Author's Note: I'm actually an already established writer on this site, but I didn't want to post this to my other profile. Why? I'd upset HP fans looking for an update. For an age I've wanted to write something with Rinna and now I finally have! Yay! Any roughness in the writing is probably intentional. I am hoping that this will be fairly short, but we'll see how it goes. Review this little prologue to let me know if I should continue! :)

"Hereafter, in a world better than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge of you." ~ Shakespeare

Who am I? This is the most important question you will ever ask yourself, the quest of your life's longing. To be, merely and completely, as you are. The good with the bad. The interesting with the mundane. The love…and the loss.

No one can ever take this away from you.

oooOoooOoooOoooOooo

"Zevran! Please, please…believe me! Trust me." The blade is cold as a shard of ice against my bare throat, Taliesin's fingers clenched in a fistful of my hair. Golden eyes, like the eyes of a fox, glare down at me in a blind rage. Oh my love, why are you seeing what you want to see? Believe in me. "I would never betray-"

"You lie! The Crow's would not lie about their own!" Agitated, he paces back and forth with his fists clenched. The stench of the alleyway stings my nose, the hard cobbles making my knees ache.

"They have! Taliesin, it's not true! Tell him it's not true!" My voice is choked with tears and a sob escapes my burning throat. I would never betray them, never! Perhaps Taliesin but never Zevran, not if all the world demanded it. I do not see the blow until it connects: a backhanded smack that makes my ears ring and cuts a tiny swathe of red in my throat where the flesh kissed the blade.

"Do not speak! You…you putana! Kill her, Taliesin."

"No, no! Zevran! Do not kill me! I would never betray you, I love you!" My pleading is pathetic and I would not bother with it if I did not wish, with all of my being. "Zevran! Look at me!"

"Ha! Rinna, I always knew you were a liar. You weren't half so good at deception as you think, however." The hurt in his voice…I am not imagining it.

"I didn't! I would never! Zevran, please-" He kneels in front of me on the stone, every perfect plane of his face hardened to ice. His smile was not the soft, tender smile of my lover…of my heart. It was every bit as cruel as wicked twist of a wolf's snarl.

"Even that were true, I would not care. Love! Ha! That is all you can come up with…" He turned on his heel, glanced back over his shoulder.

"I do love you, Zevran." It is not a plea and I can barely hear myself speak it...but I do. No one can take my last words from me.

No one can take my life. I give it to them freely.