Brave... Part 7: Light Up The Night

Note: This chapter and the next are where you get to know Dominique's clan. The story switches from one perspective to another among the five other adult members, and it also takes place concurrently with some of the events in the previous chapters. These two chapters follow a loosely progressive timeline of their own, but there will be some minor overlap between the five perspectives. You'll be able to use the clarion scroll being burned as a touchstone though, because all five of them will experience it. You'll also recognize events like the attack on the Eyrie building, Lockland's helicopter fleeing the scene, and Dominique calling Vercinix, and those cues should further help to keep the story's timeline clear in your mind as well. After these two chapters, the story will also check in on other characters too, before circling back to Elisa and Dominique, but I don't think you'll have any trouble following along on those.

Gliding across the city, Obsidiana saw the fireball in the distance and she alighted down on the roof of a nearby building to gaze at it. She watched, eyesight keen, as a helicopter fled the scene. "The Eyrie Building..." She spoke softly to herself, feeling a chill of dread at the thought.

She saw police helicopters scramble and give chase. She stepped off the building ledge and glided off after them to continue to watch what transpired. She wasn't as fast as the human-made flying vehicles of course, but she could still see far in the distance when a man jumped from the fleeing helicopter moments before it was shot from the sky by the a fighter jet from the nearby air force base. She came up short, shivering a little as she found another place to land.

She looked back towards the scene of the attack and wondered if her leader had finally acted against the human who'd lived there. It would be for the best if she had...

She considered going home, but she'd come out to think tonight. Dominique... She still ached inside for the loss of her. She... missed being with her, missed touching her, missed being touched that way... She closed her eyes. She wondered all over again... what she'd done wrong, and how she hadn't been enough? She'd thought she'd finally found someone that could... take her loneliness away.

She looked down at her wrist, at the bracelet she wore there. Vercinix had given it to her when she and Dominique had become close, so she could follow her out among the humans when she became one of them. Such a strange and disturbing thing... to become something other than who she'd always been. It was still hard to reconcile—all of it was, as far as humans went. She hated them, but the thought of being like them, being as violent as they were, disgusted her to her core... and she'd made herself one of them. She'd... even become friends with one of them. Robyn... She hadn't seen her, not since Dominique had ended things. She hadn't used the bracelet since, not even once.

But... she hadn't given it back to Vercinix either, and he hadn't asked. He'd rarely used it in any case, she supposed, but she preferred to think that his not asking was more because he believed that she and Dominique would reconcile eventually, rather than simple disinterest on his part. She preferred to think that they would reconcile eventually as well... She only wished it would happen at least a little sooner than the term eventually would seem to imply...

She'd had a lover once before having met Dominique. Her name had been Turquesa. They'd known each other since birth, but it hadn't been... They hadn't been a good match. As lovers, they'd made bad friends, as Zafiro had once observed of them. She hadn't known why, or what had been missing... that is, until she'd met Dominique Destine. Until she'd made love with her... and now, she had no words for how much she missed the way that had made her feel... The closest she could come would be to say that, when she and Dominique had been together, she'd felt... like she really, truly belonged somewhere, and with someone...

She closed her eyes and stood, feeling the wind for several long moments, letting her thoughts drift away on the air.

She opened her eyes and pushed up in a jump, her wings catching the current and carrying her aloft.

She didn't want to be alone after all, she decided. She wanted clan—she wanted to be home.

A few moments later, Dominique's image formed in her mind's eye, telling her to head home now to help defend the mansion, that there might be danger coming. Griff or Vercinix must had used one of the clarion scrolls Una had made for them—once burned, the scroll would show a spoken message to anyone whose blood had been mixed into the ink used to write the spell. In this case, Una, Leo, Griff, Vercinix, Dominique, and herself would all receive the message at once. It was a one way communication however. She couldn't reply. She had a cellular telephone of course, all of them took one when they left to venture out into the city, but the use of one of the clarion scrolls meant that she wasn't to use the cellular for worry that it could be spied upon.

She angled her wings to coax as much speed out of her glide path that she could, mind whirling with old, remembered terrors that she fervently hoped would not be repeated tonight...

A tall, regal woman, long blonde hair streaked with white, accompanied by an only slightly taller, equally regal man, his long mane of graying dusky blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, walked among a crowd exiting a late presentation of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II. The crowd washed around them and the woman looked about the plaza, a little caught by the experience of it. She and her husband had done this sort of thing before, but... to walk among them like this, one of them—she doubted she would ever grow used to it. She doubted too whether she would ever feel easy about the deception, either. A part of her stubbornly felt that she was disgracing herself, putting on a charade like this. But it was an old feeling that she should be long accustomed to by now. She'd felt much the same about the pretense they'd affected back in London, pretending to be eccentric shopkeepers wearing masks and costumes and using small glamour spells to ensure no one looked too closely or thought too deeply about the lie.

Leo watched her fondly, but with old worry in his eyes. He squeezed her hand a little and Una looked to him, meeting his gaze. They each saw the struggle in each other's eyes. "It was a beautiful performance..." He spoke, his voice low.

Her husband's voice sent a thrill of sensory experience through her. The music had affected her, she was forced to admit. The romance of it. And the allure of being... one among many. "Oh, my love..." She sighed, stepping into him and laying her head on his shoulder as he wrapped her up in his strong embrace. They stood like that for a long moment, until Una pulled back and gazed into his eyes once more. "It was beautiful, but only so much so because I am with you." She told him, cupping his jaw. She felt the truth of the fur, and the illusory skin both at once. The talismans she'd fashioned that let them take on human seeming only transformed them so much. Their true selves shone through in some ways, particularly to each other. It wasn't nearly the full transformation Titania's bracelets could give. The magic could be dispelled by anyone looking too closely at them and disbelieving what they saw. She wasn't nearly as skilled at such spells as she might wish to be. As she would be, one day soon, she stubbornly told herself. Still, she preferred her own magic to that of the bracelets. Her enchantment only cast a thin seeming over them with only a fragile physicality. It left her and her husband less vulnerable, as they retained their strength and the sharpness of their claws this way, and could revert to their true selves with only a thought. It also kept them more themselves, which she appreciated.

Leo felt the caress, felt Una's closeness, and bent in for a kiss. Una's lips met his and they took their time with each other. The kiss was a singular experience, not only for the inherent romance and beauty of it, but for the doubling effect the glamour had on them. It felt both at once as though he were kissing Una as they really were, and kissing her as though they were both truly human. It shouldn't be exactly possible, because their human seemings and their true gargoyle bodies were constructed so differently. It made his head hurt a little sometimes to think of things like this in fact, but whether he understood it or whether it should be able to happen really made no difference. It was happening. It was... magic.

The kiss finished, Leo asked if Una would like to walk the distance home with him, instead of fly or take a cab. They had the time, so Una easily agreed, meaning to treasure this time she had to be alone with the one she loved and have nothing more to do than simply enjoy his company.

Sometime later, as they were walking through central park, Leo sensed the humans before they sprung their ambush, surrounding them, knives drawn. "Nice night for a walk. You fine folks enjoying yourselves?" One of the men asked, a hard, bitter edge to his voice.

Leo stepped forward. "I'll give you a fair chance. Leave off now, or I'll make you regret it." He told them, a deep vibrancy in his voice that was something other than human.

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen." The same man replied.

Leo was at him then, grabbing his wrist, crushing it in his hand to make him drop his knife, pulling him forward, hefting him up off his feet, and tossing him into another of the attackers.

Una stepped aside as a man lunged at her with his knife, punching him in the jaw. She heard Leo cry out in pain as one of the knives found his ribs. He roared in fury and backhanded the man who'd struck him with a closed fist.

Una felt a cold fury go over her. How dare they do this? What gave them any right? The men had been driven back by Leo's roar and she backed into him, taking his hand in hers. She thrust her other hand into the air, and cast her spell. "In summum ignem..." She spoke in a solemn, soft voice. It sickened her to do this, but she would never let anyone harm any of her clan, her beloved least of all. She would take no more chances with his safety this night.

The spell cast, the words vibrating through the air in an otherworldly sort of way, the fire came, flaring out around them in whisper silent circles, sweeping then men away. Their enemies had no time to cry out—one moment they were there, the next only ash on the breeze... End in fire, the words to the spell she'd spoken had meant.

Una gasped, letting go of her husband and sinking to her knees on the ground, her hand burned, her transformation to human seeming destabilizing and fading away. She'd used a hand-made bracelet as a focus for her spell, and the bracelet was gone now, burned away.

"Una, love... How bad is it?" Leo asked.

"Stupid." She said. "Stupid that we came this way. Stupid that I... I've never attempted that spell before. I'm sorry." Una told him. The spell had been one of her own making. She had a number of books with spells written in them, a goodly number of which she could cast safely, but she'd been experimenting with imbuing objects with magic, in the same way the humans who had once befriended Obsidiana's tribe had learned to do. If she could master it—give her clan magical weapons in objects that they could carry with them—it would be one more way for her to be of use to her clan, to keep them safe... So far though, she'd only managed a few successes, like the charm that had let them temporarily take on human seeming. She would master them one day before she died though, she was determined. It would be her gift to their children—her legacy.

"...You're too hard on yourself by half, I've always said so..." Leo told her by way of offering comfort.

"Maybe I am." She admitted. "Someone needs to be."

There was the sound of a helicopter approaching. The two looked up and saw it cross overhead, Leo letting out a held breath as it passed them by.

"I think that's someone telling us it's time we called it a night, don't you think?" Leo asked.

Una sighed and let him help her to her feet. "Agreed." She admitted, going closer to him, her hand hovering over the gash in his side. "How deep?" She asked.

"Ain't so bad." Leo offered.

"Let me see?" She asked.

As she knelt beside him to have a better look, she stilled as Dominique's visage appeared before her eyes and her skin flushed cold with dread.

"We're needed." Leo spoke solemnly once their sister's message was done.

"Yes." Una replied, closing her eyes momentarily, before opening them again. "You know what I have to do. You know... this will hurt you horribly?" She asked. The warning meant an attack, but not necessarily one on the mansion (it never had been that before, at least), but the chance that their children could be in danger? They couldn't risk it, not on any account.

"Needs must, love. Needs must." He gave her a brash smile Griff would have been proud of and Una felt cheered a bit.

She took out a spool of string from her purse that was tied to a copper ring. She wound it around her beloved's torso, tying the other end fast to the ring. The ring was an ancient artifact Dominique had found for her last year and that she'd since learned how to use, rather than one she'd crafted herself. If she had crafted it herself, she would have attempted to make it hurt not quite so damned much to use the bloody thing. Not that she could make a better alternative to it herself at the moment, of course... but hopefully she would manage it one day. Today wasn't that day though, so, with sorrowful resignation, she bent in and kissed the ring, speaking softly in Irish. "Craiceann fíor. Geal fola. Chorp ar fad." She incanted the spell. Skin true. Blood bright. Body whole. That's what the words meant. It was the blood bright bit that gave the torment, because enacting this spell... it felt just as though your blood were set to burning...

After a moment, the spell struck and the string seemed to flare with a winding light that built and flashed so brightly that Una had to stumble back and cover her eyes.

Leo roared, falling to catch himself on one knee, breathing hard, panting, eyes unfocused.

"Beloved?" Una asked, going to crouch by him.

"F... Fine. Right as rain." He got out between a clenched jaw.

Una reached to almost touch the place on her husband's side where the wound had been. It was gone now, but Una... had used this particular magic on herself once. She knew full well just how much pain it caused and she hated herself a little for inflicting that on the one she was meant to love—the one she was supposed to be a balm too, not a curse. "I'm sorry." She told him, hurting for him inside, for what she'd just done to him.

He gave her a shaky smile. "We're needed." He told her, all compassion and forgiveness in his tone.

She smiled. "You're far too good for me, I think." She told him.

"Nah. Other way around, love. Exactly the other way 'round." Leo cupped her cheek and gave her a quick kiss which had Una's skin heating a little. Just when she'd thought she couldn't love this man any more, he goes and does something so noble as this?

She bent down and picked up the copper ring, wanting to throw the cursed thing far away into the darkened wood, never to be seen by her again. She put it into her purse though, stood up to her feet and offered her husband a hand up this time.

He took it and shakily got to his feet.

"Can you fly?" She asked, moving to him, touching his cheek as he had hers.

"Yes." Leo said. "And if any threaten our clan this night, they will soon come to sorely regret that fact before the night is out, I assure you."

He took a running start and Una followed after him, the both of them catching the wind in their wings and taking to the air.

Griff stood by the fountain in the mansion's main clearing, looking off into the trees. The three youngest of their clan, plus Aslan, were out there, seen by him as only flashes between the leaves at times, chasing each other about and generally having a fine time. Even over the din of the city though, he could hear them and know they were well. He wished he could join them in their play, but they were in unfriendly territory—being a gargoyle, he knew, meant that would always be the case... to one extent or another.

Here, on the mansion grounds, they were relatively safe. Dominique, their leader, had purchased this place several years ago now, and outfitted it with the most advanced security measures money could buy. Una, one of the two gargoyles he'd grown up with in London, had also protected their sanctuary with what magical means she could manage. Still, assuming they were safe was something he'd learned early in life wasn't something you did—not ever, not if you wanted to stay alive, and especially not where the clan's children were involved.

So, he kept vigil.

Upstairs, his husband, Vercinix, was training the two oldest of the children in self-defense and grappling. He and his husband were both time-lost, they had that in common. Nevertheless, as much a stranger here as Griff knew himself to be, having skipped forward in time several years and traveled across an ocean to settle in a foreign country, this was still a modern, human, English speaking city, one that looked and felt different only in some ways from the London of his youth. In his husband's case however, the time jump had been far more severe. He and his clan sister, Mendela, had grown up a thousand years ago, been clan brother and sister to Dominique in fact, and been saved by her and a fae princess named Fox from the fall of castle Wyvern, then brought to the modern world by the magic of the Phoenix Gate—an artifact of fae make that was likewise responsible for his own arrival in the modern era.

To have gone from a time when the gargoyle race had still thrived and had been at relative peace with human kind, to now, when only a few clans had survived in hiding or seclusion, all but forgotten by the humans that had nearly been the death of them all? He could hardly imagine the shock of it. Vercinix still managed only just adequate English most days, and rarely left the grounds of their home unless Griff cajoled him into it. His clan sister, Mendela, who'd been granted the ability to change her appearance at will like the fae by Titania, the fae queen, as a reward for risking much on her behalf, came to visit with them only rarely. She and Titania had fallen in love, often tempestuous and seeming fragile as their relationship had been reported to be, and were off doing... who bloody knew what, really. According to Fox, you'd have about as much luck trying to have a plainspoken conversation with Titania as you'd have striking up a conversation with the sky itself. To have lost Mendela's anchoring presence in his life on top of everything else had been a hard blow for his husband, and Griff was still trying to heal the damage. Oh, he still had Dominique, that was true, but she'd been so changed by her unnaturally long life that, well, how much did Vercinix truly recognize the woman any longer? Another thing he could hardly imagine...

He understood falling in love, truly he did, but sometimes... he really did want to give Mendela a piece of his mind for having gone off and abandoned them like she had. And Titania—if the bloody fae queen really had loved her so, couldn't she have seen past her issues with her daughter and Dominique, whatever they were, and made peace for Mendela's sake instead of making her choose?

At length, Arista came bursting out of the woods into the clearing, bounding on all fours across the space towards him, Pegasus, Aslan, and little Kyan trailing after her. Arista looked back, saw them, and climbed up the fountain, to the top. Griff laughed, turning to look up at her. "Queen of all you survey, is that it?"

"Yes! Definitely yes!" Arista giggled. "Come and get me, I dare you!" She called to the two boys.

Pegasus didn't hesitate, he got a determined look on his face and rushed in, going after her. "You won't get away!" He called up.

"Yes I will. You're too slow!" Arista teased him, merriment in her eyes as her and Griff's eyes met a moment. He knew what she was going to do. It was so predictable.

Griff looked over to see Kyan watching the scene, having sat down on the grass to pet a happy Aslan. "Not going to go after them?" He asked. The boy looked to him and Griff saw his own eyes looking back. He was his and Obsidiana's biological son, and it was still a strange but wonderful thing to see himself so much in another gargoyle.

Kyan smiled and shook his head. Not that Griff had really expected any different. Kyan and Aslan were fairly inseparable most of the time, the little boy usually taking his cue from the great big lovable dog.

"Smart lad." He commented.

Pegasus got within tagging distance of his sister, only to have Arista giggle and push off, gliding across the yard back to the patio, winning the round. Pegasus sighed. "I knew she was going to do it too."

"Good you tried anyway though." Griff offered.

"I'll win next time, you'll see." He said, jumping off to go after her, gliding over the lawn in her wake.

"Oh, no doubt." He laughed, scooping up Kyan in his arms and depositing the laughing boy pickaback on his back as he went after the older two, Aslan meandering along at their side.

It was time to head in for a meal anyway.

( to be continued )

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