not even supposed to walk - my powers move my legs for me." A chuckle, "If my powers never had developed then maybe I would be a crippled girl forever..." She sipped the tea again. Closing her eyes, "... It's my duty."

Sakura reached across the table, her gaze serious beyond all things as she closed a hand over the girl's own.

"It is your duty but it need not be your destiny, Lucy! Would you kill me for this duty? Your Master...your friends? You were happy once, I saw it... why would you let others rob you of this in the name of duty?"

Lucy's eyes flickered to her.

"You don't understand how much I resist these urges... I am the incarnation of my Mother - of someone far more ruthless than me. She killed her parents. Killed the cult. Killed her closest friend. And almost killed her lover... When I grow, the urges will just get harder to push away..." Eyelids clenching tightly, "My Master I love and I will never hurt him... Nor anyone who does not get in the way..." A timid smile, "That's why I don't call myself Human... Monster best someone like me, right? Right?"

Tears falling about her cheeks as her eyes fell, "Right?'

"No, Lucy, no..." Sakura murmured softly, coming round the table to wrap her arms round the disconsolate girl, pressing her cheek to the top of the white haired head as she hushed her softly in her native tounge, softly lilting words nonsensical but comforting nonetheless.

"Lucy, hush... Now, you say you love...so how can you claim to be a monster if you can love? Surely you must see that you are greater then what you have been told?"

"I am not even alive anymore!" She cried out, trying not to hug the woman that now came to her. Lucy knew she would only harm the woman - eventually, whenever the time would be.

"... I am a Monster, Miss Sakura, and nothing can change it. Maybe... If,
I-I die."

Sakura shook her head franticly and took Lucy's face in her hands, lifting it, freeing it of the confines of the hood as she tilted it upwards.

"You are not! Lucy you must believe you are not..."

"I can smell your blood on you now, Miss Sakura. It beats around in her body but mine... Is cold. It doesn't move..."

Tears continued to fall, "... I am a Monster for what I do, to keep this
shape..."

A glance down to her, "I'm a dead. Undead."

Sakura frowned at this...and blinks. If the girl is dead, or undead...and without blood...then what use is she to Erich? The thought flashes through her mind, and only shows breifly in the consternation on her face, but it is a second in lingering and then gone, left unvoiced. Surely Erich's plots are far deeper then the geisha could ever comprehend. She shook her head slowly once more, smoothing a thumb over the girl's cheek.

"Oh Lucy... is this why the Lord Von Locke is angry with you?"

A slow nod and nothing more for the moment - she suppressed those tears so hard that she just felt herself rupture in a loud sob, "Yes... I drew attention to him... They know I am his, and now he thinks I am I have... Destroyed everything he has hoped to keep hidden... It was horrible! I begged in front everyone! I pleaded! But he just... Just..." Hands moving to face her body just curled and leant against the woman.

"Oh, Lucy." She sighed softly, wrapping gentle arms around the girl and holding her close as the sobs racked her, took their toll. Her own heart ached for the young woman, so heavily burdened beyond her years. She pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and hushed her gently, stroking her back.

"Lucy...if he cannot forgive something that was beyond your control... then he is not worthy of your love and devotion. If he is to be your Master then his love as well as your own must be unconditional..."

Anger was shaking Lucy's body like a scared animal - and her sobs just further made her seem all the more... Spasmatic. Tremors. No earthquake shook like she did now.

"I hate it... I hate it!"

She screamed loudly - frantically.

"I'll whatever he asks! I just want him happy! Anything he asks! Anything! I'll do it, my Master... My master is mine... Mine!"

"Ssssh....sshh..." She hushes the girl, grasping at her wrists to hold her still with a suprising strength, shaking her with a gentle firmness that would not be denied.

"Lucy, hush! Why have you bent yourself to him like this? What has he done to deserve this passion of yours?"

Lucy snapped her head up to her, and seemed to struggle how pathetically back at the struggled, she kept her mouth shut and, then with a cry stated something, which was expected.

"He made love to me! He made me feel love! Love! I feel so good when I am around him! He makes me happy! I have no one else to make me feel it!"

Sakura sucked in a breath at the girl's out burst, suprise turning to pity with a soft sigh as she releases the girl's wrists as she closed her eyes and sat back on her heels and her fingers rose to rub at her forehead.

"Lucy...

Lucy suddenly relaxed her body - moving to sit down onto her petite bum and fall back to lay down. Her eyes stareing up at the ceiling as the teras still crept now, along her temples.

"... I find happiness... In being owned by a kind I hate so much... I need to eat... To sustain my body for him... For Master... So I can give him
my blood and body when he needs it..."

"Love... and pleasure..."

How to tell the girl, how to explain how they could be shared with more then one person, and that they are not the currency with which one sold their soul to the service of another when she would have done the same? She sighs and drops her hand to look away at the slowly burning nub of the incense.

Lucy 's hands move to her face, rubbing the tears away.

"... Like I said... Only a Monster suffers the stuff I have too..." She leant up now, her long white hair hanging down over face. It made her appear... Dark.

Sakura glanced at the sprawled figure of the girl, wound about
in her cloak like a doll cast aside by a careless child, and yet she
had no words for the young woman, no gentle advice. She rose and
cleared the tea things away to a sideboard, pausing with her back
turned.

"Lucy...until you take your own fate and freedom into your own hands and find love as returned as it is given you shall be a monster."

"... I told you... I can't control it... Why does everyone say that... When they don't know how this feels like..."

Her head tilted back - yes, there was a smirk upon her lips - teeth a grin,
eyes in such a expression it could have been said it looked mad.

"... Miss Sakura, I'm sorry..."

Sakura turned, slowly, to glance warily over one shoulder, almondine eyes wide and soft as a doe's, the hairs prickling upon the back of her neck as a nameless fear clenched suddenly at her heart with slippery fingers.

"Sorry...for what?"

To the sparse crowd gathered downstairs, upstairs the muffled raised voices have died away, leaving only silence and the usual shuffling sound of the Inn's residents as they moved about in their private quarters... until...

AAAAAAUGH!!!

The scream of pure terror rent the air, and no matter how thick, no oaken door could muffle that mortal shout, nor the crash and banging of overturned furniture coming from above, more then enough to interrupt the conversation of two men seated at the bar.

"...Or eat ramen." The cigarette dropped from Keaton's fingers, both eyebrows raised at Grem. "...The hell?" Within seconds, he scrambled for his bat under the counter.

"Sure, if you like flavored cardbo--" Grem raised a brow, and shot a look toward the stairs. "Bugger. " on his feet, and he moved for the stairs.

Keaton was on his heels, bat over one shoulder, heading for the disturbance behind the door of room number four. Behind the unlocked door muffled sobs and raised voices ensued.

"I didn't mean it... I didn't mean it... I really didn't mean it..."

Grem raised one hand , knuckles to rap on the door.

"Everything alright in there?"

"Go away!"

Keaton held the tip of his bat to the floor by his back foot. His ear twitched... he frowned.

"That's Lucy..."

Crumpled upon the floor, Sakura sobs broken heartedly, still begging.

"Why, why?"

The knock at the door and she gasped, turning wide eyes to it.

"Help! Please....!"

"You pop the door, Grem - I'll take point."

Keaton lifted up the bat, gritting his teeth, getting ready for the assault.

Lucy slowly rose from her feet and again planted her back against the wall - sliding till she stared directly at the door on the other side of the room... White hair hanging over her face. Sobbing silently.

Grem, knees bending slightly, tested the handle before making an attempt to break through it. The door swung open, and he took a half-step to the side, peering in. In went Keaton, moving very fast, but once the situation was assessed, seeing Lucy crumpled and sobbing, and Sakura looking even more dismayed, and no one else in there, he lowered his bat, moving over to Sakura, reaching out a hand to her to help her.

"What happened... are you okay...?"

The giesha folded, laying head upon her arms as she lay where she had been thrown upon the floor, weeping softly, the terror of the attack still racking her, the betrayal making it all the more bitter. Inside the room the tableaux before the two men looks like some strange form of
domestic violence, Sakura lying in a heap upon the floor in the midst of broken glass and scattered flowers, spilt water puddled about her, with a terrified and heartbroken Lucy pressed against the wall across the room.

"Jesus..."

Grem's lips pursed as he looked over the room, remaining there by the door. Keaton knelt beside the geisha, looking her over as much as he can. Sakura raised her head slowly, pretty face reddened with tears as she reached out to take the hand Keaton offered, gulping back tears.

"Are you hurt at all?"

He set the bat down, putting his other arm around her to help her, if
she's able to rise. Lucy slid her back up until she sat up straight. That hair hanging still over her face - her head bowed and as if ashamed at even herself. Shoulders hunched forward - and arms hanging heavily at her sides, a light tilt up again, a light parting that wall of hair revealed that single eye stareing out. To all three of them. Pindot pupil, widneing. Humming to herself a gentle tune. Trying to comfort herself.

Sakura shook her head as he helped her rise - in truth she is bruised from her rough landing, though her soul is wounded far more deeply then her body. She wound both arms round Keaton's neck as she rose, clinging to him.

"Grem, grab the bat, would you... and get some ice downstairs." With Sakura clinging to his neck, he lifted her carefully, gaze lingering a few seconds on Lucy as he made his way out of the room, murmuring something comforting in a language alien to all of them.

Grem glanced to a window, before he stepped in and plucked up the bat, brow furrowed faintly. Back out, and down the stairs, soft steps behind the bar.

Sakura drew one shakey breath after another before turning her face toward Lucy, her abhorrence writ clear, its anger twisting her exquisite features as Keaton lifts her.

"Get out, Lucy..." Her voice was wavering, but strong enough to convey its message. "Get out."

She burried her face into Keaton's shoulder, her hip, thigh and side throbbing painfully with the impact of her fall, and her heart torn in two, her kindness and hospitality repaid with near death and threats of a worse fate.

Grem's bat deposited under the bar, he snagged a bar rag, which he sniffed once on his way to the ice box. Keaton walked out carefully with Sakura, watching Lucy as he backed out, and then turned to make his way down the stairs, opting for a relatively secluded couch, closer to the bar and kitchen where, if needed, they can better reach supplies for treating her. As he sat down, he stroked the geisha's hair tenderly and soothingly, still murmuring something in Hylian, cradling her protectively. Grem, satisfied with the rag's cleanliness, filled it with ice and moved on over toward the couch, pulling up the corners to twist them together as he walked, shoulders hunched.

A shakey breath just left Lucy again as she took two steps. 'Get out.' Rung in her head - it was painful at best and it caused her to plop down onto her knees in a loud THUMP. Hair parting now displaying her childish expression - the type you see when a child burns her hand... Again she went back into humming to herself, arms wrapping around herself and just laying there face down. Humming louder as they left - perhaps only true comfort from anyone now - a hum... And she stood in a waver.
Moving out of the room and turning her head to watch Keaton round off and down the stairs. Wandering down the hallway and just slumping there on her knees... Silence drawing her into a silent... Thought. Something that just cracked her down into a crying fit.

Sakura's sobs stilled as she nestled against Keaton, somewhere in the back of her distraught mind recognizing him as her friend and hippy patron who was kind enough to play music with her one evening. His gentle nonsensical words soothed her nonetheless, and she exhaled, long and shaking, relaxing in his grip as he sat upon the couch with her. Grem offered ice-in-rag over, silently, as he stands there. She accepted it, with a small and grateful smile for the silent, stoic man. Pressing the ice against her bruised hip with a wince, the icy coldness permating the thin cotton kimono quickly and numbing the slow painful throb of what promises to be an enormous bruise.

"You'll be okay?" Grem asked softly, mismatched eyes drifting over the room for the moment.

Sakura nodded, her voice soft, thick with tears and shouting.

"Yes...thank you."

Keaton's stroking slowed and his Hylian nonsense stopped, but he remained with her, smiling a little as she smiles, even in thanks to Grem. The beginning of the break in the storm. Sakura's dark eyes drifted towards the stairs, the question unasked but writ clear on her face: What happened to Lucy? Silence remained upstairs for now.

"...She's keeping to herself, I think out in the hallway. Getting whatever it is out of her system, in her own way... best I could tell, anyhow."

Keaton's voice was still softened. Sakura leaned back against Keaton with a sigh, hand pressed to the icepack on her hip.

"I'm sorry... it's my fault... I trusted her, I wanted to help."

"Having your trust betrayed is no sin of your own, Sakura... certainly not if you were only tryin' to help." He looked down at her, smiling slightly. "You're a kind soul. You know that?"

Sakura looked up at him, with the shallow attempt of a smile gracing her lips, dark eyes questioning. "What?"

"That you're kind... good-natured..." He nods his head towards the stairs. "Grem's that way, too... sometimes it gets him in trouble, same way it did you this eve. But it's worth it, bein' that way."

Lucy was crawling across the floor - her body feeling like a ten ton weight, eyes wide and stareing to the ground - her hands and knees catching her hair with each step shook took upon the floor. And finally was at the top step, stareing down... At the top of the stairs and hearing the voices below. Dareing not to come down. Humming, she curled herself in the corner closest to there, and stared off into space. Never blinking.

Sakura smiled warmly up at Keaton, and gave him a gentle hug in thanks for his kind words.

"Thank you...twice over now you have shown me great kindness...Would you mind helping me back up to my room? I think I would rather lie down there..."

"Sure... just play music again with me sometime, an' we'll keep callin' it even."

He smiled gently, standing slowly again, and winded his way around tables and up the stairs with Sakura cradled in his arms. Lucy opened her eyes and continued her perch in the corner of the hall - stareing down the stairs almost somewhere between shock and denial. Humming louder... And louder. Tears still streaming down those cheeks as she thought and fought over the urges deep within her soul. Or what was left of it. Did the Undead have souls in the first place?

Keaton made his way silently past Lucy and into Sakura's room... and once Sakura was securely there, just as silently back past Lucy, down the stairs, and out the back door. Their passing was unphased. However the glance up to Sakura was quick - Lucy dared not linger her eyes there.

Sakura did not even glance at Lucy, hiding her face against Keaton's shoulder as they passed the girl, clinging to him tightly until they are safe in her room and he lays her upon the bed, locking the door behind himself as he leaves her alone with her thoughts.

It was morning when Sakura returned at last to the Red Dragon from her evening spent in Alma and Magenta's care. Her bruises have been substantially healed, and though she still limps slightly it is nothing. The true wound lies deep within, a slice made across her gentle heart, and no magic could heal that pain.

She made her way across the tavern in the unforgiveing bright morning sunshine, the few patrons about all squinting and turning their backs to its blinding bright glare of judgement. Sakura's kimono flashed bright and dark as she walked through the checkerboard of light streaming in fromt he windows, and mounted the stairs to make for her room.

She realised something was amiss, however when she made to slip her key into the lock of door number four only to find the lock already sprung and the catch of the door open. Her fingers trembled as they tightened on the doorknob - what if Lucy had returned to finish the job she had started yesterday? The geisha glanced around - the hallways were empty, there was no one to help her. Erich was gone again, off on one of his scholarly binges, even the dour death knight next door was of no help, lying in state on his bed. Her friends were absent of the tavern and no one below knew or cared enough to save her from the ravenous monster of a girl that may lay in wait inside. Sakura was on her own.

She swallowed dryly, steeling herself as she pushed the door open and braced for the attack - but it never came. Instead her breath left her in a rush as the scene before her met with disbeleiving eyes.

Bed, floor and tabletop alike were covered with the petals and blossoms of a cherry tree in a pink snowfall of silken blossoms. It was as if someone had taken a cherry tree in bloom and shaken its bounty violently out over her room, merciless clumps and handfuls flung with abandon like gore and gristle on every surface. Sakura shook, her heart hammering in her chest as she walked slowly into the room, petals crushing and clinging softly under her bare feet like lost children.

And there upon her pillow...a torn peice of paper with a rough scrawl upon it. The geisha saw her fingers reach down for it with a sense of dream-like detatchment, and the words she made out before the well of tears overwhelmed them and turned them into wriggling black worms on a page of white snow:

"Forgiveness is unacceptable..."

Sakura's gaze lowered as she begun, lost in her own swirling thoughts, trying desprately to organize what she wished to tell him. She swallowed dryly, the sweetness of the elven wine Wyheree had bought her suddenly thick and cloying upon the tounge.

"Yesterday afternoon... Lucy approached me..."

The Lord Von Locke scoffed.

"This is the only reason for the fear? Lucy is but a child. What fear 'ave ye of a young teen?"

He smirked, waving it away casually. Sakura shook her head vehemently.

"She is not, my lord and you know it. Yesterday Lucy came to me, distrought. She mentioned your name and that there had been a disagreement between you both...I thought to comfort her, as she had been so kind to me once before. I invited her to my rooms for tea and asked her to explain."

"The child grows bold. Indeed, she is my pupil. I know the girl well, though 'er motivations continue to counteract mine own. I do wish she would 'andle 'erself better."

Erich poised his finger before his lips, tapping the flesh, "I decide I must instruct 'er on proper etiquette... agreeably."

Sakura glanced up at Erich, looking at once hurt and concerned. She knew his lie in an instant, and his suave, slippery answer discredited his character severly in her eyes. She spoke plain as truth and he still attempted to decieve and misdirect her. It would not go unnoted. Her tone grew a bit bolder.

"My lord... I know what she is... and etiquette is not what will help that...monster."

"I do 'ope she was civil to ye. As my charge, she upholds my status..." At last, a pause, his eyes narrowed dangerously at the sudden revelation. "Tell me, darling, what is the girl?"

His brow piqued suggestively, a lucid clairty coming into vision. Things hidden beneath the surface ferreted out, however, kept to the wayside due to the pretense of polite conversation. It never did pay off to be impolitic.

A large, hot tear rolled down Sakura's gold-skinned cheek as she turned her gaze away, trembling. This was the telling she feared most. Lucy had told her everything in confidence, but how could she hold these secrets inside knowing the danger they posed both her and the rest of Ryh'din?

"She is a demon...a reincarnation of her mother whose soul purpose is to wipe from existance all beings but her own kind... and she feeds" the geisha shuddered, "She consumes people..."

Dark eyes turned upwards, appalled, "...for you."

"For me?"

He snorted, turning his head.

"Such fabrications. The child is a bit mad, I must warn ye. A demon though? I 'ave not seen any sign of this. 'ow 'ave I, a pious believer in god, come to consort with infernal creatures of the pits and the fallen? A demon ye say? What evidence of proof 'ave ye in regard to this... this claim?"

Erich spoke as though the fact were a ludacris statement.

Sakura gazed at him with pained disbeleif that he continued to attempt to lie to her in the face of her accusations, each mor epointed and bald-faced then the next. Did he think her a fool, or perhaps just guillible beyond all reason?

"Erich... I know she told me the truth...she tried to consume me."

Von Locke's stoic features broke mask finnally and became wickedly grave.

"Did she.."

He deadpanned, as though he spoke from tombed sarcophagus after eons of laying in eternal rest. The wraith of a man raised his gaze from the table to her, considering. His cold hand moved, brushing her tears away, though tainted as he could feel she was. Sakura had tasted the blood of another of his kindred and it disgusted him in a way. It was an urge to force through, she did not reek strongly of the taint, less than others he'd seen this evening. He could barely pick her scent apart from her companion due to the potency of the "decayed rose's" perfume.

The blossom's dark gaze hooded as her lashes dropped with the touch of his fingers, and she turned toward the caress before her eyes flickered open once more, delicate fingers rising to rest against his corded wrist.

"She wanted to...and came very close, but instead flung me upon the floor to stop herself."

"I 'ave not abandoned ye, my dearest. Think me naught 'onorable due to my current dispostion. I 'ave 'ad business elsewhere that 'as drawn my attention astray."

His head tilted to the side, his eyes narrowed.

"What 'as been laid bare to ye.. darling? What truths and 'alf truths 'ave ye gleaned. What do ye question, precisely."

The last word punctuated and intense, drawing out his eagerness to know from a stoic countenance that would otherwise say nothing of his thoughts.

Sakura sighed shakily...now they were at the true crux of the matter. It was not Lucy, nor telling him of her betrayal that frightened Sakura the most, though it did scare her...but rather that in telling him she had to aslo reveal the fact that she knew now exactly what he was and had been hiding from her since she took him as patron. She drew a deep breath and couched her question carefully.

"What I question my lord... is why you did not tell me your true nature?"

"What nature is that?"

Damn him, but he still tried to play coy. His brow arched; guarded as he was, he withdrew a bit from her, hand pressing firmly to the tables. If his skin had more pigment, one might have seen his knuckles blanching due to the pressure. The table cracked under the gravity applied by his hand.

"Gah.. I must speak to the proprietor... this wood 'as rotted through.."

A quick cover, no doubt lost on her due to the knowledge she'd gleaned and her suspicions reaffirmed.

Sakura's dark eyes flicked to the creaking wood underhand and she drew back slightly, keenly aware of the latent threat that ran through every line of his being.

"My lord...you know the lady Alma is also my patron, do you not?"

"This is new news. I knew that she wished ye services as entertainment.. 'owever.. I did not know that ye 'ad followed though in ye business. Does she accord ye the same benefits as myself? The same coin, the same care?"

He trailed off, lowering his voice with each inquiry. He grew skeptical, dubious about something. The geisha bit her lower lip hard, pinching soft flesh between her teeth. She could hear the jealous hurt in his voice and it's gentle pain was exquisite. It was not something she had counted on - not from him. To her credit she answered honestly, as he had not.

"Yes... but she has offered me somewhat more as well...in name, the truth of who and what she is."

Her chocolate gaze rose with inexorable slowness to meet his, the rest left implied in thier fathomless depths, as clearly as if it were spoken and the words still hand in the air between them: ...and what you are too.

"What 'as she told ye... This concerns me greatly. She garners many secrets, and often exagurates them. I would not 'ave ye, or anyone else, going to the press with slanderous matters involving myself and 'er flights of fancy. Not that I accuse ye of such." His voice grew severe, "I know, ye would nae do such a thing to me...."

There was a sutble menace that was spawned by a word, tone changing before softening as if to sooth and comfort. Unconscous presence leaking about without his grant of leave, flooding the booth in which they sat with the angelic magesty that was his "earthly" being.

The diminuative geisha regarded Erich with a small, half-smile drawing at the corner of her blossom pink lips. How could he still attempt to dissemble? She found it almost amusing in the moment, despite his subtle menance, that he tried so hard to keep to the shadows.

"My lord, I share my patron's secrets with no one... and Mistress Alma did not speak of you...but she told me what she was...and I knew your kiss within hers in a second."

It proved to be the geisha's wrong slip. Erich frowned then, His head tilting slightly.

"And ye accepted this?"

A flash of irritation faded from his visage as soon as it appeared.

"I suppose ye did. She is, perhaps, more charming than myself.. though our allure is similar. More beautiful as well. Do ye find 'er a beauty, Sakura? Do ye find 'er a joy to be with?

She glanced down at her hands, twisting silk uncomfortably between delicate fingers at the sudden rush of questions. She had known her fault in a moment and it was a scramble now to recover as his ire rose.

"It was not just her kiss... It was how I was drawn to her as I was to you. I thought for the longest time that it was simply how beautiful you both were...how refined, like works of art yourselves... but it was more then that."

She glanced up at him, his questions stinging with the soft barbs of scorn. Leaveing off the silk in her lap, she stroked his cheek tenderly with the backs of her fingers, hopeing to soothe him with the touch. It was to no avail, and he pressed on, heatedly.

"Does 'er presence gladden ye with every approach, with every touch, every whisper, every intoned innuendo? Does she show ye secrets beyond ye wildest imagination?!"

He was livid, his eyes showed it despite void features. The Toreador had broken mask infront of kine, and in that she must have a purpose, he concluded. Only whelps did such, and from his seat in the Council with Lady Sushberg in London, and his knowledge of her approximate age and potency, he knew from her that Miss Stuart was of the same ilk, if not the same age. She "must" have more than a passing fancy. His brows knit at the thought, his lips curled back, his fangs distending as he spoke.

"Ye will tell no one else of what ye 'ave seen!"

His eyes lost the azure to overwhelming backlit silver tieds, glowing gaze casting angular shadows in the valleys of his visage as the planes and slopes nearest were suddenly illuminated by preternatural light.

"Ye 'ave been privy to a world beyond ye own, and 'er blatand disregard for custom marks 'er disgraced in my timeless grimoires!"

His eyes narrowed.

"Or shall I be moved to toss off the mantle of the protector for the wolfen garb I wear, and tear ye throat out with my teeth and nails right this instant!"

He leaned forward, his mouth turned fanged maw widening to horrific size, exagurating itself beyond human proportions.

Sakura gasped as she jerked loving fingers back from the maw that opened before her and flattened herself against the back of the booth, as far away from him as she could reach though her dark gaze was brave and uncowed as she raised a hand before herself protectively, soft voice rising against his.

"Do you not think she swore me to secrecy?! Do you think I would break my own codes of silence on a trifle, my lord?!"

She shreiked as he lunged near, arms rising to cover her head as she dissolved into tears, more at his threat and his distrust and therefore cheap veiw of her character then out of any real fear of harm from him.

"Ye 'ave been careless Sakura. Ye 'ave pried too deeply into 'our world. The Stuart woman must be reprimanded for such a grevious error. We are nae supposed to be known amongs ye kind. Ye are akin to use like rabbits to wolves."

His narrowed eyes roamed her cowed form slowly.

"Show me ye faithfullness to our kind by begging my mercy, or I shall be twice damned for allowing ye to leave this booth alive and in tact."

His voice curt, though never raising in volume or pitch. He was serious, and every supernatural fiber of his being bespoke such. The horrible, gut wrenching menace flowed forth from his being like black water, surging forth like the frothy tide to overwhelm her. His voice grew hollow, gutteral, and vacant, as thought he beast were nearing the surface. It was as though he became possessed, a malevolent entity surfacing behind his eyes as though his body were the costume and his face a mask, not quite to the surface, but showing signs of a struggle for control over the mighty form of the undead creature before her.

He seemed somewhat reluctant, hesitant, as though trying to reign in his anger. A force of will, very against his moral code and traditionalist efforts. The memory of his betrothed coming to surface once more to haunt him. It manifested itself strongly before, due to music and the side affects of a fount of unknown strength. His jaw quivered before clicking shut, his head turned away, black locks covering his features suddenly.

But the geisha had had enough. Sakura threw down her arms only to reach out and hit him, open-palmed and ineffectual - the geisha was no fighter and it was only out of sheer fustration and utter distress that she struck him now, the blows soft against his chest and arms.

"I have been careless?! I HAVE BEEN CARELESS?! Do you think I begged for this? Do you think I pried my way into your precious world?" She shreiked now, somewhat unhinged, her voice no longer the soft silk of its usual tone.

"I will not beg for mercy nor any quarter from you any longer, Erich!!"

She dissolved into sobs, curling back into the booth away from him as far as possible, hurt beyond physical attack or threat by his lack of confidence and his seeming beleif that she had somehow wished this knowledge upon herself.

Von Locke's anger settled at the meek attacks to his form. He jostled and swayed at the force of the blows though they were not damaging in the least. He reached out to her, in the glory of his maginificent vampiric beauty, and whispered as he drew her in, his lips pressed against her forehead.

"My dearest, my loving companion, my entertainer, my confident. I must make sure. I know ye 'ave been exposed to far more than a mortal should. I never 'ad such opportunity. I was whisked away, to the dark for eternity, damned from my mortal life, forbidden my mortal love and the child reaved from her wound by...."

He ground his molars together at the memory of exsanguinating his first love and mother of his mortal child at the rise of his immortality and first hunger. His sire, a cruel and uncompromising teacher, strict in every way. "my maker..." Bitterly intoned.

Her beautiful face tear-streaked and burried in her artist's hands Sakura wept softly, disconsolantly, her voice muffled and thick with emotion.

"If my word is not good enough for you then nothing I say will change your trust or distrust... There are other creatures that populate this world aside from your own, my lord..."

She sniffled as she raised her head and slowly, slowly wrapped her arms around him.

"I would keep whatever secrets they offered me with no more or less care and regard as I will keep your own..."

The blossom lay crushed against him, her breaths ragged but slowing as she listened to him, voice rumbling against her cheek from his chest as he spoke. She shut her eyes against the pain that imbued his voice with the telling of his sad beginings, and she shuddered to think of such cruelty, suddenly wishing with all her being that such an end would never, ever be her own.