Brave... Part 21: An Everyday Sort of Life

Jason Langston felt dead tired as he walked down a side ally in a lower-middleclass residential part of the city. The sun had risen more than half an hour ago and he'd still not gotten a wink of sleep. Not that, present circumstances being what they were, he had much of any right to. He'd straight up failed in his job, after all—worse, he'd let the Demon best him, best his family, all over again. There'd been another attack out in the country too. It had been repelled, but the loss of life... A terrible, heavy thing to bear. What was more, it showed him plainly that this struggle between Xanatos and the Demon was far from over and time was not on his side. He needed to get a handle on this. He needed to find out who the Demon was using to carry out these attacks, and, most importantly, if she were truly guilty of something that would justify her death.

Last night, with Anna, it had been domestic bliss for him—all the things happily-ever-afters were made of in romance novels and the fairytales he'd read to his younger brother and sister growing up at bed times. Truly, if he'd have been asked to describe the perfect woman for him, his imaginings wouldn't have held a candle to the reality of Anna Kates. He'd sometimes caught himself wondering if she were just too good be true in fact, and he'd felt guilty for thinking it—guilty for being with her—for not being the kind of man, not being able to offer her the kind of life she deserved.

His work hours were horrible sometimes—but so too were hers, he'd told himself. She was a crusader for the good, and he was a hunter of the wicked. Neither of them led lives that could be easily lent to... to settling down and starting a family. Oh, but he wanted that though—wanted it more every time they kissed, every time he looked into her eyes, or took her to bed.

But he couldn't have it, and wouldn't want to inflict that on any child of his, as long as he hunted the Demon. He'd lived that life, he and his siblings too, and he'd not want to perpetuate that hardship, or that legacy, on to anyone—least of all onto his own children... No. He would end his family's burden here, in this city, in his own lifetime, and then he would let himself think of a wife, of children... Then he would give himself, heart and soul, to that, and do his damnedest to forget that the Demon or David bloody Xanatos had ever existed at all.

So, to that end, he couldn't afford to fail—not again. At times like this though, he found himself wondering if it was even possible to succeed in the way he yearned for. His family had hunted the Demon down through the centuries, and thwarted her a time or two, or so the stories told... but none of his blood had ever felled her. She went on—immortal and unyielding. Perhaps his family had been tilting at this windmill for time immemorial and had never had any chance of winning through? They'd called her the Demon—could she truly be one somehow? And, if she was, could she never truly be stopped—only thwarted and kept at bay? Were his children and his brother's children and his sister's children and their children's children and children's grandchildren and ever on doomed to the same fate as he, lest the world someday fall if they should ever falter too badly?

Maudlin thoughts he was having, he knew... He didn't usually indulge them this way, but... what a thing he'd found awaiting him when he'd gotten in after responding to Keith Redding's phone call last night. A good portion of the Eyrie Building's top floors were a burnt out mess, a working man who'd been on the floor below emptying trash bins had died when the ceiling had fallen onto him from above, there'd been the dead bodies of hired killers to be dealt with, police to be diplomatic with... and, to top it all off, Nick Blackfeather and Matt Bluestone in aggregate had ended up giving him a truly memorable headache.

Sly and a schemer Nick Blackfeather was, and more trouble than any one man or woman deserved... or perhaps, he considered, any man besides that troublesome employer of his. They made a good match, probably they did. He didn't particularly begrudge Xanatos for taking a male lover, though it did make him a bit uneasy to see them together and acting romantic if he were honest... He didn't know if such a thing would doom a man's soul as the church said it would, but it was likely a moot point in any case where David Xanatos was concerned. If there were a wrathful God above them in the heavens who'd cast a man down to the burning depths for transgressing against him in any manner he so chose (and he'd long ago started to harbor doubts if there actually were such a one), then, very likely, with all Xanatos had done to become as rich and powerful as he'd made of himself, the man had consigned himself to burning long before he'd ever met Blackfeather. Whatever the case, unless Blackfeather made of himself an impediment to him fulfilling his family's duty, it was far from being any concern of his.

Down near the end of the alley he walked, unlocking a door and entering into the darkness beyond. Down a hallway he went, and up a flight of stairs to a room on the four-story building's second floor. A blond man was there in the room, sitting on the floor against a wall reading a book. On seeing him, his brother, John, put aside his reading and stood to greet him. He wore average clothes and looked like a man who'd just done an honest day's work—Jason found that he was almost envious of that.

The building they were in was scheduled to be gutted on the morrow and turned into low income housing next month. John had a job as a shift worker here for the moment. One in a long line of odd jobs he took under various names for various reasons having to do with their investigations. In this case, this building was owned by a subsidiary of Nightstone Unlimited, part of a city-wide initiative on its part to improve the lives of the downtrodden... John was here trying to dig up wrongdoings. That was the mystery they'd found themselves burdened with—that either the Demon had, several years back, all the sudden taken it upon herself to become a humanitarian, or there was some cancer in all of this they'd yet to figure the workings of.

That the creature that had murdered his father in cold blood was doing such things now, and at the same time as she was ordering an assassination, twisted something in his gut he didn't know how to put a name to just yet.

"You look like you've been through it." John said to him.

"That I have." Jason replied, going to give his little brother a hug (or, not so little a brother any longer he reminded himself, as they were now of a similar height). "What do you have for me?" He asked.

John sighed. "The man you'll want, I have a name for you: Jericho Lockland. I'm not certain of much more than that—not yet."

"The name might well be enough." Jason answered, a predatory gleam coming to his eyes.

He'd find this man. He'd make him tell all. He'd get to the bottom of all of this.

Things were moving at last—he could feel it.

Across the Atlantic ocean, some 5,600 kilometers away and 5 hours ahead, in a bustling public square in Shoreditch, London, England, Dominique's friend and onetime lover, Fox, sat at a table in an outdoor plaza. She was talking with a gallery proprietor named Hamilton Worth, and his buyer/business partner, Olivia Kane. Fox had come to consider both of them friends, despite the facts that they'd first met when she'd been promoting her lover, Lowenna's work about town, and that they continued to sell her work at their gallery to this day.

"Her work can be just so otherworldly at times, especially lately, while, in other cases, so real and... wonderfully ordinary." Hamilton mused, sipping his tea. "It wasn't that way in the beginning... but then, I suppose that's just Wen's growing as an artist. Happens to the best of us, you know. People have such a wide range of reactions. I have to say, it's getting quite interesting to observe."

"I'm sure she'd be delighted to hear you say so." And she would too—Lowenna (Wen for short) adored having herself or her work sincerely flattered. Fox sipped her own tea, which was blackberry leaf, her mind wandering to the store inventorying Shelley, her and Wen's assistant shopkeeper, had suggested yesterday. Fox and Wen had done that a few times over the last several years—once it had just been the two of them, and once had been when Mark had been with them. She wondered whatever had happened to Mark. He'd met a woman and moved to Wales with her, she recalled. He'd wanted be an actor, hadn't he? Had he ever managed it, or had he gotten himself in the family way with that lady of his and given it up? Did they still have his number? She made a mental note to call him and catch up. Really, things like that slipped her mind far too easily sometimes. There was just so much in her life these days. "So, this exhibit in Hoxton you're putting on...?" She questioned, bringing her mind back to the subject at hand.

"We'd like to feature your girl quite prominently, Ms. Fox." Olivia provided, smiling gently as she sipped her espresso (breaker of British tradition that she was).

"Now, now, none of that again. It's just Fox, remember...?" Fox reminded her playfully. "I'd also enjoy being called Foxy, if you're ever in the mood." Olivia did have a habit of being fairly formal in business matters, but Fox was certain her friend only called her Ms. Fox during business meetings sometimes as a tease, not because she was genuinely forgetful on the matter, and because she enjoyed the flirting game they had going between them. Olivia was straight, and Fox was very much already taken, so of course it wouldn't go anywhere. It was just their thing. Or Fox rather liked to think so anyway—that Olivia didn't make a habit of just flirting with any random lesbian she encountered. Not that, she considered, she herself was a lesbian, strictly speaking. It wasn't even the fact that she'd been with a few men over the years, because she'd hadn't been since she was much younger. No, it was more that Wen had taught her how to use her inborn talents as a changeling several years ago, even before things had gotten so serious between them, so Fox knew she could just as easily become a man herself if she ever wanted. She hadn't tried it so far, and Wen was set in her ways about that too, not having experimented with a male gender since her youth hundreds of thousands of years into the distant past before human kind had even been created, but Wen had told her once that their kind, the children of Avalon, really had no true gender. She'd told her that the bodies they presented to the world were only adornments and expressions to them, when what was true was all only a blazing fire of magics. That being the case, Fox supposed, it might be impossible to accurately label her as a lesbian, or anything else but a changeling, actually. How could you accurately label someone without a real gender with a gender-specific label, after all? True, Fox knew she was only a half-breed (half human, half fae) but Wen and her mother both had assured her that that really didn't count for much in the long run, because the more she used her magic, the more fae she would become, until, in due course, she'd lose all traces of humanity. She hadn't used her magic very much over the last few years, but she had done so more than enough the years prior when she'd traveled the world with Dominique that she really didn't think there was much likelihood that there was any humanity left in her by this point. If there were, she doubted it was more than a few drops... She still wasn't sure how she felt about that, or about a lot of things, actually...

"Right, yes, sorry Foxy." Olivia smiled fondly, her eyes dancing a little. "...Anyway, her work would be one of our two centerpieces."

"Her reputation is spreading more than it ever has." Hamilton laughed. "My good friends, Brice and Ellen Wentworth, swear the seascape of hers they purchased last month sometimes seems almost alive to them when they look at it. Can you imagine?"

Fox smiled. "Oh, you'd be surprised at all the things I can imagine some days." She mused, feeling warmed by the compliments to her lover's work. As proud as Wen could be of herself sometimes, Fox was even more so, she was sure. She cherished everything about the woman it seemed. She only hoped they could manage to keep what they'd found with one another in the long term. The Gathering wasn't that far away, and Fox still didn't like to think about what that could mean for the life she and Wen had built here for themselves, let alone what the endless millennia after could portend. Could any of the fae, of which she could now count herself among, say they'd fallen in love and stayed so to this day? Her mother certainly couldn't—that, at least, she knew. She knew also that she and her mother had an often-times uncomfortable number of traits in common... She only wished she knew what had happened between her and Oberon, but her mother would never say, and Fox herself had yet to meet the man.

"I've no doubt." Hamilton said warmly. He was a very kind sort of man—trusting, with not much of a head for the uglier side of business. Luckily, Olivia was sharp enough to keep them from any bad dealings in the business world, and his (as yet, not legally recognized) husband, Anders Lanning, had a head for numbers (he traded stocks professionally). Hamilton himself had an eye for presentation, visually and in words, possibly owing to him being an artist himself—a sculptor of some modest yet genuine skill who sold his work on consignment through a friend of Olivia's.

"Who's the other featured artist going to be?" She asked, curiously. These things mattered. She only wished she could draw her lover out enough to take part in conversations like this more often... but Wen was in a wistful and wandering mood today and had begged off. She often did so. She liked playing at being mortal, but she had a weakness for mischief and meddling that tended to come out when she was asked to converse with mortals in the more superficial types of social settings. Trying to engage Wen in small talk could be rather like waving a red flag in front of a bull sometimes... Really, the ease and skill of her deviousness as a conversationalist were, at times, simply breathtaking to watch. She could start or end romances, break up or save marriages, cause or mend rifts between friends or family, and often without anyone but Fox being the wiser. Fox supposed it came from having lived as long as she had... Wen was people watching a little ways away right now, something she seemed to find endlessly fascinating... It was actually surprising, how at peace Wen had been with her these last few years. She seemed almost a different person altogether than the woman she'd been when they'd met.

"His name is James Harper." Olivia supplied. "I don't suppose you recognize the name?"

"I do, actually." Fox answered. "I saw a piece of his in a little shop on the Thames a few months ago—a watercolor of a stalking leopard. It was fairly compelling."

"I've seen that one." Olivia answered, lively. She obviously admired the artist in question—and not only for his work, Fox would guess by the slightly hungry look in her eyes. Olivia had a weakness for artists when it came to dating, Fox had learned, but also had a hard time staying in a relationship. Wen had even played matchmaker for her once, and it had all fallen through the very next day. When Fox had asked her about it, Olivia had only said that she supposed she had standards that were too high. Fox hadn't been able to argue that, because, besides Wen and Dominique, she'd gone through a very long list of lovers herself, and had rarely stayed with them for very long. Things with Dominique had been intense, often heady, often stormy or heart-wrenching, but never very stayed, and never very simple. She'd loved her, loved her still, but had she been in love? She... liked to think she had, but that time in her life was still so twisted up in her memories, all tangled about with guilt and her falling out with her mother, that it was hard to really know what she felt or had felt much of the time... Except for that love and friendship of course, those she was sure of if nothing else. Wen, on the other hand, she was far from uncertain about... This time, here, with her? She knew she could truly say without any doubts... that she'd fallen deeply in love... And it was a simple, uncomplicated, freeing sort of feeling too, one she hoped would last... maybe forever. So, maybe she had high standards too, or at least particular ones? She only hoped Olivia would someday find someone like that for herself. Most people didn't, she knew—by naïve or dower choice, or by poor circumstance.

"You think their work will complement well?" Fox asked.

"Oh, very much so." Hamilton answered. "Their styles are different enough to contrast, but similar enough that they look at home together."

"They're both quite innovative as well, and should appeal to roughly the same demographics." Olivia added.

Fox smiled, pleased. "What do you think attendance will be like?"

A ways across the square, the woman who was now calling herself Lowenna O'shaughnessy sat on a short wall backed by flowering hedges that circled statuary. Currently, she was watching a mortal woman, slowed and fading with age and fast-approaching death, who was feeding a small gathering of pidgins. Mortals were almost always so open and jumping with all kinds of winding emotions, ones that were all plain as day to see to anyone who knew what to look for.

Her better half was over talking with their friends, Olivia and Hamilton, around a nearby table. She glanced over at her, at her Fox—her trusted friend, her princess, her lover, her beloved one... It was such a strange thing, having someone to be her friend, to be her lover, to be in love... The fact that she was a princess to her people, that she was Titania's half-breed daughter, didn't matter much in comparison, truly... though it was true she'd have to be more than daft to ever want to get on the wrong side of the queen. That she knew, having done so a time or two in the past. So family visits weren't always easy for her because it was often her nature to make trouble whenever it was a bad idea to make trouble. Those other things though—having a friend, having a lover, and all the myriad things those things entailed—those things had grown to be far more alien to her in recent millennia than she really liked to think about. She found she'd rather gotten used to it over the last few years though... She'd even gotten used to the humans, to living like one, to living among them, to... having someone...

Those were her paintings, her works, that her Fox (her Foxy Fox now, apparently, if her absent eavesdropping was to be believed) was discussing with the gallery owners over at that table—hers. She'd made a name for herself with them, if only locally. She sighed and turned back to see the mortal woman she'd been watching gone. She looked to the right and saw her... a certain sagging in her shoulders that said much—many things that she knew intimately well. Impulsively, she hopped down from her perch and strolled off after her. Her quarry had a slow step to her, so there was no need to rush. In short enough order, she'd come up beside her. "Care for a bit of company on your walk, today?" She asked.

Startled, the fading mortal looked up and saw her. Wen knew she would seem to all the world, and the woman before her specifically, like a fresh faced twenty-something—full of life and youth and promise. "And what would a young thing like you want to do with an old woman like me?" The woman asked.

"Only that I noticed you looking unhappy... In ways I have once known as well as one such as I may. Worse by far than yours in some ways, perhaps? Could I guess? What are a mortal's woes in an endless sea, after all? Little or much? A flicker forgotten once done, or a wayfarer that drags them about behind them when cast upon the greater ocean? In either case... I thought you might just do with someone to talk with just now?" She asked, because it was true. "I offer myself to the task." She'd been alone and bitter, hot-tempered and scheming more than any mortal ever could be. She'd been saved from all that though—as though woken from a long nightmare with a kiss... A kiss from a faerie princess, no less.

"Oh, do you really now?" The woman asked. Really, all the pretentious attempts at poetry this girl was spouting? She'd heard it all before. She'd missed it, honestly—but it would probably hurt more than help, by this point, to have a round of conversation with a spirited youth and then walk away. She'd just end up back home in an empty place, nothing to look forward to that amounted to much. Being old and alone was a curse. She should have died young, she considered—doing something memorable.

"You ask me if I lie?" Wen questioned, amused. It was more of a fair accusation than the woman could possibly guess. For oh the many lies and winding little tales she'd told over the years, and oh how many she'd hurt by them for her own misery's sake... Thankfully, she was trying to be a much better sort of lady these days though, was she not? Selfishly perhaps—if acting as she did all for the love of a charming lass could rightfully be called so—which, aye, perhaps it may well be thus.

The woman shook her head. "Never you mind what I ask... Just leave me be, will you? I've no use for talking today."

Wen considered that. "What would you have a use for then?"

"A chance to live my life all over again?" She told her sarcastically.

Wen smiled. "Easily enough done."

The woman paused and looked at her and saw something fae in her eyes. "Lord preserve me..." She whispered.

"None of that now. You asked a favor of me. You can't very well take it back now, can you?" Wen asked playfully.

"Take... what back, exactly?" The woman asked, wary. Either something was very wrong here, or she'd finally gone senile. Oh, and wouldn't that just be a right fitting thing if it were so?

Wen spoke, soft and resonant, and the air and magic danced for her. "Oh, lady sad, oh, lady mad—your life you regret, so upon my favor, let your body simply... forget." She cast the spell, twirling the woman around in a circle by one hand as though they were having a waltz. At the start, the woman was as she had been, but by the end, the two of them looked of an age.

The recipient of her generosity of spirit looked dazed, looking down at herself and at her in wonderment.

Wen regarded her work and smiled. "I do fine work, I think." She looked off towards her Foxy Fox, whom she was even still splitting her attention to listen in on from afar in a slightly out of time sort of way, and who was just now getting up from her meeting, giving Hamilton and Olivia hugs goodbye. She sometimes liked watching her love from afar as she'd been, found it fascinating and a little enthralling, but it was only ever enough for her for a time. She always tired of it and wanted to be with her, rather than only the watching of her. So it was now that she suddenly found herself very much wanting to go to her Fox and kiss her, to take her home and be about merrily coupling with her again for a while—it was a thirst that seemed to be ever with her these days, to her delight. They had planned to go clothes shopping after this, but she felt confident in her chances of talking her lover out of that, in favor of other tongue-related activities. She turned back to the woman she'd just now enchanted. "Enjoy your youth, and think of me fondly, lady fair." She smiled, turning and walking away back towards where she'd come from, already daydreaming about slowly undressing her lover. Her Fox made a game of that sometimes, buying clothing with complicated little ties and clasps, because she knew it excited and fascinated her.

"Wait..." The woman called a little feebly after her a moment later.

Wen didn't though. A man was looking at her, and she noticed a few others nearby were too. She hadn't exactly been discrete. She sighed. "Mortals about, who witnessed me, forget your troubled sight, and let me be..." She waved her hand absently, causing all but the woman she'd made young again to forget what they'd seen. She didn't need word getting out that she was a djinn free of her magic lamp or some such nonsense. She wanted to be famous for her paintings, not as some silly messiah, or, more likely, she considered with a smirk, some wicked, trifling devil.

"Oy, wait up, will you—please?" The woman asked, jogging up to walk with her.

"Yes?" Wen asked, stopping and turning back to her, feeling excitement again, because the game wasn't over yet, apparently. She was conflicted though, images of delicate little knots for her to untie to gain her lady's splendor still dancing about her head.

"Who are you?" The woman asked as she came to a stop her.

"Lowenna." Wen replied, eyes alight. "It's a Scottish name. It means joyful, I'll have you know." She explained. "Why? Who are you?" She asked, enjoying the game again. She did love leaving the mortals tongue tied. It was very fun. Besides, the waiting of just a little while longer to have her lover to herself would only make it all the sweeter. That was the kind of mood she was in—high on living life, and wanting to play a bit before she let her passions out. Maybe she'd go shopping with her Foxy Fox after all? She was in the mood to play dress-up with her suddenly. Something with bows and ribbons maybe...?

"I... I'm Candice. Candice Hastings. I used to be a professor of folklore at Oxford, once upon a time... Are you a faerie then?" She asked, rather boldly, her eyes stunned and struck with a wonder.

Wen laughed. "Some would say so, though far more have known me by another name. Far more know me well, as the Banshee." She turned a wicked, teasing smile on her new friend, making her eyes glow a pale bright white and letting a little of the fae she truly was show through, if only for this one woman's eyes to see.

Candice Hastings gasped. "...A Banshee? For truly?"

"Not A anything, my lovely lass." She stroked the woman's cheek in a fond caress. "The, as in, the only one who ever was nor ever will be, I should have you know." She answered, pretending to be annoyed and flirtatious because it was fun to. Also, a proper mortal lady was expected to have her vanities on occasion, wasn't she? Or was that considered partly anachronistic this late in the decade? It was hard to keep track. Sometimes it seemed to her the human mortals had been wrought upon the sage only yet recently, whereas other times, it seemed as though they'd always been about, working their trifles and mischiefs wherever they went.

"...I'm sorry. I didn't mean offense." Candice answered nervously, as Wen moved in closer, her eyes unsettlingly alive and intimate, though they no longer glowed.

"Well, no, of course you wouldn't have, would you? What do you take me for, a lackwit?" She continued the tease in a soft, fond voice.

"No! Of course... You're having me on, aren't you?" Candice realized.

Wen smiled, joyful as her namesake. "Only a little." She confessed, stepping back a bit to give the woman a little more space. "But come now, I've solved your problem, have I not—and given you a slew of more delightful problems to take their place? What more could you want of me? A pretty hat? Would you like a pretty hat? With a bow?"

Candice blinked, and then started giggling. "Um, no... No hat necessary. I, um, I suppose I've always been more inquisitive than was good for me. I mean to say, here I am... a woman who's—who's spent her life studying myth and folklore and, quite aside from the miracle you've worked on me, which I should... I should be thanking you for, shouldn't I? Well, I just, I want to talk with you! If you'll, I mean... if you'd be amenable?"

Wen considered that. Candice was a bold one, and she had a lost and hollowed-out quality that spoke to her, that made her want to offer healing. More, she... had the feeling Candice might make a good friend. Her Foxy Fox was almost always the one who made friends for them, she did want to contribute more to that than she was. Her Fox would be proud of her for this, she considered, smiling. "Very well. I think I'd enjoy that."

"You would? Truly?" Candice asked, feeling joyful herself. She'd been alone—all her friends dead or no longer friends, and no family left she'd care to speak to either. After her retirement, she'd simply let herself... fade away, hadn't she? Lost the life in her life. She hardly knew what to make of what had just become of her, but she wasn't about to look at a gift like this too closely. She knew all too well what many of the stories said happened to those who messed about with magical beings... But then, up until this very hour, she hadn't ever thought magic could be real, let alone that she might chance on such a woman as she had while simply walking about town.

What good was a second chance at life to her if she didn't do what she hadn't the first time?

What use would it be at all, if she didn't let herself take a chance?

( to be continued )

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