12.08.98; 21:05; Castle Wyvern, floor before the medical station:
Broadway came out of the infirmary, looking on his mate who leaned on the wall left of him.
"Well?" Angela asked him, full of worry.
"He looks fine." Broadway replied, walking beside her.
"Fine?" his mate asked back, more than a bit surprised.
"Under the conditions..." Broadway tried again, a bit calmer, stopping his movements.
"I wish I could speak with him." Angela told her mate, walking from the wall and up to him. "Maybe I could somehow divert him."
"Deborah is with him." Broadway replied. "And Goliath made clear that the clan should give him time."
Angela nodded, as she remembered the words of her father.
"It must be terrible for him to have lost a leg?" she noticed, embracing her mate.
"It is more than this, Angela." Broadway told her, embracing his mate in return. "It is about who he is."
Angela looked up to him, surprised.
"A gargoyle lives to protect." the cook explained. "This is what the elders taught us, this is what he taught us..."
"I know," Angela replied, "but what is it with the older ones? Look at the eldest for example."
"Even the eldest would fight if someone in the clan is in danger." Broadway noticed. "But with one leg..."
"He still can teach the other elders..." Angela explained convinced, "and the hatchlings. The clan needs him... I need him."
"I too." Broadway told his mate, softly stroking her hair. "And Goliath would never allow..."
Broadway stopped in half of the sentences, but when Angela slightly pushed away from him, he knew it was too late.
"Allow what?" Angela asked, staring into the eyes of her mate.
Broadway stopped, looking on the floor, feeling uneasy.
"Sometimes, when a member of the clan had lost his mate..." he began, "…or got a wound he couldn't live with… he decided to fly into the sun."
Angela stared on him.
"You mean they committed suicide?" she asked unbelieving. "And the clan allowed this?"
"It was a different time back then, Angela." Broadway tried to explain. "But Hudson has his mate... he wouldn't leave her now."
Both looked at each other, Angela still shocked.
"I have to look after the kitchens before the rest of the clan starves." Broadway said finally. "Would you like to help?"
Angela nodded, not knowing what else to do.