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Ouroboros Part Sixteen

David stared at her and she could see the hunger in his eyes. And something else that was colouring his mind murky green. Fear. Not for himself though; for her. "I don't like having to do this," he said. "Hurt you, I mean."

 The purple that shot through his consciousness belied that. Maybe he didn't like seeing her suffer but he liked the power it brought. Alisha knew he had always enjoyed the respect his position had inspired.

 "Why?" she said. "You don't have to hurt me, David. You don't have to do this at all, just-"

 "No!" the crack of his voice startled her as much as it did him. No, there was no going back now. The dice were cast. But this game had higher stakes than Talisa Alfaso could ever have guessed at when she first surrendered; as she did now, but with far less willing. He controlled himself. "I have to drain you of blood, Tali."

 "Wonderful," she said. That strange sense of unreality was kicking in. That this couldn't be happening, because she didn't want it to be. There were no clichés floating round her head; she knew no one was too young to die in the great lottery of life. If your numbers came up, that was it. Unless you could fix the results as vampires and shapeshifters through the ages had.

 His eyes met hers, sullen storm grey. "It's going to hurt, Tali. A lot." His eyelids fell briefly as he produced a knife. It was one she recognised; one of Circle Daybreak's own, part wood mixed with iron and silver. He moved towards her, then he hesitated. She saw it in his eyes; David was not enjoying this. Not at all.

She had to provoke him because Alisha knew that he didn't want to cause her pain so he would try to be gentle, he would take it slowly and it would be double the hurt for that. She knew enough of 'shifter changes to know that. Daybreak had had some unfortunate incidents and as a result, banned shifters from changing their soulmates themselves; Daybreak had volunteers who would help change them instead.

Bhari smiled conspiratorially from behind David.

 "But you will realise that it's a small price," he said softly. She stared into his eyes and what she saw there made her quiver with inner repugnance. The cold kind of sanity that was only achieved when a person had passed right through dementia and lived in that special, ultimately real world.

 Alisha shut her eyes briefly. I must be crazy, she thought. Why didn't I fight him? She sighed. Because Bhari had made it perfectly clear with all those coy references to Jepar - the dragon woman hadn't been making idle conversation. She knew exactly how to threaten Alisha. And if not, if she had fought, then her friends would have insisted on fighting with her and that would have meant more suffering. Catch twenty-two.

"What's wrong?" she said mockingly. "Come on, David, I'm keeping to our bargain. You won the game didn't you? Blackmail and threats. I'm here and I'm not willing, but this is all you're going to get. Or have you lost your nerve? If it was ever there in the first place," she added as an afterthought. She knew how to provoke him. And that was what she had to do now.

 "You dare insult me?" he hissed.

 Then fire exploded from him in a black surge that hit like a juggernaut. She was hurled backwards through the air, light as a feather, air rushing cold in her ears. She thought she might be cast over the cliff end, falling right to the ground. For a moment her thoughts flew free and without panic, easy as her unexpected flight. And hitting the ground with a series of jolting impacts, each harsh as smashing into rocks that reminded Alisha - she was human with all their hurts and flaws.

 Her body snapped forward so hard her vision went black, and she thrashed away from pain that seared and pierced as her bones broke in sickening cracks, but the sound was lost in horrible tearing shrieks that she didn't even know were coming from her.

 She controlled herself slowly, trying to dim the torment. "I'm not afraid of you," she lied. Fear was breaking in waves that were only enhancing the pain. She was beginning to think that martyrdom sounded fabulous in theory but in practice…it was no picnic.

 "You know what?" he said quietly, leaning over, a knife gripped tight in one hand as he forced it - gradually - into her shoulder. His lips turned up in a perfect smile for an instant while he clamped hands that were cold and hard around her face, forcing her to stare into arctic eyes. "I think that isn't true, little Tali. Perhaps it's you that lost your…backbone."

 She was whimpering and trying to twist out of his grip, despite the hurt. Her chest burned…broken ribs perhaps, and she knew one leg was dislocated. The knife was a mere sting comparatively. The other leg was just bruised, and she still had control over both her arms. His hands tightened, a vice of ice, and his face was barely an inch away. She should have been able to feel heat radiating from him, but instead there was frost, close to a mist that beaded his skin silver, making faint, translucent patterns that were like dozens of tiny ovals overlapping. Shimmering scales that spoke of his nature now as clear as the dark encasing the fire that was his soul.

 "I think we're going to have to stop you running," he mused aloud. "Pain has always made humans run." His eyes met hers with that cold ferocity. "Stop you losing your nerve by breaking them," he said in feline amusement.

He snapped his hands to one side, fast and yet controlled and she felt her neck break with a gasp, the pain disappearing with any feeling. Helpless. Sprawled like a corpse. Only, she shuddered, a living corpse.

 David smiled and stepped back, looking down on her with eyes that were secretive, hiding.

 "Now I'll cut you a deal, little one," he said, raising one hand casually and fire leaping at his call to glitter over his arm, a black glove. "No more of these ridiculous attempts at bargaining when you've nothing to bargain with. If you move, you'll die. You're paralysed as it is and no witch can solve that. That knife in your shoulder has wood and silver in it. So don't count on your friends to help you even supposing they could find you, and get past Bhari and me. I'm all you've got." He paused and regarded her with expressionless eyes.

  "You choose life my way," he continued in that very controlled voice. "Or your way…not death. I'm not kind enough for that, darling. You agree or I'll make you watch your friends die one by one - very slowly - and then I'll find a willing vampire to make you a ghoul. And then you'll die - and you'll be reborn and we shall have to go through this again. When will you learn Tali, that we are destined?" He smiled slowly. "Oh…and your soulmate. I'll make his death very special."

 Alisha knew he was telling the truth. She couldn't feel anything and it was horrible. She couldn't have moved her limbs - only her head - had she wanted to. As though she was just a mind…as though she didn't matter.

 "Kill me now, then," she replied quietly, somehow hoping he would see that there was no love now, that he would get no emotional commitment from her. "Or I'll do it myself." All she had to do was move her head. And that was the end. Another life lost. Her voice caught on the last word and she was annoyed with herself. She needed to be in control, now more than ever.

 David's eyebrows shot up. "No, little one," Black fire flew from his hands to grip her head with the slightest pressure, holding her still. "I have an offer that will be far more entertaining for us both.."

 "Oh…you mean you are going to throw yourself off that cliff?" Her eyes, darkened with forgotten pain, were contemptuous. She knew what he wanted. But she wished she felt half as confident as she sounded.

 "Still got that humour, I see." He turned to stare at the sea, breathing deep. "No…as I told you - I'm going to make you a dragon. As we have already discussed." She could hear the black humour in his voice. "To the point where I am getting rather bored."

"Really. And just how are you planning to do this?" She sounded so apathetic, David almost felt sympathy for her. But he couldn't afford sympathy now. This was how he had planned it…but he had seen Tali willing and smiling up at him with the sweetness that had made her so appealing, so different.

 He took a deep breath and released it slowly, staring down at her still form. "It involves the exchange of blood, like vampirism. Your body must be emptied of blood and filled with dragon blood. And a spell. That is all you need to know, little one."

 Alisha stared up at him with loathing, her hair a dark mass on the ground. "It doesn't matter what I know, does it David? I have no choice in this. I never did."

 He knelt down beside her, one finger touching her cheek in an old gesture of affection. "You'll be happy when it's done…you'll thank me, Tali. It's incredible! I'm really seeing, understanding for the first time. The strength and the senses, I can't even describe it." He grinned. "Maybe I'll even leave that shapeshifter alone - if you keep to your end of this. Me and me alone," he said softly.

 "Don't waste your breath," she snapped, but there was real fear in her eyes now. Fear. He didn't want that. He had wanted this to be joyful, not forced. But she had chosen it to be this way. She had made him do this. "I don't have a choice in what I keep. I chose to come here, David. I accept the consequences." He almost caught a strong thought then, something she was hiding from him.

David smiled and leaned in until he was so close, he could almost drown in the scent of jasmine that radiated from her, the ocean colour of her eyes and the power that rose from her in waves. The hatred. David fed on it, gloried in it.

 There were enough wounds on her body that he didn't need to make another, blood clotting dark against her skin that had a slight tan from the time here. The artery in her wrist had been severed - how ironic, in the same place as last time - and he gently put his mouth to the blood and drank. She couldn't feel it, physically, but then their minds were linked in the blood sharing. She didn't know how to close off her mind. He felt the blood start to almost drug his senses, feeling the pleasant haze that was there to block out the worst of the pain later.

 ~*~

 Alisha felt almost nothing…then fire-pain screaming through every nerve that had sprung to life again, endless, floating pain…then a link that she knew was caused by the blood, that lacked the intensity of the soul link. She blinked drowsily and the landscape faded, into a place they both knew well enough.

 The endless night.

 It was dark, of course, and cold. The wind whipped her hair into rat tails, shorter than it had been back then and her slender body swayed in the wind like a young tree. She pulled her clothes tighter, modern clothes with designer labels. And it was quiet, apart from the whistling that Ieran had always said were the ghosts of the dead, of those who had taken the way out down to the rocks. The Long Walk, they called it.

 He had been solemn when he said it, the mysterious boy she knew back then, without the laughter that seemed to characterise Jepar Jubatus. The Long Walk, he said, taken voluntarily, and their souls are shattered on the rocks, just like their bodies, tying them there. And all they can do is hang suspended between worlds, calling to anyone who might hear; trying to lure the unwary to the same fate.

She had often thought she could hear his voice, berating her, calling her. Every time she heard winds calling their lonely song through caves or woods, a shadow crossed her features, the lament chilling her to the bone.

 And there was another sound tonight…someone sobbing. Alisha looked around, a little confused. Then she saw it. It seemed blurred at first, then the air cleared into figures, people drenched by rain and shivering, miserable but not merely because of the rain.

There was a girl lying on the ground, deathly pale and hanging on to life by the strand of a cobweb. She was staring up, unseeing and her eyes were almost white, the pupils dots. So slender, a mere skeleton, and her arms were sprawled out uselessly…they were wrong, all limp and lifeless. And by her wrists, huge rusty clouds of colours that stood out against the stark white of her skin. Her red hair blended into the ground in places, mingled with mud and blood in some ghoulish witch's charm. A knife had fallen from one hand and lay unnoticed, stains washing away in rivers coloured rose-wine.

And there was an ethereal beauty in her face that Alisha had never noticed before. She looked so peaceful, every feature sharp as a blade, unlike the people around her who seemed slightly blurred, as though they were less important. She wasn't seeing her memory, but viewing the perception of another. A perception that saw Talisa Alfaso as some elfin princess that had stepped out from clouds and changed everything.

 There was a woman beside her, the one with long blond hair and candid green eyes, who was sitting there in silence, not even the glint of tears on her face, only water from the rain that soaked her. Alisha felt a rush of warmth towards the woman, an ominous pricking in her eyes that she didn't want. Healthy looking, a tanned and weathered skin and the starts of grim lines at her mouth and eyes that appeared as soon as Alisha focused on her.

 And beside her, making those strangled sobs, was a man. He was older than the fallen girl, but his grizzled features bore a strong resemblance to hers, and his eyes were the same light shade.

Both were still, except for the shaking of the man's shoulders. Alisha could see the whites of their eyes, glowing luminescent in the night. Time passed in silence, although the man's lips moved occasionally, silent prayer? And once, the woman made the sign of the cross and bowed her head as the ghost girl wearing that tattered gown stirred and whimpered.

 It was the silence of the crypt. The shadows and grief. The night was a heavy shroud, pressing down on Alisha like the guilt she had always carried around with her, that she had never been able to atone for.

 And it was broken quickly, by the rhythm that began far away and approached swift. Hoofbeats sounded dull in wet ground and a man leapt off, a young man, his expensive cloak holding off the torrent no better than the thin furs of the blond girl. His face as clear and well-known as the girl's, bright and more handsome than it really was, but seen through eyes other than hers. Alisha put a name to the blond woman with a pang of sadness. Gwyn. Ieran's sister.

 "What's-" the newcomer said then stopped that he sight of the girl. "Tali!" The hood of his cloak fell back to reveal light brown hair and shocked features. A mixture of horror and pain showed. His clothes were rich, and his tones that of the well-born. Always a hint of arrogance, and authority that demanded attention.

 Gwyn turned and looked at him. "I thought you should be here," she said flatly. "There's nothing to be done for her."
 
 The grizzled man spoke, only grief on his face. "I should have been here, I should have stopped her…"

 Alisha gasped. It was her father, saying words that were wrong. Oh, it wasn't your fault, she wanted to say, it was me. She did move towards him, but shivered as her hands passed right through him. She stopped short and moaned, then fell to her knees in front of him, trying to talk to him, even as she realised he could neither see nor hear her. Her knees hurt on the ground, but that was nothing compared to seeing the damage she had done.

 Hands pulled her up, she looked into the blurred features of David - dragon David, not so changed from the young man who was kneeling beside Tali, taking her hand and talking in broken tones. Almost the same motions, but one wished to comfort and this one…he meant business.

 He shook her hard, until her bones rattled and her teeth stopped their frantic chattering. "Pack it in," David snapped sharply. "We are here for a reason and it isn't so you can have hysterics."

 "But…but…" she tried to gather her thoughts. "I don't remember any of this."

 He didn't seem at all surprised. "You were almost gone, Alisha,"  he said her name with conscious effort, "you were so quiet…so still. And the rain just poured on, like it was washing you away and there was nothing we could do to stop it."

 He was agitated, his fingers tightening on her shoulders until it hurt. "Did you even think about us? What you did to the people you left? You killed your father, Tali. You killed anything that was good in me. You gave all of Gwyn's family a lifetime long guilt trip. The only good that came out of this was that iceberg Gwyn there learned to show more emotion that your average rock."

 Slowly his words sank in. "Don't lecture me," she said quietly, pushing his hands away with sudden strength spurred by anger. "Don't you dare assume it's been easy. Live for eight hundred years, die over and over, live with every single mistake you've ever committed; go away and feel guilty for all the innocents you've killed or hurt as a dragon and then, David y Pelathas, then you can come here and tell me of all the anguish I've caused."

 "Innocents? Oh, those I kill deserve all they get." He laughed maliciously and his look indicated she was among those. Then he sobered. "Do you want a repeat of this?" David demanded, his eyes chips of flint. "Because this what will happen, Alisha. You accept my terms, you accept my blood and you have a life you can use to make up for this. For what you did to me."

 They both turned to stare at the tableau as lightning cracked into the ground between them, passing through whatever bodies these were. Thunder rolled, a herd of stampeding beasts. And as suddenly as it had come, the rain stopped. There was silence, the unholy silence of a battle's end, of lack of life, of death and time.

 Then lightning cracked again, this time into the girl on the ground, against every law of physics Alisha knew of. The girl's back arched in a blaze of electric light and she screamed horribly, on and on as fire caught on the white dress and turned her into an inferno. A red-orange hell fire, as the three watchers reacted too late, Gwyn's mouth wide open, David y Pelathas leaping forward and her father catching him and holding him back, his own face that of a ghost.

 Banshee screeches hurtled through the air, each making her father wince uncontrollably, tears flowing down his face. His youngest daughter, burning in divine fire.

 And then…smoke circling grey into a void sky, coiling in endless circles. A charred heap that was barely a human shape, a pathetic thing that Alisha seemed riveted too, as though she could not accept that the body…was, had been hers.

 "This can happen again," his hypnotic voice said in her ears, dark and rich. "It would be so easy for me, Talisa, to turn that helpless carcass of yours into a flaming torch."

 "Why don't you?" she whispered back.

 "Because I want you too much, Tali, I want a companion to roam the night with, to blaze new paths with. And who better than my lady of light, someone who understands what it is to be immortal. To cheat death."

 "No one can cheat death," she said sadly. "All you can do is hold it off."

 David shrugged. It wasn't important to him, he didn't want her as his companion. He wanted a lapdog. And knowing David, a lapdancer too. Well, he wasn't getting either…he was going to change her, oh, she knew there was nothing she could do about that, But he wouldn't be getting some meek dragon ready to enslave herself to him. He'd be getting trouble.

She would make sure of that.

 She turned to him, resting her hands on his shoulders while around them the winds tugged trees from their roots and beat the sea against the rocks in white foam. And they were alone in the storm, untouched by the elements and time.

 "I accept," she said calmly. "I accept your offer and everything that comes with it."

 David's eyes flared black for a second, startlingly inhuman. Around them, the memory flickered, once, twice, and was gone. Replaced by the sky above and the clouds that were vultures overhead. Hovering and waiting.

 David smiled at her, and she made an effort to smile back although it was the last thing she felt like. Gods, you'll get what's coming to you, she thought. And I promise it *won't* be the last thing I do - it'll be the first thing.

 He casually yanked the knife out of her shoulder and beckoned Bhari over. The woman nodded at Alisha. "Perhaps you're wondering how it happens," the woman said casually. "It's quite simple. More a switch than a change. You become a dragon…and I become human." Her eyes flared with a curious mixture of emotions. Yearning, hope and love in there. A look Alisha had seen before. In the mirror.

 The dragon held out her wrists as David slashed the knife over them. The woman leaned over Alisha and let the blood flow into her open shoulder, shuddering slightly. As though the dragon blood was filling the space left.

 She felt their minds link and still she was powerless to stop it.

Ouroboros Part Seventeen

 It was another world.

 Alisha remembered the pictures she had seen of dragon times that had been carefully transcribed from the scrolls by Daybreak's artists. Meticulous, delicate drawings of stick like figures and dark shaded cartoon dragons that looked more likely to roll over and beg than to eat you alive. Ringed by dull orange tones of fire and carefully defined lines. As though the original artists had seen the reality and taken out of it all the verve and danger, wrapping it in a safe neat package that wouldn't strike fear into anyone.

 She saw now how wrong that image was.

 It was a loud world; the noise was constant. The hiss of fire twining around the cracking of earth and sky. Jets of water bursting through the surface in steaming gouts. Cruel screaming winds that ground sand and dust into the skin.

 The elements collided and reformed all around her. It was a complex place, gritty and bright. Filled with sinuous shapes that arched against a red sky. No friendly dragons, these; but all colours with hooked claws and slitted eyes as big as her head.

 "Goddess," she breathed, turning around and around in the maelstrom. Heat assailed her from all sides, as grazing that raked sand against her face, as steam from the geysers and as sparks that floated from burning wood. She was lost in the sheer destruction.

 "And with the dragons, was born fire; for fifteen moons the world was aflame and the sun was white and the moon was red and the earth itself trembled at their touch."

 Bhari stepped forward, her voice dying away. She looked less formidable here. And in her own mind, Bhari had none of her dragon powers. For once, Alisha was on equal footing with her. "Of course, after that, we had ten thousand years of relative peace, but few historians ever mention that," she said coolly. Her smile was brittle. "Welcome to my memories."

She wasn't quite sure what to say. 'They're very nice,' didn't really seem to be an option.

 Bhari looked around, eyes fixing on a gold dragon that was slinking along the skyline. The eyes were mere lines, and evil radiated from it like a beacon warning the world away. It reminded Alisha of her old cat, Jerry, hunting. Only he had been a lot smaller. And less liable to imitate a nuclear warhead when he got mad.

 "That's me," Bhari said impersonally. "Hunting your ancestors. Before they got smart and got witches." She sighed. "I do detest going through this sordid little practice. Why you can see my mind is beyond me." Fleetingly, she scowled, the face taking on a more human cast for the first time. "That idiot David had better be reading the spell right."

 "Who's that?" Alisha said out of curiosity. A new dragon had appeared; this one huge and black with wings that blocked out the sky. Where it trod, the earth cracked. It was the most malevolent thing she had ever seen, the head swinging on an elongated neck in rapid snaking movements that sent shivers crawling down her spine.

 Bhari looked at it and almost smiled. "I believe your legends called him a great many things. Devil-eyes was the most well-known. That is the dragon king. Kheoussan"

 "Why are you being so equable suddenly?" Alisha demanded. She had been watching the Oriental woman closely and this strange honesty was…unnerving.

 One eyebrow lifted. "I'm going to be human, aren't I?" Bhari replied. "I'll have to get used to talking to people normally. Being weak. I won't be able to sense emotions or read minds." Her mouth curled in a shadow of the old contempt. "Though I certainly won't be using you for a role model."

 "Why would a dragon want to be human?"

 "Why wouldn't a human want to be a dragon?" the woman said coolly, but the question had evoked an inner response. In your own mind, nothing was hidden. Around them, the landscape began to change, spinning so everything became of funnel of brown that slowed and separated into bright colours. Modern colours.

 There was Bhari, circling around a man slumped against a wall, her face a blank mask. He couldn't have been more than thirty, maybe a few years older but it was hard to tell under all the bruises. The room was small and empty of anything except them.

 "You will tell me," she said pleasantly. He wouldn't meet her eyes. "My soulmate you may be, but even you cannot resist dragon powers for long. Don't think that this inconvenient link gives you any sort of advantage."

 Slowly, he raised hating eyes. Defiant eyes that were ordinary human brown, but from someone this Bhari regarded as quite extraordinary; the woman next to her was staring raptly, a yearning on her face that Alisha knew. There was a pride in the man's face that was unusual; he had features like a hawk, and the imperious quiet voice to match, but the fearlessness there was inspiring.

 "I will tell you nothing," he said with utter calm. "And you will not hurt me, because any of your amazing powers you use on me will be reflected back into your mind with double the strength. I've no doubt you can take physical pain," he gestured to his arm which hung at a grotesque angle, "but I don't think you can live through one of your dragon torture sessions." He smiled, matching the dragon's coldness. "And don't bother calling one of your friends to help. That sort of power cuts through any link, whether you are touching or not. The same goes for killing me." The quiet triumph in his tone made Alisha smile.

 The dragon-Bhari stood agape, clearly stunned by such insubordination. "You….you…" Lost for words, she fell silent.

 The man closed his eyes for a moment and his lips moved in hushed prayer.

 But he's lying, Alisha thought and didn't realise she had said it aloud until Bhari of the present turned to stare at her.

 "What?"

 "Of course you could kill him. And that sort of thing doesn't break through a link; not in the way he's saying. Sure, a soulmate will feel some pain but they won't die." Her admiration for the unknown human rose. "Might kill themselves though. For most, to lose the other half of their soul is to lose everything." The words were heartfelt.

 The scene cracked into pieces as the full extent of Bhari's shock sank in. "But…"

 "What happened?" Alisha asked. "What did you do with him?"

 Bhari's eyes were evasive. "I let him go," she answered. "But not before slicing his arteries open." There was no pride in her voice at that. "He's recovering at Daybreak." Alisha was willing to bet the dragon could name the room and floor, too. But it explained a lot. Why a dragon would want to be human; ironically enough, for the same reason a human would let herself become a dragon.

 The dragon began to waver as Alisha felt a wave of energy sweep her body. "What's happening?" she gasped.

 "The change," Bhari replied flatly, her slitted eyes curiously faded. "It's done."

 A tidal wave of power hit Alisha and the dragon vanished.

~*~

  David watched them both, the last incantations of the spell leaving his lips as he felt the air charge around him. Bhari stumbled backwards, pale and without the authority surrounding her that had been given by the power she had. She looked different; her eyes hiding less, her face less haughty and without the easy predator's grace.

She looked like prey.

 "David," she said quietly. Lost her power perhaps, but not her dignity. "I wonder if you would be kind enough to fly me down?" It was a hard climb for a human, though Circle Strange had managed it easily enough. Laziness, he decided, and far too used to her every command being answered. No longer.

 "Of course," he lied unconvincingly, walking towards her with such menace that she stepped away, until her heels were at the cliff edge. He wasted none of his charm on Bhari. She wasn't worth the effort. Her eyes were huge with fear as she realised what he was about to do.

 "We had a deal," she said desperately. "She has my powers. You owe me."

 Wrong choice of words. "I do, don't I?" David said. "Very well, I'll fly you." He saw the emphatic relief on her face before, faster than her mortal eyes could see, he moved forwards, pushing her effortlessly. Her mouth opened in a silent shriek as she fell. "All the way to the ground."

 He turned back, Bhari already forgotten. Talisa was lying there very still, though her eyelids were beginning to flutter. The wounds were healed; even in sleep she exuded power. The speed at which she sat up disconcerted him a little. There was no disorientation at all; completely unlike what he had experienced. Her eyes were clear, a deeper shade of blue that glittered like there were stars trapped within. And he could see tiny horns on her forehead, half-hidden by her disarrayed windblown hair and he stared in mild horror. Five of them. Alisha was more powerful than he had thought.

 David's teeth gritted. Bhari had lied to him about her strength, though he had always wondered how she managed to stop him so easily. Age, he had assumed. That was wrong.

 "Tali?" he said quietly, stepping to help her, but she was abruptly standing on her feet with a speed that astounded him. He had been right to do this, David decided with a smile.

 "David." The words were warm; her eyes were not. Something in his mind began to tingle slightly. Suddenly Tali didn't seem so sweet. "Where's Bhari gone?"

 David glanced pointedly over to the edge. Her eyes widened fractionally, but she said nothing.

 He smiled cautiously, refusing to admit that already she seemed to have adapted better than he. "I have a small job to do," he said soothingly. "Why don't you stay here and get used to dragon-form?" There was still the problem of that shapeshifter. Not however, a problem for much longer.

 "What job?" The words were fired at him.

 "Nothing important," he answered casually, slightly startled by the ease with which she seemed to have adapted. But he was beginning to think he had underestimated her intelligence.

 An eyebrow lifted. "I'm sure. Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain shapeshifter, would it David? Because you know I won't let you do that."

~*~

 The phone rang. Dragon picked it up after the first ring, her voice fervent. "Yes?" She listened carefully for a moment, then put the phone down. Her eyes met Matt's and he saw perplexity there. Whatever Aradia had said, it was obviously a little odder than usual.

 "We have to get over to Jepar's - right now - and leave afterwards. With a dragon. Aradia says she doesn't know which one yet; the outcome's still uncertain."

 Matt sighed. "Well, it makes about as much sense as anything we've been told so far."

~*~

 "Won't?" David's smile was ingratiating. Confidence oozed from him, like it always had with that aristocratic arrogance that set Alisha's teeth on edge. "Tali, you're weak. You couldn't fight me if you wanted to. Take it from me, you'll take several days to adapt. So why don't you just stay here, and it will all be far more painless than you think."

 "Why don't you just go to hell," she snarled back. If it took so long to adapt, how come she felt like she could move mountains? And already she could read his mind…just strong thoughts that got out from the shielding there, but thoughts all the same. Every sense was heightened, and there was something dark coiled at the back of her mind. The dragon fire, she thought.

 "I don't want to fight you, Tali." His voice was quiet, dangerously so. "But I will. And I'll win." Quick reptilian grin. "I don't think I need to do that, though."

 The lightning bolt of mental power hit her with pressure clamping around her mind. It hurt, but not much. Still, Alisha let him believe he was doing damage and staggered back moaning. Another bolt started to cause serious pain, but she collapsed, letting her eyes fall shut and her breathing even out. She sensed his shadow fall over her; a prod at her mind to see if she was unconscious; she thought of black and nothing else. There was a rush of cold air on her face, and he had gone.

 "Still the idiot, David," she said to the air. She knew where he was headed; straight to the source. It didn't matter if all Circle Strange was gathered at Jepar's house - there wasn't much would stop David on the rampage. Except another dragon. She wasn't sure how to change.

 She thought of a hawk, fast and light with hunt sharp eyes. That was what she needed to be right now. She concentrated on it, then walked to the edge. If this didn't work, she would end up just like Bhari. Except alive. Alisha didn't hang around to wonder; but just jumped, and felt air rush past her. She drew on the power in the back of her mind, and with delight and a lot of relief, felt her body crackle into hawk form. The hurt was minimal, more a discomfort than true pain.

 You were wrong, David, she muttered mentally. I've adapted.

 He had made the same mistake every time so far. Thinking that she wasn't any changed from Talisa Alfaso with her innocence and stupidity. And this time, it would cost him.

 Alisha didn't know what she would do if she could defeat him. She wasn't a killer, but then, she supposed, no one in the Nightworld had been until they became shapeshifters or vampires.

 I'll fight him first, she thought to herself. And if I win…then I'll start worrying.

~*~

"What's wrong?" was the first thing Jepar said to Dragon and Matt. They pushed past him into the lounge, Matt quiet, Dragon pale and fidgety. Very worried, Chatoya thought. In a way she hadn't seen the dragon girl since last year, when she had sent Matt to become bait for a plan that had nearly gone wrong.

 Behind them, Jepar shrugged, the green eyes baffled. Chatoya was still having trouble getting her head around the idea that he was an Old Soul. Idiot Soul might be more accurate right now. How he couldn't figure out Shar was in love with him, she didn't know. But then, as Cougar the unusually perceptive had pointed out, they had never touched.

 "I don't know yet," Dragon answered, starting to pace. "But we will soon."

 "You know," Jepar said calmly, "you might want to stop pacing. So many people have been walking that route that there'll be a track in the carpet soon."

 Dragon stopped, but it was clear to see it took conscious effort. "Where's everyone?"

 Chatoya began ticking off people on her fingers. "Cern and Thom - gone to see how the repairs on the house is going. Ria…" She looked over at Cougar with sympathy, "…you can guess. Lisa and Ruby - gone on a shopping spree for a few days in Vegas in the minute hope Ruby will stop sulking and trying to kill Jepar."

 "Whoa," Matt held up a hand. "Kill?"

 Jepar smiled, despite the worry in the air. "Nothing I can't handle. Just, you know, wiring up my TV so I get an electric shock when I turn it on, rigging the roof to fall in, putting a bomb in the car, leaving the gas on…"

 "Well," Dragon muttered sarcastically, "it's a good job she's not a real psychopath or she might try to actually hurt you."

 Matt chuckled, the topaz eyes looking less worried already. "Hey, you could always-"

 His words were cut off as the door exploded.

~*~

 Alisha heard the explosion from a hundred metres away, had seen the black fire streaking towards the house as a tiny spark from the air. Alarmed, she dropped to the road, back in human shape with considerable pain that she ignored in her haste, and ran to the house.

 David was waiting quite calmly, his back to her, but undoubtedly smirking at the furious people who strode out. Who stopped short, bar one who clearly had neither the sense nor the fear to keep quiet.

 "What is it with you people?" Jepar shouted. He was raging mad, with a fire in his eyes that Alisha had never seen. And tense, his voice a snarl that was unintelligible in places. Don't do anything stupid Alisha prayed. "That's my *house* you're wrecking. Do you *know* what the insurance rates are like round here?" She blinked at the slightly irrational edge to his voice. As though there was more than mere anger...like Jepar *hated* David.

 She couldn't see his face but heard the triumph in David's voice. "I have a score to settle, Ieran."

 "Who the hell's Ieran?" Jepar demanded. Though now more than ever, he looked like Ieran. Grim-faced with the elegant features defined in rage. Fierce eyed and radiating menace better than a Mafia lurker.

 David snorted. "Don't pretend. You must know." He was talking abstractedly, and Alisha felt the power leap from his mind, ready to hit the shapeshifter. She was barely a few metres away; moving in a swift blur to stand right behind David. Dragon Tiamat had a gleeful grin on her face, and the delight that they all felt at her appearance caused David to stop short.

 He knew, she thought suddenly, just as she sensed the dragon fire humming through the air, ready to launch at the shapeshifter. He knew she had arrived, from the brief shock that slipped from his mind before it was replaced by determination. She drew on the energy in her own mind. She didn't know if it could be used to protect. But she hoped so. As the energy arced towards Jepar, she somehow - without even knowing how she did it, only that she *had* to - flung her own power around the cheetah 'shifter, trying to imagine a cocoon.

 The two fires clashed, black with black and dissipated. She felt drained at the impact. A lot drained; she didn't have the power for more than a few changes. This fight would be tougher than she had thought. But the look on her friends' faces made up for anything she might have suffered. Alisha closed her eyes in relief. She had been right to do this.

 They were stunned though; even Dragon Tiamat's eyes widened. Cougar smiled savagely; his mind was bloodthirsty oranges and gold - he liked these odds. Chatoya seemed more shocked, her mind a riot of grey-green swirls. She didn't dare touch Jepar's mind. Not now, of all times.

 "You dare stop me?" an infuriated David demanded. Face contorted with wrath. He was *hurt*, she understood suddenly. Felt that she had betrayed him.

 "Oh I dare all right," she answered, amused by his apparently boundless inanity. "You should know that by now. But you still haven't got it figured, have you, David? I'm not Talisa. I've changed."

~*~

 Chatoya was trying to work out just what had changed. Alisha still looked the same; maybe the eyes were a little wiser, a touch darker, like a winter evening sky, maybe it was the way her hair had been whipped around her face like a hurricane had been blowing, but there was something different. Something defiant and savage.

  No, Chatoya thought quietly, it had been there all along. Alisha was a fighter; she just chose her battles more carefully than most. When she had shut Cougar up. When she fought those Nightworld assassins. Winning over Iry Lupine. Stopping David, not by strength, but by wits. And fighting the hardest battle of all: not to fight against Bhari and David.

 And now she had the feeling David was in a lot deeper than he could handle.

 "I gave you your power," he was raging. "I did it because I love you, Talisa. Doesn't that mean anything? What's one death for that? Nothing. You just don't appreciate what it means to be a dragon yet, but soon you'll learn and then you'll understand-"

 He was halfway through his speech when Chatoya realised Alisha wasn't listening. Her eyes were faraway - then in an instant became decided - and she had walked up to David without anyone noticing.

 "Oh for god's sake, David, shut up," she said and her body swivelled in an elegant, fluid motion, one foot flashing out to strike him hard enough that he flew back a few feet. Chatoya inhaled in surprise; Alisha was a lot stronger. Frighteningly so. The witch had seen Dragon Tiamat get mad before, an experience she never wanted to repeat and she was a half-breed. Shar was a five-horned dragon and the power that must be underneath that almost calm face…she couldn't imagine it.

 He landed on his feet, straightening up. His expression was neutral; not an iota of emotion showed. And when he spoke his voice was detached. As though something had switched on inside. As though the killer had risen to the surface. "I didn't want to fight you, Tali," he said. "But you leave me no choice."

 Razor teeth showed. "But tell you what," he murmured confidentially. "Seeing as you're an old friend, I'll make it quick."

Ouroboros Part Eighteen

 Her head tilted on one side, Alisha regarded David very thoughtfully. She had an idea, half-remembered from what Iry had said. She hoped he had told her everything. "Is that a challenge, David?" she inquired politely. "Can I consider it a duel?"

 Bafflement on the aristocratic face for an instant. David had never really known her mind, and now was no different. All the dragon senses in the world couldn't give him compassion or empathy, or any of the human qualities he needed to truly know her. "A little after our time, little one, but yes, I suppose it is," he replied. Trying to figure out what she had in mind. In mind. Alisha smiled inwardly.

 "Then I get to choose the place and the weapons, don't I?" she prompted.

 Now Dragon Tiamat was staring with narrowed eyes before her face cleared and she leaned over to Matt, whispering something softly in his ear. He looked at the silver haired girl, then over at Alisha, bright-eyed and half-smiling. David seemed unaware of either of them.

 "Very well," he said. "Though I doubt it will make a difference."

 Alisha didn't know if it would either, but what was one more risk? "Do you know what dreamscapes are, David?" she asked and had the satisfaction of seeing him swallow hard. "The places where dream and reality intermingle. That is where I choose and as for weapons…" she forced herself not to show any of her nervousness, "minds."

 "Done," he snapped out so quickly she was instantly suspicious, and a touch worried, despite the nervous tic twitching in his face. "Then let us begin," and his mouth curled up into the smile that would have had her swooning once, "now."

 She felt an impact in her mind, the senses of her mind cascading and falling in on themselves and the world around her disappeared.

~*~

 Chatoya gasped as both of them seemed to ripple in shape like some futuristic programme, before they slumped to the ground, Alisha's eyes fallen shut at once. Her hair spilled onto the ground, the red hints in it looking like blood. Chatoya licked her lips nervously and pushed away that thought.

 The witch clutched at Jepar as he started forward. "Don't," she hissed. "This is between Shar and him." She saw the fear - not for himself - in the lambent green eyes and realised that while she knew what dreamscapes entailed, he certainly didn't. "They're only asleep, Jep, or near enough that it doesn't make much difference."

 He gave her a strange look. "Why are you whispering?" he pointed out reasonably, with a hint of the pedantic manner that more characterised her. "It's not as if they can hear." He shook his head. "And I know what dreamscapes are. They're dangerous." His jaw jutted out stubbornly. "People die."

 Dragon Tiamat's smile was sympathetic. She knew more than anyone about dragon times and their abilities, even though she was a half-breed. "This is different, Jepar. This isn't dream manipulating. It's like…" she paused, searching for an analogy. "It's like virtual reality. It's not about pain, but power of the mind."

 "Whatever happens," Matt said, the gold eyes glinting with understanding - he knew all about Alisha's past, of course - and quiet hope. "She won't get hurt."

 "David loves her," Chatoya added, remembering how the aristocrat's grey eyes had burned every time he looked at Alisha. Unrequited love always hurt, but throwing a tantrum was no way to cure it. There was no way David would ever have been able to replace a soulmate; not from the look on Alisha's face whenever she heard Jepar's name. "He won't hurt her. Just us."

 "I know," Jepar said gloomily. "But somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better." Then he frowned fleetingly. Chatoya wondered what was going on in that blond head: more, she thought, than anyone could ever know. "And I have a headache."

~*~

 Unseen winds blazed ice through her bones, screaming like a horde of banshees through the bare place they were in; it was something like a giant chessboard, black and grey with cracks running from square to square, below a twisting sky of sickly green and glowing gold lights. A mind's madness, David's madness.

 He faced her across the crazy game board, looking deceptively normal, except for the hair that was flung back by the wind to show the three horns. "Shall we begin?" he inquired in such a controlled voice, utterly belied by the crack that suddenly yawned at her feet; as though his mind was trying to swallow her whole. She shuddered at the thought and moved sideways, away from the chasm.

 "Why not?" she said conversationally, wondering how she could be so calm. Perhaps it was the thought that none of this was real…although death on the dreamscapes could obviously happen. "No rules…only tricks of the mind."

 He laughed, and she started as his body exploded into that of a monster. "Then let's commence with this," he said, and across the dead land, leapt for her with a roar like the tide and an avalanche put together. Fast, furious, he filled her vision in a visage that was only too real.

 Alisha closed her eyes - not in defeat, but in design - and thought of void, of earth falling away, of earthquakes and empty air. Beneath her, she felt the floor drop away and David with it, plummeting with a beast-howl of shock and fury. A little tendril of thought held her floating above him; disbelieving as the monster fell into a vortex that spiralled slowly below her.

 The power she had wielded with little more than a casual thought, flung out as one might a hand in speech, shocked her. It was so easy. To do anything. To be anything.

 A surge of blue in the mind-sky above and David appeared in front of her, holding a knife in his left hand. He drove it at her heart, smiling horribly in a rictus grin that caused his face to stretch and crack like something from a nightmare. The blade hit her body in a spike of pain before she could react, but in instinctive defence, her body collapsed into sparkling moon-pale mist, reforming behind him silently as a wraith.
 
 Alert, he spun, the cracks in his face oozing. He was taking the loathsome face from an old nightmare of hers, trying to throw her off-balance. But Alisha was a little more prepared this time. She called to mind lightning; not the fire of a witch or the energy of a Wild Power, but natural white lightning and sent it streaking towards him in a fast stream.

 It jagged towards him, the sizzling white of hot metal; all it hit was the mass of fire that glowed where David had stood, passing straight through him, before the flames folded in on themselves. Revealing a wildly changed David, with hair that flickered and danced in tiny conflagrations and pupils that wavered like smoke blowing over glass. And he was staring at her, surprise and respect in his eyes. He hadn't expected a fight.

 "Well," he said softly, "it seems you have many hidden qualities." He moved before she was aware, hitting her with brute force that knocked her back. She fell hard and clutched desperately at the air as in a neat reversal of her trick, David pulled the ground from beneath her, turning into the cliffs around her home village. She caught a precipice with one hand and willed her back into curved dove-white wings, floating up in a strange parody of an angel.

 But David was smiling. "However," he continued as if nothing had happened, "speed is not one of them." A bow appeared in his hand, an arrow already fitted to it that he fired in one fluid motion at her. Alisha panicked; it was all that saved her. She lost the wings and plummeted, feeling the arrow pass overhead with the sound of a breath. The impact with the ground hurt and before she could move, he had calmly kicked her until she could barely think. Blow after savage blow, designed to hurt and succeeding.

 "Now," he said, leaning in, his face blurred and blackened from her painful vision, "let's stop this nonsense."

~*~

 Chatoya stood up, brushing dirt from her hands. "They've both got normal pulses," she said matter-of-factly. "In so far as dragons go."

 "I can't talk to them telepathically," Cougar said grim-faced, his face looking more like a skull with the thinnest veneer of flesh overlaid on it, drawn with quiet suffering. "It's like their minds aren't even there."

 "Sounds about right," Dragon said with a sigh. "Though I'm no expert on these dreamscapes."

 Jepar was sitting by Alisha, looking worried, pale under his tan so Chatoya could see the four scars blazing across his face. "What do we do?" he said. "Wait?" Determination flickered.

 "What else can we do?" Chatoya replied. They were just pawns in an intricate game that none of them would ever fully understand.

 Jepar shrugged and, eyes pensive, moved to touch Alisha's dragon horns in a curious gesture.

 "Don't!" Cougar, Matt and Chatoya all said in unison.

 He looked at them, clear confusion on his face. "Why not-?" he began, then his voice trailed off. The cat eyes narrowed, as his voice became imperious. The son of a prominent shapeshifter house, Jepar had the authoritative attitude down, and he used it when he needed. "There's only two reasons I can think of why you don't want me touching her," he said angrily, sparks glowing like the fires of hell in his eyes. "And unless my subconscious had been hiding some serious mental problems from me, I'm no mad axe murderer." The witch felt frightened by his anger; she had never seen anything like this in Jepar before. As though something was being unleashed. "You all knew?" His voice grew louder with each word, losing the clear tones filed with laughter, becoming a snarl. "And you didn't tell me?"

 Chatoya knew Jepar had something dark in his past. Cougar Redfern had tried to mind-read the shapeshifter once, for a bet, but had stopped abruptly. It had been as though there was a monster in his mind, he had told Chatoya later. "We all have secrets. I think his are on a par with mine." Chatoya had never been able to believe Jepar could hurt anyone. Now...she wasn't so sure.

 "With good reason," Cougar spoke up. The only who had the arrogance to face Jepar in a rage that none of them had ever seen the likes of. A killing rage, Chatoya would have said of anyone else.

 His eyebrows shot up. "Good reason?" he drawled, tones welling with sarcasm. "Well, I'm so glad it was a good reason - good enough obviously for you to let me stand by and watch my soulmate go off and get killed - and it was for me, wasn't it?" The last was said in a tone of quiet wonderment that washed away some of the anger. "You…you…bastards," he spat, seemingly unable to think of an epithet filthy enough.

 "Have you ever thought," Matt Wolff said, "that perhaps there's a reason why Shar didn't tell you?"

 The cheetah boy looked down at Alisha, mixed emotions on his face. He was about to speak when suddenly, a terrifying mental scream ripped through their heads, piercing like someone was dying. Chatoya clutched at her head, trying to erase the sound. The voice was instantly recognisable to all of them and when it cut off abruptly, Chatoya almost screamed herself in sheer fear for Alisha. It had sounded so close, although her body had never even moved in that deep sleep.

 She stared at Jepar helplessly, but his mouth was set in a hard line that meant someone was in trouble. "Maybe there is a reason," he said with such calm, it was hard to believe he had been at all affected by that soul-killing cry. "But it doesn't matter." She saw the shapeshifter reach out and touch Alisha's cheek as if in a dream. Then his eyes glazed over terrifyingly and he was gone.

 "Oh god," Chatoya said, rushing over to the shapeshifter. He looked dead, his skin gone waxen instantly, his pulse so shallow she could barely feel it. "How can he be so stupid? They're dragons."

 "What would you do, if it was you having to sit there and hear your soulmate die?" Cougar said reasonably, though he was undoubtedly every bit as worried. His eyes were as dull as ever. Chatoya made a mental note to talk to Ria and get this problem sorted out.

 "As I recall," Dragon said with all the tact of a stampeding elephant, "you stood by and watched."

~*~

 She had stopped screaming a while ago, forever, it seemed. David had pushed her under water that had appeared from the air, it was one of her own memories; of the lake where she had lived some hundred years ago. She had almost drowned in it once and the same terror came back to haunt her now. Telling herself it wasn't real did nothing.

She remembered Bhari's words, spoken casually at the time, but words she held to her now like a talisman. "If you decide to die, then you will die. Your mind will stop and your body along with it." She didn't want to die.

 Yet he was holding her there. She was dying. Dying in water that had sparkled like crystal from above and below was a miracle world of aqua blue that seemed to move in patterns that were so lovely to her failing senses. So pretty.

 She was dying. Dying under the pressure of hands that became like claws to her, forcing her away from the light into the depths. The sand trickling out slowly and her life going with it in the knowledge that no one could turn over the hourglass.

There was no blood, just the faint tinge of blue to skin that was otherwise unblemished. The pressure on her head forced her into the water that felt more like acid to burning, aching lungs. She couldn't think, couldn't even call up the power to slither away in a mist. Screaming inwardly, the knowledge creeping in inexorably that this was it, that the event she had never thought would happen, was happening now. And this time, death was forever.

 Her eyes were wide, bulging with fear and the lake water stung them, but it was nothing compared to the itch for air, the screaming pounding desire for life. Life that flowed strong as her indomitable spirit. Even now, she tried to turn and push at him with muscles so weak they couldn't have moved a feather. Let alone a supernatural being with unthinkable strength and infinite insanity.

 She tried to struggle, but in the water her movements were useless as if she had been tied up. Each kick, each desperate twist of her body only took what little air she had left.

 Death became irrelevant as her mouth opened desperately in a reflex and water poured into her lungs through her nose, her mouth and pain was everything. She wanted to die, suddenly it had never been more welcome…surely nothing could be worse than this. And he sensed the weakness and hauled her out of the water so she could see his pale crazy eyes, unknowing that he was destroying what he had fought for so hard, but she had no voice to say those things and David was too far gone for that.

 In her mind, she felt something link far away, a sort of connection that was instantly dimmed as he shook her hard. "Give up," he was saying in distorted tones. Raving like a madman - that was no coincidence, she thought sleepily, "or do we carry on this charade."

  "Give up?" he repeated sneering. "Or do I have to try something different?"

 She managed to make her voice work, but only silence was there. But dragons recovered quickly and already there was strength returning to her limbs, though the water she had inhaled burned like acid. A few more minutes, that was all the time she needed…

 "Try this," someone said in tones filled with wrath and next thing she knew, David was moving away from her through the air in a perfect arc, absolute horror on his face. She knelt up, shaking slightly and saw one furious shapeshifter striding over to David, looking ready to murder him.

  But David was back on his feet and grinning. "Well, well," he said. "Look what came to join the fun!" He pounced, his body sliding into a bizarre cat, with wild orange fur dappled with blue. Mocking Jepar, she suspected. And forgetting her.

 By now, the pain was gone. It was with determination that Alisha walked towards David, who was prowling around the shapeshifter. Jepar was somehow avoiding him - he had to know about dreamscapes, she realised, as he managed to disappear and reappear with the ease of Bhari herself. Distracting David.

 Jepar was dodging easily, keeping David away from Alisha. It wasn't hard for her to step up behind the enraged dragon and catch his head in her hands, but she hesitated to hurt him.

 Two shall live and one shall die.

 One had died. Bhari had died for nothing more than being human. David wouldn't die, at least, not physically. She closed her eyes for a second and sent a prayer to anyone listening before she shattered his mind with all the mental power she had left.

 The blow shook the world - David's mind, she reminded herself - that they stood in. The sky tore in two and as the sky began to dim, so too did everything else. She looked up and her eyes met Jepar's, his eyes reassuring like nothing else could have been.

~*~

 Under the earth, the force of the mental blow woke something. It opened its eyes onto darkness, onto earth. And then it began to claw its way to the surface. It was old, it was older than it had any right to be and it was living on instinct. It travelled towards the light. Towards the house of a lone werewolf who hated his Pack. It knew only two things; that it was in a new world and that it was ravenous.

~*~

David rippled out of existence like a guttering flame as his mind continued to fracture around them. As the dragon disappeared, Jepar looked at her and smiled. The humour was in the candid green eyes, but something else too. "We need to talk," he said with a touch of dark amusement. He shook his head and laughed. "Gods know we need to talk. About why you've been keeping this from me when everyone else seems to know enough to write a book. About him, about just why you're here. But not now," he forestalled her saying anything. "Back in the real world."

 She bit her lip. He still didn't know what she had done. "In the real world," she said, avoiding his gaze. Where there was no disappearing. Where everything had to be faced.

~*~

 "Toya," Cougar said very quietly. A warning; the eyes watchful and expectant.

 She looked around - David was stirring. She felt fear turn her bones to ice. The same frozen, fearful looks appeared on the faces of the others. His eyes opened very slowly, as though he was waking from the deepest sleep. At first sleepy, confused, they suddenly altered. Wide and blank, filled with an abyss. Cracked. He stared at them and snarled, cowering back with animal reflexes.

 "What…?" Chatoya couldn't continue as he continued to glare at her with empty eyes.

 "He's insane," a voice said. Alisha had stood up, detaching herself from Jepar as he too, woke up with the same sluggishness as David had. Her face was full of pity, but she radiated sedate power still. "I just…hit him with power and it did this." She shuddered slightly.

 "You were right to," Dragon Tiamat said blithely. "He would have killed everyone - even you - without a thought in his anger."

 "Was I?" she replied, her eyes still fixed on the dragon. "I don't know if that's true. I started this," she said sadly, face dark as a storm-filled ocean. "But I don't know if I can ever finish it."

 Cougar Redfern snorted, his disdain breaking the silence. "Started?" He laughed bitterly. "I don't think you started anything, Shar. This began a long time ago. Did you decide to make him into a dragon?" He glared at her. "Maybe I'm just a vampire, but it seems to me that you're taking too much of the blame for this. And if you hadn't done this, we'd all be tasty char-grilled steaks by now."

 Alisha gave them a ghost of a smile. "I think I know that somewhere. But…I need time to think, okay? I need to sort this out in my head." She shrugged, her eyes showing depths of pain beyond time. "I'll see you around."

~*~

 There was reverent silence for a moment. Then Jepar quietly left with Cern and Thom, his green eyes pensive, darkened with an emotion Chatoya couldn't quite identify.

 "What do we do with him?" she asked, looking at David with compassion. That was all she could feel for something so pathetic.

 Dragon grimaced. "We're to take him," she replied, as Matt gingerly hauled the gibbering dragon-man up, mouth curled in distaste. "There's…a place where he'll be safe from the world. And the world will be safe from him."

 Chatoya couldn't smile. "I wish that place had been found sooner," she said. "He's done too much damage."

 "It'll work out for Jepar and Alisha," Matt said in reassurance. "It usually does." Then he frowned fleetingly, something bothering him. "Though I hardly think the word 'usual' applies to either of them."

 Dragon nudged him. "You saw what we were told," she said enigmatically. "She's never been wrong yet." Pityingly, she looked at David. "He's proof of that."

~*~

Alisha had thought. Over and over, how it could have been any different and she was beginning to see that it couldn't have been. That somehow, the outcome had been inevitable from the moment David lost whatever small shreds of reason he had left.

 And now she knew what she had to do. Show Jepar what had happened. All of it. She owed him that much. He would hate her for it. Inwardly, she had accepted that. But it was the right thing - the only thing - to do.

 It was early morning when she finished thinking and debating and somehow gained the courage to walk over to his house. It took a huge effort just to knock on the door, and when the door opened, she knew how she to look. Absolutely ashen, lips trembling slightly. Jepar stared at her, concern outlining his face.

 "You said we needed to talk," she said in a voice that shook. "I'd like to talk now."

Ouroboros Part Nineteen

"You'd better come in," was all he said, stepping aside and motioning her through. He hadn't slept well; there were shadows under his eyes and sluggishness slowing his movements. Already she had affected him badly. Alisha began to wonder why on earth she had thought that telling him the truth would make things any different.

 As she walked into the room, she saw Thom and Cern eating their version of breakfast; half a box of popcorn and Cheerios in lemonade. They both looked up, Thom's smile holding approval, Cern's purple eyes slightly surprised. Jepar gestured to the kitchen. "Out," he said, voice vibrating with tension.

 With raised eyebrows and vague amusement, they obeyed, leaving Alisha alone with her soulmate. Her soulmate. It had been a long time since she had even dared to think that word without a sense of failing and loneliness.

 "Well," he said with a half-smile, the tension vanishing just as suddenly, though it was still apparent in the way he cracked his knuckles, green eyes twinkling with some shrouded laughter that stemmed from deep within. "Talk away." The shapeshifter lounged on a chair, leaning back to catch the sunshine that was slanting across the room, eyes half-closed. The sun's light hit his hair in blinding rays, glittering in an aurora around his head. He looked like a tousled angel.

 She couldn't share his good humour, and as the silence sank in, Jepar snapped his head round to stare at her with an uncomfortable intensity and his smile dimmed. "You had the courage to come here," he said quietly, the laughter suddenly fled from his eyes. "Whatever it is, Shar, it's forgivable."

 "I don't think it is," she replied in the same grave tones.

 "And that's it?" he said, almost angry, standing up in one easy movement and striding over to her, standing close. Too close. "You think I'm so small-minded and petty that I can't forgive something I don't even know about?" The words stung.

 "No!" she said, looking up at him. Jepar was a few inches taller, but right now, that was very intimidating. "You're nothing like that."

 His lips tugged upwards in a ghost smile. "Thanks." Then he became serious again. "You might as well just tell me, Alisha," He purred her name in a voice that made her want to melt, the English accent more pronounced than usual. "I can be very stubborn, and you are not leaving here until I find out whatever this supposedly terrible thing is."

 She blinked. He sounded in earnest. "I'm a dragon," she said, dark blue eyes pleading. "You couldn't stop me if you wanted to." But that was a lie hidden under bravado. She wouldn't hurt him, couldn't hurt him. They both knew that.

 One eyebrow arched sardonically. "Care to put money on that?" Teasing, but vibrant undertones belied the casualness of that remark.

 She met his eyes and felt her resolve grow again. She had to tell him. This wasn't fair on either of them. "No," she said shortly. "But you're right; you deserve to know."

 Head tilted on one side, he appraised her with a half-amused, half-worried glance. "It hurts you, doesn't it?" the shapeshifter boy said with unexpected perceptiveness.

She cleared her throat and began in a husky voice, "Yes. It hurts. But…I don't know how to tell you this." Everything she could think of sounded trite or cruel.

 "Then don't tell," he said with a lazy, curving smile. "Show."

 "What?" Alisha said, caught by surprise. His lightening changes of mood were baffling and a little frightening. She never knew when he was acting and when he was for real.

 "That's what the soulmate link is for," he prompted, moving so they were barely an inch apart. "Why else is it there?" His fingertips ran very lightly over her hair, her cheeks, linking their minds in a connection she fought against. There weren't the usual effects; no sparks or haze. Their link ran beyond that. It was simply knowing someone and seeing in them yourself. Baring your soul to another person, being two halves of the same soul. All she felt was as though she was surrounded by everything that made Jepar Jubatus who he was. The rainbows and the rain.

 ~ What are you so afraid of? ~ his mental voice whispered, caressing and with dark undertones that were the secrets even he had. ~ Not me, surely? ~

 The answer could not be concealed any longer. She stared up at the face she knew better than her own; the elegant features that could just have easily have belonged to a seraph in the Sistine Chapel. The ruffled blond hair with the curious brown patches interspersed, the faint, baffled smile that held an innocence she knew she was about to shatter. The green eyes filled with depths of mystery.

 ~ Memories, ~ she said and even as though she could keep the memories shut away, the pain of them seeped through the link and she shivered.

 His response was instant, pulling her close, her head lying on his shoulder in unspoken support. ~ I don't like to see you hurt, ~ he said in response to an unasked question. ~ You know that. ~ Subtle smile as he looked down at her with more affection than was safe for either of them. Safe. That was a word which hadn't featured in her life very much of late. ~ You intrigued me from day one and now I know why. ~

 She tried to pull away, but not with very great conviction. Alisha had forgotten the warmth of his embrace, how much she had missed him. ~ You barely know me, ~ she said in weak protest. The link was coiling their minds together, to a point where she knew that their minds would be bound together; where secrets would be obsolete.

 ~ And whose fault is that? ~ the quirky reproof was flung back.

 Still locked in that beguiling embrace, Alisha gave in. ~ You won't like this, ~ she said in weary warning, saying a silent thank you for even this much time with him. ~ But I'm sorry. ~ And she opened her mind, and let him see the memories as the night swept in inside her head.

 His arms tightened around her to the point of pain as the block that hid eight hundred years of history ruptured in his head and memories poured through. She could see his face alter, tiny changes. They were launched into the memory, unseen winds shrieking through her head. It played out, achingly slow and yet so fast, it was as though time had barely moved. Tali and Ieran talking. His furious voice, with betrayal beneath every word. How in that last split second, he turned back to her, his face outlined like a skeleton image, her frantic shriek. And the ending. The ending that would never change, no matter how she wished. The shock of it brought her back to her senses.

And launched them back into the real world, where his arms were trembling around her.

Savage pain clawed into her head for a split second before he pushed her away, eyes huge and dark, shaking with revulsion. No laughter; all that had been shattered by what she had done.

 "Get out," he said, voice vibrating dangerously.

 She had steeled herself for this moment, over and over, but it hurt a thousand times more than she thought it would. Tears sprang to her eyes, helpless, frustrated tears. "Jepar…" she said in a hopeless voice.

 "Don't come near me, Tali," he snarled. Cern and Thom were looking through the kitchen doorway, eyes wide and worried.

 "Please," she said in a very quiet voice, reaching out to him. He had flinched back before she got near.

 "No!" he said. "Don't touch me. I can't…" his voice trailed off. Still as Ieran had been so long ago, the scene rang with double meanings. Then the deep green eyes met hers, filled with bleak horror and a maturity that shouldn't have been there. "How could you do that?" he asked. Then shook his head. "No, don't answer. Just go."

 Her eyelids dropped, but still her infernal pride wouldn't let the tears show. "I understand," she said and whirling, left at a run, knowing that she had done the right thing. But why, oh why, did being honourable mean having her heart ripped into countless pieces?

~*~

 Three days later:

 It was several minutes before the doorbell broke into Alisha's reverie. She got up from where she was sitting in a room that was perfectly tidy; as if, in fact, she had never been there. There was an envelope sat on the mantelpiece of the lounge that held the keys. No note of explanation. It wasn't necessary.

 The door opened to reveal a very pale witch. Not Chatoya, who had left Alisha alone after what had happened yesterday. Not knowing what to say. After they heard, no one had known of anything they could say that could possibly make any difference. But Dragon Tiamat, dressed simply, in grey and black, reflecting the mourning she always kept for her dead family, had obviously come up with some philosophy she thought would be comforting.

 Her eyes, which usually had a vague detachment that came from living too long and seeing too much, were warm and sympathetic. Dragon might not understand quite how it felt, but she was trying to. "Can I come in?" she asked; words that Alisha heard in someone else's voice.

 She had to press her lips together to stop them from trembling. She had done as everyone had advised; left Jepar alone, to sort things out. Hoping that he would understand somehow. Thom, the human Old Soul, had been very reassuring. "It happens to us all," he said softly. "It happened to me. You know what it's like, Shar. Centuries of memories hit you and for a while, you don't know who you are. You go a little crazy. He'll get over it. We all do." And like a fool she believed him. Had thought that somehow, something would make it all okay.

 How much more wrong could she have been?

~*~

 She had been walking through the town yesterday, when she saw the familiar tall figure striding through the streets in the direction of her home, blond head turned away from her. Hoping, stupidly hoping, she had run after him, catching him at a crossroad. It had been days. She hadn't seen him; nor had any of Circle Strange. They had spent all their time around her, obviously worried. Comforting, not by word or deed, but simply by their presence.

 "Jepar," she had gasped.

 He had turned round in one swift movement. Stared, not really seeing her before his eyes sharpened and his face focused on her. And the depth of loathing in those emerald eyes had transfixed her to the spot.

 "Did I, or did I not tell you to leave me alone?" he had inquired in a voice that was oh-so polite and not quite controlled. The cruelty there had been deliberate. Heartbreaking. "Let's get one thing straight, Tali," the boy who was not really Jepar, who was a cold stranger, had said. "I don't want you near me. I don't want to even see you."

 Alisha had held her ground. "Are you sure about that?" she said in a calm voice, though it was hard enough to even stay there, let alone pretending to be making a polite response to such painful malevolence.

 "My dear," he said sarcastically, making the endearment a curse, "Considering that not only did you sleep with that imbecile David while we were engaged, not only were we engaged, we were soulmates." He paused, seeming to weigh his next words. "Then, I walked off a cliff." Slow cruel smile. Ieran all over. "Now? I'd gladly push you off one."

 And she had reeled back as though he had hit her and gone as fast as she could from that hostile gaze. She had passed Dragon, Matt and Cern. The petite girl had caught her arm, eyes pitying, but before she could say anything, Alisha had gone.

~*~

 And now Dragon was stood outside the door, the same pity on her face, but understanding there too. Alisha let her in silently. The witch-dragon's curly silver hair was dragged back in a dahlia clip, but a few strands escaped, fluttering around her eyelashes. The dragon was extremely beautiful, to the point of it being an affliction.

 Dragon walked into the lounge with her usual purposeful air, her liquid silver eyes noting the bags packed neatly by the door, the unlived-in order to the place. She didn't play with words; whatever else Dragon Tiamat was, she was blunt. "He's wrong, Alisha." Simple words.

 "Is he?" she replied. "It doesn't feel like that."

 Dragon laughed in genuine amusement. There was a wealth of knowledge under her calm words; whatever troubles she had with Matt, past or present, she held to herself. She was that sort of person, a silent sufferer who never suffered long. "Take it from me. Look," she hesitated. "It's not easy finding your soulmate has secrets." Her eyes wouldn't meet Alisha's. "I'd a few of my own and it caused a rift between me and Matt before I gave in. But at least you told him. Jepar's just confused right now. Thom's right; it can't be easy."

 "And it can't be forgiven," the girl said. "You saw."

Dragon shook her head, her face faintly confused. "I saw. And maybe I haven't known Jepar very long, but it's simply not like him. Even if he's been like that the past two days…" She sighed. "What I'm trying to say is that going won't solve anything." Sad smile. Alisha understood what the girl was trying to say; you can only run for so long. Perhaps there was more to Dragon Tiamat's fierce exterior than met the eye. "Matt and I weren't getting on so well - and there have been times in the past - but I couldn't leave. I don't think you should."

 "It's what he wants," she said. Trying to hide the hurt of that and not succeeding. "And I'm beginning to think it's what I want." Anything for peace, even if it was the peace of solitude. If she could know that maybe he would change if she left, that would be enough.

Dragon looked absorbed for a split second, obviously thinking of Matt. "It's what he thinks he wants. Different matter altogether."

 "Maybe. Maybe not."

 Dragon got up with something like mild exasperation lining her face, beginning to pace. For all she lacked in height, she made up in personality. Dragon was impossible to ignore; if her startling hair and eyes didn't catch the attention, her prowling walk and unnatural grace certainly would. She was famous for her short temper, Chatoya had said and it showed now. "Even if it is permanent, what then?"

 Alisha tried to smile. It felt wrong. She couldn't smile when she was crying inside. "What now, don't you mean?"

 The dragon-witch made a negating gesture with her hands. "You can't leave," she said firmly. "Use that link of yours. Show him the good times. There have to have been some," she added, a little desperately. "Surely."

 "There were…" Alisha hesitated, smiling wanly.

 "And?"

 "But not for Ieran." She waved her hands, trying to find the words. "How do I explain? Jepar…he sees - saw - the world completely differently. For my Ieran, nothing much was happy. He saw the most horrible things in his work-"

 "What did he do?"

 "He was a messenger."

 Dragon laughed unexpectedly, her eyes lighting up. "You're kidding!"

 Alisha shook her head, interested despite herself. Even now, she was still hungry to know anything and everything about Jepar Jubatus. Her brief glimpse into his mind had not and would never be enough. "No. Why?"

 Dragon Tiamat seemed to be vacillating about whether to tell her whatever it was amused her so. But eventually she sighed. "I'm sure you've heard of an organisation called the angels." They were protectors of anyone who needed help, be they Nightworld or Daybreak. They came unasked for and disappeared just as swiftly, leaving only cryptic messages. "Jepar is part of that. He and Toya are posted here permanently, at their request, and I guess they must like it."

 "It sounds his sort of thing," Alisha said. "But being a messenger then was different. It meant running - occasionally riding if the lord of the land felt generous - to wherever you were ordered. Most often, it was to give orders about rebellions and matters of war. He saw a lot of unpleasant sights."

 "Point taken," the dragon said. She had halted her continuous striding for a split second. "I had no idea."

 "Emotions were something Ieran couldn't afford," she carried on, "It would have driven him insane otherwise. I knew he loved me, even if he didn't say it. It was always there, no matter how hard I had to look." Alisha sighed. "But if I show Jepar this, what do you think he's going to see? My good times? Or his nightmares?"

 Dragon stopped pacing. Her face was sorrowful. "Right now, all he would see is the dark side. But give him time, Alisha-"

 "How much time?" she said. "How long before he can come to terms with that sort of horror? I still haven't got over it. And I don't think he's your friend Jepar now. He's someone called Ieran Hansson and for that, I'm sorry."

 Dragon sighed and went to leave. "So am I," she said gravely. "But if you leave, promise something."

 "I won't come back," Alisha said. She couldn't. It would break her back into something she couldn't stand being, someone that only had hurt. "Don't you see? If I go away, only to come back with stupid hopes that will never be fulfilled, I'm not living. Don't you think it's time I learned to get over what I did?"

 "And if Jepar changes his mind?" Dragon said, her tone cooler. She didn't approve. Alisha wasn't sure she approved. All she knew was that she couldn't spend the rest of her life hoping for forgiveness. Jepar couldn't forgive her. So it was time she forgave herself and started living. She had done her penance; done the right thing and though she took responsibility for her actions, she didn't have to punish herself for them.

 She shrugged. "That's up to him."

 Dragon Tiamat sighed, her face troubled. "You won't even let yourself hope?"

 Alisha shook her head defiantly. "I hoped last time. Look what happened."

~*~

 Around ten minutes after Dragon left, Alisha did too. She headed in the opposite direction, to the bus stop at the other end of town. She had arrived at the other stop, expecting just another dreary assignment. Had found something beyond her wildest dreams. Beyond her wildest nightmares. And although she had given up her humanity for a shapeshifter who loathed what he once loved, Alisha had never felt more human or more vulnerable.

 This was it. She waited at the stop patiently. The bus was late. Over half an hour so. Some things never changed. Like the fact she still wasn't sure where she was going. Daybreak was a lost cause. Thierry had understood when she came here that she wouldn't be going back. Where could a dragon go where no one would know?

 Where she could go was easy. Anywhere. She had wings now. Fins. Claws. Teeth. Power. None of which she had wanted and all of which she had taken. Where no one would know? Maybe in the depths of the jungle, or the labyrinth of a city, which was the same place, only humans had made one and not the other. Far away, that was for sure. Alisha just wanted to…not forget this, because it was important. But not to let it take over her life anymore.

 The road was silent, apart from a few cars that screamed along the road, breaking the speed limit with Nightworld recklessness, or hummed past calmly, with the care of those who knew that when you were human, care was indefinite, but fractured skulls were for life.

 Finally, she saw the bus approaching at the lazy pace of life that lay deceptively over the town. It slowed, and the doors opened with the metallic squeak of old machinery. The driver looked at her. He looked about forty, but the youthful eyes told her he was a lamia. "Where're you going?" he demanded.

 She didn't hear him. Alisha was waiting for those last few seconds with the fatal hope she had always had. Optimism. It shouldn't be allowed. It only made the end result hurt more. No one was there. Not even a battered car, or Circle Strange. She supposed they didn't deal in goodbyes.

 "Where're you going?" the driver demanded again in his gruff voice.

 "Vegas."

 As he fiddled with the machine and her change, she looked down the road, hoping to see someone appearing from the woods that lined either side. But no one. No cat-fur mottled hair, no clear green eyes. No sunny smile. Just her alone. As it would be from now on.

 And finally, she accepted it. There would be no happy ending. She slung her bag over one shoulder, feeling the sun heating her skin and without even looking back over her shoulder, Alisha Althasson stepped onto the bus.

Ouroboros Part Twenty

 Dragon Tiamat was furious and she didn't bother to hide it as she stormed in without knocking and stood in front of Jepar, tapping her feet until he looked up. Gods, his face scared her. So empty. She had never realised how cheerful Jepar was, how much his laughter was him. Alisha was right. She was looking at a different person. Someone who had a lot of pain under that blankness. But right now, Dragon didn't give a damn.

"You know what?" she snapped, her mouth a tight line, her fingers drumming her arms. From behind the shapeshifter, she saw Thom and Cern frantically miming. The message was clear - don't antagonise him. She ignored them.

 "Go on," Jepar drawled flatly, green eyes barely interested. Heard it all before. "Enlighten me."

 "You're an asshole," she said, and had the minute satisfaction of seeing a spark jump in his eyes. "I never thought you were so dumb, Jepar. But you're showing that famous shifter stupidity right now." The expression shifted into something resembling sullen.

 "Do you know what it's like?" he hissed suddenly, standing up. Dwarfing her. Dragon had forgotten how tall he was; but now his height was intimidating. "To have a lifetime of memories, to see things you've only dreamed about in nightmares forced into your head by the one person you trust absolutely and then to find out that they…betrayed you."

 "That," Dragon hurled right back into eyes that had suddenly flared into life, "is not you talking, That's memory talking. You're a different person now."

 "You're right," he said with startling bitterness. "I know the truth. No sly humans trying to trick me."

 Dragon rolled her eyes. "You know that's rubbish. And so are all those bad memories in your head. Move on! Get over it. We've all had to."

 "I can't," he spat and those simple words told Dragon more than she needed to know. Dragon Tiamat could never have been called perceptive. But what she saw in his face shocked her quite still. Desperation. Just as abruptly, he turned away.

She glared at Thom and Cern who were watching with interest. "Out," she ordered.

 "Woof," muttered Cern, as the purple eyed witch was forcibly hauled out by Thom who said something about Chatoya's as he left, but Dragon wasn't really listening, instead fiddling with the dahlia bracelet circling her wrist.

 Dragon sat down, and watched her shapeshifter friend closely. He had his back to her now, but she could see muscles tensed as though he was very angry. Or very scared. "Talk," she said, less of an order and more of a request. "Because you had better have one hell of an excuse for turning into Hannibal Lecter."

 He turned back to her, pale. She could see the struggle for calm in his face and her attitude softened slightly. "Do you know anything about who he - I…" the dragon-witch noticed the deliberate correction. Alisha had done the same. "was?"

 "Enough," Dragon said dryly. "Perhaps too much." Alisha had been resonating powerful mental images that she could even slam her meaning through Dragon's thick skull. And unconsciously at that.

 Jepar sighed, the anger disappearing. No. Just sinking under the surface for a moment leaving this quiet intense person. Someone Dragon hadn't seen since she had told him his sister had been murdered.

"How do I explain?" It was a rhetorical question and Dragon left it as such. "I'm angry. Worse than that. I'm furious, but none of it's my anger. Or it is but it's old anger…" The shapeshifter was struggling for words. But Dragon had a fair idea of what he was saying.

 "You're saying that it's Ieran's anger," she offered and saw him nod.

 "Yeah. He had problems. So did his - my - sister. You never met Gata," Jepar referred to his dead sister with a slight wistfulness, eyes far away, not in the sense of distance, but in the sense of time. "But she was friendly. Emotional. But me and her then - icebergs. If it wasn't so obviously me, I'd say it was all some sick joke." His fists clenched and unclenched like a cat unsheathing its claws. "See, I can say that I was messed up then. But…then has become now."

 Dragon cut him off, her silver eyes flickering with understanding. "Look…I think I'm seeing the problem. You've got all these memories but they aren't you. They're a different person."

 Jepar nodded, then shook his head. The confusion was mirrored in his stance and Dragon felt her ire begin to fade. "I don't know," he said. "He's furious at Tali," not Alisha any longer, "and every time I even think about her, the anger just takes over everything. I get so mad, I can hardly see. All I want to do is hurt her. Or at least, he does. But I don't…" His absorbed smile told Dragon enough, his own character shining through the darkness for a bare second, although the moment he had mentioned, Alisha's name, she had seen his face darken.

 Dragon raised a weary smile. "They say hate and love are two sides of the same coin," she said gently. "I'm beginning to understand how that could be true."

 Jepar sank into a chair, his head in his hands. Shattered, Dragon thought, but took that thought back at once. Her friend was stronger than that. "That's a good analogy. I feel like that coin's spinning inside, and sometimes it's on love, sometimes it's on hate. And sometimes, the hate side gets pulled round more, like someone touching a magnet to it." He laughed but it was unhappy, strained. "I'm not even sure who I am when I wake up. Or even if I am anyone."

 "Anger therapy?" she said quietly, wondering just how this had any chance of working. One eyebrow raised in the manner that was Jepar's own and she felt a stab of relief. He seemed almost like himself, except for the sadness there.

 "Let me ask you something," Dragon explained, her silver eyes earnest. "Can *you*, not any memory, forgive her?" She saw the anger flare up in his face and had to remind herself that what you saw was rarely what you got.

 "I could," he said in a voice that sounded very forced. ~ What is there to forgive? ~ His mental voice hammered into her head painfully and now Dragon Tiamat could feel the anger and understand it. Ieran Hansson had been angry at everything and everyone. He had been forced to see what he shouldn't have, to turn a blind eye. The one constant in his life had been Talisa Alfaso. He had taken that for granted. And she had betrayed him. The rage rolled around her like bubbling, boiling water.

 But like a candle in a vast cavern, she could sense the calm of her shapeshifter friend. To Jepar, there was nothing to forgive. Everyone made mistakes. She thought she understood. Dragon had heard it said that people who had some unfinished purpose lived beyond their death. That or great, pertaining rage. It was as though that was all that remained of the personality that had been Ieran Hansson.

 "Sorry," Jepar said, very pale. "I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad that way."

 She rubbed her head, feeling a headache the thunder god himself could have sent and sighed. "Go and talk to Alisha. Tell her what you told me."

 "I can't," he said helplessly. "I'll get mad. I'll hurt her."

 Dragon glared, drew herself up. "So control it. Be polite. Use that soulmate link and please…hear her out. Otherwise, you know how you'll end up?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Like Cougar and Ria. Only you won't have a chance to apologise, because the bus that heads out of here leaves in ten minutes. And guess who's on it?"

 "Good," the purring dark voice said. What? The eyes said, horrified, twin green vortexes. If ever there was schizophrenia, this was it.

 "I should probably be lecturing you about duty and responsibility," Dragon Tiamat said, the pounding in her head becoming nauseating. "But I don't have much liking for either. And nor do you. Just go. Make it right this time."

Jepar was out the door before she had realised and as she looked out the window, she could see his form melt into that of a swift golden cat. The cheetah was running to rival the northern blast, ignoring the two figures who walked back in a touch sheepishly. Cern and Thom came back in, and she could tell at once from their faces that they had been eavesdropping. Gone to Chatoya's. They had gone as far as the front door. But Thom's wise human eyes were approving, his compliments gracious as he was.

 "Good speech," Cern said, giving her a brief grin and a hug. The enigmatic witch's face settled back into the expressionless mask it had been more and more often of late. She wondered if perhaps there was something wrong with him. "Cougar and Ria could use that kind of advice."

 Dragon groaned, her aching head in her hands. "Yeah? Well, I really, really hope he can control his temper."

 Thom produced some aspirin and threw them to her. "Jepar? Temper? Those words don't belong in the same sentence. And as for Ria and Cougar…" He shrugged too thin shoulders. Dragon had always thought the human was emaciated. Had never known why. "They don't need advice. Ria needs some confidence and Cougar needs a lobotomy."

 Cern Akafren slumped down and flicked on the TV. "Every Redfern has their whole brain removed at birth. Hadn't you heard?"

 Dragon moaned and swallowed two aspirin. Not that they would do a headache of the mind, not the skull, very much good. Her vision was skewed as her eyes crossed and uncrossed with a life of their own, coloured spots dancing across her vision. "Yeah, well, after all the trouble Shar and Jepar have gone through, cross your fingers."

 Cern chuckled, slanting a darkly amused glance at her. She could tell another smart remark was about to be launched. "Or your eyes."
 
~*~

As the bus driver fiddled with the machine and her change, she looked down the road, hoping to see someone appearing from the woods that lined either side. But no one. No cat-fur mottled hair, no clear green eyes. No sunny smile. Just her alone. As it would be from now on. And finally, she accepted it. There would be no happy ending. She slung her bag over one shoulder, feeling the sun heating her skin and without even looking back over her shoulder, Alisha Althasson stepped onto the bus.

 Hard hands clamped on her waist before she realised, lifting her off the bus as in a daze, she heard a coolly confident voice tell the driver she wasn't leaving. Alisha watched in shocked disbelief as the bus pulled away. "What are you doing?" she said wildly, mouth distorted and face white with strain. She had thought the miracle might have happened, but it seemed not from the shadowed fury in his eyes.

 "I could ask you the same thing," he said, still not releasing her, hands merely moving to her arms, as though the shapeshifter thought she would run away if he let go. Which she would.

 "Leaving," she answered.

 "Running away," he corrected in a voice that was dangerous. He was still angry she saw, eyes sparking like twin fires. She inhaled sharply at that thought.

Shrug. It didn't matter what he thought. The result was still the same. "Whatever."  

He shook her forcibly, glaring with the imperious manner that seemed to have replaced his laughter of late. "And you didn't think to even talk to me?"

 She drew herself back, gathering her thoughts carefully. Avoiding his eyes. Gods, it was so difficult to stand there and pretend to be civilised and polite. "You didn't want to talk, remember?"

 "I don't now," he spat again. Then confusingly shook his head. "I'm angry enough to hurt you right now," he said, but all she thought was: too late. "Except I said to Dragon that I'd try and hear you out." She could see some sort of inner battle in his face. "I can't help being angry, Tali," he said in what she might have thought was pleading before the anger took over again. "Wouldn't you be if your soulmate had slept with a-" he cut the sentence off, his hands tightening painfully on her arms before he let her go abruptly.

 "Insults," she said softly. "Is that it?" Anger. That was all she could see in his face. Alisha wanted to believe there was something else. And she didn't have any name for it except: torn. "Hear me out then," she said with a façade of calm. He was taller than she, but by barely an inch or two.

 "I don't think that was what Dragon meant," he said with a touch of wry humour that she recognised and watched for hopefully.

 "No?" What Dragon had been thinking, Alisha wasn't entirely sure. She just looked up and discovered herself lost in eyes that held secrets in green depths. Falling into them, drowning like someone who knew that unless she stopped this now there would be no escape. And escape seemed impossible as she heard him inhale sharply, then felt the pressure of strong arms closing round her. But when she found herself suddenly locked in an intense kiss, his mouth warm and sensual on her own, the world dissolving into the mind link that had done so much damage already, she had a feeling Dragon Tiamat might have known exactly what she was thinking.

 Where she was…it wasn't a place. Not really. More a sort of forum. Like the mind-battle, it was a world shaped by the mind around it. And this mind was very, very angry. She was looking at volcanoes all over the place, fires and storms. A mind of someone she loved. Someone who was holding her now, watching her face. That was, perhaps, when she understood. Because Jepar didn't seem at all angry. Just intent on her, waiting. "It's not you, is it?" she said in a shaken voice.

 "My memories," he said. "But no…I'm not mad. I couldn't be if I tried." He smiled at something. "I think I understand why Ieran…who in a sense is me…is so upset. It's quite obvious really."

 "Is it?" she said, shivering slightly. "It doesn't hurt any the less."

 "I know. I'm sorry." The simple words said it all. I understand. I'm sorry. How many people had said that to one another over the ages? "But can you imagine having a soulmate who didn't love you?"

 "Yes." The blunt reply made him flinch slightly, consternation crossing his face. "But he knew…I thought he knew." Alisha sighed. "I guess I've been stupid too. I loved Ieran Hansson. I would have died for him. I did die for him." At her words, she knew he could feel every emotion she did. Could understand every thought. That was what this was really; not vocal speech but telepathy. And around her, the anger dimmed. Dissipated. She felt something leave, soundless, senseless except for an answering chord inside her that had been waiting to let go. Maybe it was the ghost of someone who had been trapped on the rocks too long.

"What changed?" Jepar said very gently, as though he didn't want to harm her. Same face, different person. Just perhaps a little older now, with a lifetime of memories. "You say it as though everything is in the past."

 Alisha smiled sadly. "I grew up. Maybe never literally, but somewhere, Talisa Alfaso grew up. I came here, I met you. Just as I thought maybe there was more to life than death, I fell in love again. I died."

 Jepar was listening, face solemn, before he grinned. "Well, let that be a lesson," he said. Seeing her face, the smile became apologetic, though his cat eyes danced with mischief. "What can I say? I don't like being serious. Not here," he said looking around. "Not in my own mind."

 "What?" She was confused now. Just when she thought she had Jepar Jubatus figured out, he slithered away easily as a shadow. Or a cat whose claws weren't weapons, or words, but concealment.

 "I have secrets," he said. "Just like you. And I want to tell you those, but I want it to be in somewhere real. So you can be honest with me, because here…love cures everything. It's true. But out there-" An image of friends, Circle Strange, of the valley, of her. "You have to face the consequences. And they aren't good." His eyes had gone black, no trace of emerald left there. "I prefer to make my gestures of mutual affection where I'm not going to know how you'll react. It's called living for the moment," the shapeshifter added quietly.

She was staring, barely starting to smile as the earnest green eyes met her in a clash that made her ears hum. Disbelieving. But at the frankness in his gaze - and his mind - conviction sank in. Slowly. It turned into a frightening jolt of sheer euphoria that jarred them both into the real world, where the sun was hot above, burning like a mad eye, where heat was surrounding.

 "So, you see," Jepar carried on, slanted eyes watching her closely, "I thought I should tell you that, so we can get this mess sorted out, because it's pretty obvious you're in love with me. And no one should be as unhappy as you have been." The solemn words were said in very persuasive tones. "So I guess…what I'm saying is that I want you to stay." The last was said in a rush. "Forever." The anxiety in his eyes reassured. "But only if you want to."

 Alisha was smiling so much she thought her face would crack. "Do you really need to ask?"

But Jepar was shifting uneasily. "Well…I'm not too good at emotional stuff. In fact, this is a first."

 She had to laugh. "It's a good first," she said.

 Her soulmate gave her a surprisingly sweet smile. "We have a lot of firsts to get through," he said wickedly, his face inches from hers. Then his mobile features altered. Something like wariness; that of a man walking onto a battlefield unarmed. Maybe she saw a hint of vulnerability; maybe not. Jepar was far too good at hiding his feelings.

 "But…" she prompted. She was watching him very closely. Maybe the anger that had cloaked him these past days was gone, but the air of mystery wasn't. Secrets, they seemed to only get in the way.

 "My thoughts exactly," he said, effortlessly reading her mind, but was very quiet. He was twitching uneasily. "I don't think we should have secrets from each other. You've shown your secrets but I…" He shrugged. "You know about the people here, do you?" he said unexpectedly. Or perhaps not.

 Alisha remembered what the witch she had met on her first day had said. 'We're all running from something here, hiding where no one will look for us.' And it was true. Even the Circle, perhaps some of the weirdest and most honest people she had known, held fear and concealment in their gaze. She looked at him solemnly. Even the hot sunlight raking across both of them, highlighting the four ragged scars on his face, didn't lift the darkness she could sense. "What are you running from?" she asked.

 He reached out for her, not for comfort or at least, that wasn't the main reason, but to hold her there. "Some things," he replied slowly, thoughtfully, all the laughter erased now, "would make even you run from me. This is one of them."

 "What?" she said, squinting at he whom she could forgive anything, would forgive anything.

 "It began," he answered in a voice bereft of all purr or charm, that was flat and emotionless as his eyes. "With a friend of mine. She was a shapeshifter and like everyone, she had a dream. She dreamed too much and she died…" and he told her.

 She was shocked. No one hearing his words couldn't have been. However, the quiet torment in his eyes dulled that, and she felt none of the revulsion he seemed to expect of her. But she did sense his fear, his mind a confused swirl of purple shot with silver and red. Not fear for any recriminations of what he had done, but of her reaction.  She could feel how tense he was, knew it through every chord of her being, but didn't know how to cure that.

 "And that's it." The flat voice paused, he relaxed somewhat. "No one else knows. Just you." Wouldn't meet her eyes.

 "You're right," she said calmly, remembering the thoughts of a red-haired witch who had died because she couldn't forgive. "That is it." And for the first time in almost an hour, a time in which the sun had rolled down to crown his head with an ironic hellfire halo, startled eyes met hers. Alisha carried on regardless. "It's past," she said. "I don't care what you've done. You aren't the same person and even if you are, I don't care. All I care is that we have no secrets and each other."

 A sudden, dazzling smile flitted across his face. She could see the cheetah in him then, wicked and feral. "And the world." A dry reminder that said more about them than anything else.

 She shrugged. "That too." The quiet smile they shared hid the devotion underneath. But it was enough.

~*~

 And in another world, somewhere between here and there, somewhere between now and then, a girl and a boy were arguing on a cliff, where the wind screamed around them, where the sea was enticing below. The girl was beautiful, with cloudy red hair curled around her white face and frightened grey eyes that spilled tears. The boy obviously human, but with secretive eyes and hair that shone white in the moonlight as he turned away from her suddenly, violently. His words floated across on the wind as the glowing green eyes looked straight at the girl. "So mote it be."

 She barely had time to register his meaning and the primal force in his words before he was striding past her, towards the sheer drop that lead only to the pounding surf and jagged rocks below. "No!" she screamed frantically, throwing herself after him with a swiftness born of despair. Her hands reached out…

 And he turned back as she clung to him, sobbing and gasping, both of them precariously close to the long drop. The green eyes were unreadable, but she drew herself up, slowly, shaking with relief.

 "I was wrong," she said. Her voice husky. "I know that. I don't know how I can ever show you how much I regret." Her hands caught his, and something seemed to spring between them that couldn't be sensed by ordinary eyes, by anyone that wasn't caught in that intimate mind-link. "But I know that if you do that, you die. And that means so do I."

 "Don't be stupid, Talisa!" he spat out, mouth trembling with revulsion. "It's hardly a case of until death do us part."

 She still clung to him, as if her arms could pull back the words. They could both see the ocean, an inky mass. Fall in there and you would be swallowed whole. "It is for me, Ieran," she whispered, and looked up to meet his eyes. He was stunned and his face had strange wonder upon it that was so different from the shuttered look she knew. He could sense everything she felt for him.

 "You would do that?" he said in soft disbelief, but one hand ran gently across her hair. "For me?"

  She smiled and for a fleeting instant, the roles were reversed. She knowing, he naïve. "We're nothing without each other, are we?"

 The boy blinked. "No," he agreed finally, and they both stepped away from the cliff edge. "We are each other. No matter what or when." He looked at her, the pale face so intent on him and he smiled fractionally. "One day, this would have been again," he said gently. "You know that."

 She shook her head, managing to smile, though tears still fell. But something new was there. Trust. Neither spoke of forgiveness; it wasn't needed. But Talisa Alfaso and Ieran Hansson had had to learn the hard way. "The past and the future aren't important," she said fiercely. "Now is. It's all we have. Maybe it's all we ever have, no matter how often it's lived."

 The circle was joined, spiralling and curving to infinity. Below their feet, curled in the grass by the rocks, a snake held its own tail and moved in a dance that was unknown to anyone but itself. A dance wiser minds would have called ouroboros.