Evening all, and sorry this has taken so long. Uni was somewhat busier than I thought, and add to that the hecticism (it's a word) of having left...you can imagine how busy things have been! Much love and lollipops to the wonders of you who commented :o) Huge thanks to:

Adelaide E, Dream Wind, Tjones, Megami-Sama, Jangles, and the brilliant Panzerkitty

Comments are always much adored, pored over, revered, cheered and sometimes feared. Lyrics from 'The Girl Who Falls Downstairs' by Tom McRae (Album: All Maps Welcome)

Ouroboros Part Two

Needles buzz like
Neon light and
I am stained by
This town
And all my faith gone
All maps welcome
The stairs have twisted around

She searched for Circle Strange, and found so much more.

The school was sunny, a two-storey building surrounded by a large campus. Trees and plants were scattered everywhere, all the windows were thrown open and inside Alisha saw students slumped over their desks, most looking bored, two of them having a not-so-subtle paper dart fight.

There were a few people sprawled on the grass outside, talking. None of them took more than a casual glance at her. Good. She didn't want to attract any attention.

She couldn't remember a time in the past years when she hadn't drifted through life, avoiding human contact where she could, avoiding the spidery crawl of emotions, of people reaching out to her. Attachment...it - yes, it terrified her. Who knew where it would lead?

To love, perhaps, and that was most dangerous of all. Whatever kind it was, be it platonic or romantic, she felt only a sad knowledge that she would hurt, and be hurt by it because the tragedy of love was that it was transitory, mere footprints on a beach to be erased and forgotten. It died as surely as everything did.

Shutting the world out was safer; it harmed no one when she left.

And she always left. There was nowhere that could hold the fragments of her heart. Even here, with its cryptic wild beauty - even here, she would leave and leave gladly to roam pointlessly as soon as this task was done, and these people were found. Circle Strange.

With a name like that, somebody had to know who they were. She'd been told about a Circle Doomfire who'd practiced here, and been the cause of a lot of fatalities for Daybreak until they disappeared, but no one had mentioned a Circle Strange.

She stopped the first person she saw, a wraith-like girl who was striding across campus as if wolves snarled at her heels.

"Yes?" the girl said, barely polite.

"I'm looking for..." Alisha hesitated. It sounded so...bizarre. "Circle Strange?" she said, not hopefully.

Something slid through the girl's expression. Fear? "You're looking for them? The freaks?" she blurted, before wincing as if she'd said something wrong. "I - didn't mean that, okay? If they're your friends-"

She was actually edging away.

Alisha realised she was standing open-mouthed, and hastily caught the girl's arm. "Wait! I don't know who they are, but I was told they might be able to help me out. Please - I just need to know where to find them."

The girl's shudder wasn't feigned. "Why'd you want to? Take my advice, okay, and don't have anything to do with them."

She stared at the girl, bemused. "How bad can they be?"

"Your choice." The girl slanted Alisha a peculiar look; obviously she felt she'd done her good deed for the day. "Fine. You see the group over by the trees? That's them. Have fun. And don't let the dark haired guy get near your neck."

She scurried away, and this time it seemed there was something worse than wolves nipping at her heels.

Somewhat taken aback, Alisha started in their direction. There was a trio there, all of them different and now she could see them better, Alisha realised they were a mix of humans and Nightpeople. Simply being near them sent strange quivers through her stomach.

They were powerful. Not all of them, but enough had that air about them. That aura.

It was a rare talent, the last remnants of her life as a witch. The ability to sense auras; she'd only met one other person who'd been able to do it, a Daybreak boy called Matt Wolff. But he was missing, and probably mould in a shallow grave if she was honest with herself.

Matt had only been able to see auras, but Alisha...she could feel them; emotions were textures and tastes, plush rainbow tapestries.

The dark haired one - who had lean features and a hungry look - was a vampire; gold rippled about him, the colour of a newly minted coin. A compelling combination of power and personality, but it seemed to her there was almost a shadow about him, greasy smears that edged the gold.

Someone shouted at them and all turned to look at the boy who was grinning and waving. Her mind catalogued the scene with the quick efficiency that came from running away young, that had kept her safe as she could be out in the big wide world.

A boy - blond, one of those lanky types born for sport, loping up to the group and dragging a girl by the hand. Her floaty clothes flapped as she half-ran, stumbling to keep up, her black hair a tumble. As he joined them, the blond boy turned to gaze down at them, revealing his face.

And her heart near stopped.

Oh, Goddess, it was him. Exactly as he had been back then, with a sunny smile and the tilted green eyes that made her think of endless summer days, the gold hair soft as a cat's fur, the clean cool curve of his cheekbones that wisps of his hair just ghosted over. Her soulmate.

Alisha struggled to keep her body still, not to hurl herself into his arms and tell him how she loved him.

But that was ridiculous. She couldn't let emotions rule her anymore. Emotions had destroyed her, emotions were a danger to her. To them.

But it was him, every hammer-slam of her heart on her ribs confirmed it.

Logic, Alisha told herself with a pretence of calm. For a start, he might not be the one. Just some boy with green eyes whose face in a certain light-

Yes, daylight.

Who was she kidding? It was him all right and she knew it, it was knitted into her bones, the truth of him, here, now, alive.

One touch. That was all it would take. One little gesture.

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't willingly walk in and wreck his life, walk in and expose herself to all that hurt. For an instant, she was Tali again, frightened but never again innocent. What if he hated her for what had happened?

For killing him.

And without warning, every tear she had willed herself not to shed, every dream she had told herself would never be true, every hope she had thrust away harshly, every scrap and shred and shard of grief burst free of the cage she kept them in, and Alisha was frozen, her tongue stilled and her soul screaming.

For every death, for all the broken wishes and each missed kiss. Every wasted life. For every family she had left behind who must have loved her - had she made them feel like this?

But, oh, it was worth all the pain just to know he was alive. That he wasn't gone.

Not hers anymore, but perhaps that was for the best.

Alisha stared at him, savouring every moment. And was something faintly different this time. Then he moved to talk to the serene girl who was elbowing the vampire guy.

It was in the way he walked: the fluid strides and how his muscles shifted. And the faint, emerald shimmer of his aura.

He wasn't human anymore.

Alisha was too stunned to even move, lost in a surge of memories that threatened to reduce her to mindless panic. His laugh broke that, a carefree sound that wandered out into the air.

She had never heard him laugh that way before. Without bitterness, without sorrow, with irony.

How he had changed. Without her, he had gained something far rarer than love. Happiness.

I can't take that away, she thought, eating him up with her eyes. All I can do is hurt him.

She had forgotten what the Nightpeople were like, how perceptive they were, and was shocked when he stopped laughing to stare at her, open curiosity written on features as familiar as her own.

And - even worse - now his friends followed that direct gaze and her frightened eyes saw only hostility and ghosts in those faces. They were a frozen tableau; the plain witch girl sitting half-upright with one hand supporting her, looking perplexed.

Sprawled against a tree, the dark vampire whose face was so arrogant, and opposite him, cross legged, a slender girl with freckled features. That frosty glare shouldn't have come from the girl with the cherry-red hair and the open, fresh face.

All of them framed him, standing there in a wary stance, his hair gleaming in the light, there.

She couldn't drag her eyes away, nor wanted to. It was a lightning bolt in her world; it was like being healed and being destroyed in the same instant. She was caught between hope, and gut-wrenching fear but most of all that love that was near as terrible as the fear.

She wanted to scream it to the heavens, he was alive.

What she did was to drop her gaze to the grass in front of her, breaking the deadlock. But they knew something was up.

She didn't need to look up to know one of them - the dark one, the vampire - was coming. She could sense his presence; he was shadows and black blood, heat and cold at the same time. A bundle of contradictions, this one. He blazed like a star streaking through the heavens, falling or flying and not entirely sure which.

She hesitated for a moment, as a nasty feeling of familiarity crept over her. Not the kind that meant soulmate, but the kind that meant past life. She would bet anything that this vampire was an Old Soul and that she had met him. Known him well. Once.

Alisha disliked him without knowing him and she didn't want to know him either. He was dangerous; emotion ruled him entirely, and she knew how lethal that was.

How she knew.

X - X - X - X - X

"Oh goddess," Chatoya Irkil muttered wearily to Ruby Luthman. "Cougar's gone to spook that poor girl. Why can't he just leave be?"

She knew the answer though; her lamia friend hated the speculation and gossip that flew around about their circle, and enjoyed baiting the morbidly curious. Today, he was in a particularly foul mood.

Ruby shrugged. A vampire herself, Cougar had made her, and she seemed to understand him, however little she liked him for it. "You know him. He hates people staring at him - he's still not used to being different, he never really grew out of that enormous sense of entitlement - and I think the Circle Strange business is really starting to annoy him." Ruby glanced around and lowered her voice. "Plus, things are going very badly with him and Ria."

They studiously avoided looking at Ria Lutinne.

"That's no reason to take it out on her. She's just some human who heard the rumours."

Ruby grinned. "They aren't rumours, Toya. You are a witch, even if you keep your nude dancing for special occasions, and Cougar does bite."

She turned her attention to the human girl Cougar was about to rant at. This was one of those days when anyone looking at him the wrong way was going to feel the knife edge of his temper.

The girl was watching Cougar in a way that made the witch nervous. But that was ridiculous. Cougar could take care of himself.

X - X - X - X - X

Alisha looked up as he...her mind sensed his casually as a snake flicking its tongue to taste the air - darkonefury - came near. She was still frantically trying to think where they had met - maybe she could use it to her advantage in some way. But no face came to mind. Or rather, a thousand did.

Well, be calm. This is an easy situation - he doesn't want to kill you, just scare you. Handle it right, let him think he has, and he'll just go away.

"Hey," she said in a perfectly controlled voice. Polite. Not inviting, not hostile.

Darkonefury's mouth curved like a guillotine, a cold smile that gleamed with a hint of fang. "Heard the rumours, have you?" he said.

"Rumours?" She put a tiny bit of doubt into her voice, but made the mistake of looking up.

Bright eyes met hers, so light a hazel as to be gold. Angry eyes. Darkonefury didn't like her and made no secret of it. He crouched down so he was barely a foot away, and that close, the sense of him was overwhelming, tart as lime on her tongue.

"See, I don't like rumour," he said as if she hadn't even spoken. "I don't like people all that much and I'm tired of all the insults and cheap shots I have to put up with. And I don't like being stared at by some human who doesn't have the sense or manners to hide her thoughts."

"Excuse me?"

"In fact," Darkonefury said, "you leave me and you leave my friends alone or..." His face was an inch or two away now, the imperious glare boring into her, "Something nasty might just happen."

"You already did," she said, spacing out the words to put all the snap on them she could, not leaning back an inch. And then it clicked.

Black hair. Gold eyes. And a chip on his shoulder - gods, he didn't have a chip on his shoulder so much as a whole potato farm. He was one of the ones she'd been sent to look for.

"Cougar Redfern," she added softly, hardly aware she'd said it aloud.

His face froze, but not before she'd seen the fear there. She'd surprised him.

"Scrap the 'might'," he breathed, his eyes dawning brighter and brighter until she wanted to look away from the rage there. "It will happen." The words tumbled from him, and some part of her knew he was running scared but the other part was too busy being afraid herself, afraid she might well not survive this. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll wish your mother had drowned you, you'll wish you'd never come here, you'll wish you'd slit your pretty little wrists-"

Memory exploded into her head and suddenly Alisha wasn't even aware of him, only the horrible raging anger mingled with the fear, enough to trigger the tsunami of recollections. The years sloughed off like a snake skin, leaving the words ringing in her ears.

Slit your pretty little wrists.

X - X - X - X - X

After he had died, it had been a time of confusion, of...yes, of insanity. She had been ripped apart, any wish to live now utterly quenched by what had happened and she lived a half-life, lived truly in her memory of that last night.

Why hadn't she stopped him, how could she have done that, he was gone, he was gone and her heart was a jagged fistful of glass, she was a shell, a husk, a ghost.

She wanted to die. That was all, but no one ever left her alone and that was what she wanted most of all. To be able to think, to grieve without worrying what anyone else thought. She knew what they whispered about her in the village, that her tears were false, that maybe she had pushed him off that cliff herself...and they were right.

She had killed him surely as the fall.

And she only waited for an opportunity, for a way out. And eventually...one came.

Gwyn had gone searching for her at nightfall. Gwyn, her friend and his sister. She was too painful to be around, with exactly the same fierce look painted in softer, more feminine lines.

She knew what Tali was like at the moment; not herself. Gwyn hurt for her brother, the favourite of her three brothers but he was gone.

And then there were three.

It seemed she was doomed to lose a sibling every year. First it had been Venna, caught in a bandit's raid when she went riding. Then Fran and Issalf, taken by winter fever. And now her little brother, hurling away his own life in a moment of haste, a stupid and petulant action in her opinion, but then he had never been one to think. Heads over heels for Tali and she never really aware of his feelings. It was a pity.

Gwyn sighed, and pulled her tattered cloak a little tighter. Tali was mad walking in this.

But Tali was just plain crazy, grief-mad, Papa said. And this was not healthy grief. There seemed no end to it, no cessation, no release. Tali shoved the world away, and held her brother's memory in her arms every night. At first, people had been patient, but now, their sympathy was fading and in a way, Gwyn understood. Ieran would not have wanted Tali to waste away.

Thpugh she was just as sure her brother would not have wanted her to marry again. Ieran had been fiercely jealous of Tali, protective as a nesting hawk - and yet never dared show it to her. Gwyn had heard him raging, and tried to soothe his fears, but Tali had only seen his composure and his steadfast silence.

Two fools, if fools she had loved.

Gwyn had gone to see his body. She couldn't really connect it with her little brother for there was no personality there. Nothing of his secret and rare grin, his soft-spoken stories late at night, the way he slung his nephews up on his shoulders and played games with them. Nothing of his smouldering anger, the slam of his fist hitting the wall while he anguished over his love, his spat words.

He had always been sweet, if quiet, until Tali. More subtle than Gwyn, who knew people thought her overbearing and overwhelming. Everyone had adored him, even when he would wander off for a couple of days to leave her mother panicking and her older brothers laying bets on when he'd get back. So sad, she thought, that love should have made him so stern.

And when she saw the remains, she just thought; that's not my brother. That's just his body. He's somewhere else...and I hope he's a damn sight happier than Tali made him.

Gwyn had known about Tali's liaison with David y Pelathas from the start, and known it was a bad idea because Tali was naïve and so naïve she didn't even know it.

But she knew too that only Tali could stop it, only Tali could learn from it.

And how harsh the lesson she had been taught. It unnerved Gwyn a little, the way Tali would look right through her.

The girl had seen his body and that was what had done it really. For Gwyn, it had been a curiosity. But the effect it would have had on Tali...it had sent her over the edge. And Gwyn had to follow to make sure her friend didn't do anything more stupid than usual before those fools had left her alone. She had glimpsed the pale figure in the rain on her way to confession, and decided confession could wait.

Ah! Gwyn squinted at the slender shape in the distance. White gown, fluttering as though it was made of cobwebs - her betrothal dress, Gwyn remembered - lank hair in rat tails. It had to be Tali - yes, it was, Tali waving that hunting knife that Papa had been missing.

Oh dear.

"Tali?" The girl didn't answer and it struck a chord of fear. "Tali?"

"Gwyn." A dreary statement, showing no surprise at her presence or even a flicker of interest. It was as though Tali expected her, or she made no difference. "Shouldn't you be at confession?" she said uncaringly. "Or are you my confessor?"

Gwyn looked at her. Tali was no different...no, that was not true. Her outward appearance was as flawless as it had always been, but her skin held an almost feverish glow, while the long curling strands of hair fell down her back in a tumbled disarray of fire and earth colours, tangled and matted.

And her grey eyes were lost, haunted so horribly.

"You have nothing to confess," she said sharply, worried and wanting to comfort, but not knowing how to reach across the chasm of time and space that stood between them. Poor, poor Tali - she was in some place that Gwyn would never reach, nor would ever want to.

Tali laughed without humour. "You're wrong. So wrong, Gwyn."

"Tali," Gwyn said in a perfectly level voice, "get away from there."

She was walking slowly, no, drifting in that tangled gown that she obviously hadn't changed out of since it happened, towards the cliff top, to the very same place.

Tali spun back with a speed Gwyn wouldn't have suspected under the broken exterior and mocked her with eyes that were clouded and empty.

She thinks we blame her, Gwyn said to herself. That's wrong. We hurt, and we miss him. But his feet took him there. She thinks it's all her fault and therefore everyone must think that too and, oh, what a mess.

"Come back," she said with all the gentleness she could muster. She did genuinely like Tali, she was like a sister but Gwyn had always found Tali a little uncontrolled. All passion and no thought.

She was relieved when Tali glided forward, a ghost with huge eyes and a beauty that had been ravaged. But her words stopped Gwyn short.

"Too late," Tali whispered. She smiled once, and lifted the knife high.

It caught in the moonlight and patterns glinted onto her face, changing, spinning, gleaming as the knife fell.

Until they were gone.

X - X - X - X - X

And it was as if that knife suddenly hit her again, that hollow empty pain, and here was this Darkonefury threatening - threatening her. Her hand balled into a fist. Fire searing like anger or was it the other way around?

"-and you'll wish you were in hell by the time I'm done," he hissed and Alisha's volatile temper hit boiling point at a rate of knots.

Her fist lashed out and hit him with all her considerable strength, and a speed gleaned from lives past, then she shot to her feet and glared at the vampire.

"Leave me alone," she said clearly, and strode away.

X - X - X - X - X

"I don't believe it!" Cougar Redfern said in disgust, holding his jaw. "She hit me." He sounded aghast and Chatoya agreed with him. A human hitting a vampire, especially Cougar, who was pretty formidable, with a vampire's strength and reflexes. She had to have been fast.

"About time," Ruby said with her usual bluntness.

"Excuse me?" Cougar Redfern's pride was legendary and it had just taken a considerable knock. Ruby had decided to kick him while he was down. "I was...oh hell, she spooked me. But she didn't have to hit me!"

Ruby nearly choked in disbelief. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she cried. "Did the big scawy girl scare the ickle vulnerable wampire?"

"It's wulnerable, if you're going to be like that," snapped Cougar, recovering himself quickly. "She knew my name. She knew who I was."

"Wake up and smell the valium," an exasperated Ruby continued, hands flashing in wide, descriptive gestures as Chatoya touched a gentle hand to Cougar's jaw to take the sting away. "This is the town where everyone knows your name!"

Chatoya rolled her eyes as the tirade continued. It would have been nice to get through one day without yet another argument.

Jepar caught her eye and gestured for her to follow him.

Chatoya followed the shapeshifter, wincing at the unrepentant sound of Cougar tripping up Ruby and the shrieks that followed. "Where are we going?" she said, raising her voice slightly.

Jepar indicated the figure of the human girl who was moving away from them without a glance back. "She scared our resident Redfern who is, let's face it, pretty unshockable. I'm curious."

"Yeah, well it killed the cat."

He just gave her a wink, and that trademark flashing smile that was genuine as it was bright. "You can only hope, Toya."

"She socks you in the jaw, I will have no sympathy," Chatoya retorted, struggling to keep up with the cheetah 'shifter's long strides. He was walking fast, normal pace for him but half-running for everyone else.

Jepar's voice was concerned. "She shouldn't have been able to do that. Even when Cougar's being a moron-"

"Which he has down to a fine, fine art."

"-he's fast enough to stop people hurting him."

He was right. So what was he saying? That the girl wasn't human, when she obviously was, because she didn't have the hunter's walk. Even a witch would be hard pushed to surprise a vampire, as she knew from bitter experience.

"I want to know," Jepar said with a grin. "Just who our mystery girl is."

And it would have taken a less curious pair to resist.

And I see myself
Turn into something else
Turn into someone else
For a while
And I know I'm right
Running into this night
Running another dream to the ground

X - X - X - X - X

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