The Logic of Dreams

Disclaimer: I do not own The Gargoyles, or any characters there in. Nor do I own anyone's opinions or takes on these characters. This is simply my view on certain characters, and any semblance to other fanfics is completely unintentional. Note: This fic is taking place in 1997, and the Goliath Chronicles did not occur in this timeline. Logic of Dreams is the first fic in my gargoyles series. I hope you enjoy;)

The dreams are always the same.

Demona walked along the turrets of Castle Wyvern, staring in horror at the sight before her. Smoke rose from the fires in the courtyard, choking the air and making the blue gargoyle's eyes smart. There was no sound but the wail of the wind and the crackle of flame.

"Brothers! Sisters!" The immortal called, staring out into the night sky, wondering why there was no sound of gargoyle wings in the air, no silhouettes against the moon... No sounds that she associated with a full clan of gargoyles.

Her talons struck some gravel and large stones. She froze and glanced down, wondering if it had come from the walls.

But no, the walls were relatively undamaged here... but still they were covered in stones and gravel of various sizes.

"No..."

Demona dropped to her knees and picked up a double handful of the stones. At first it seemed normal enough, but then she saw a fragment of a taloned hand, a tail... and a head whose eyes seemed to glare up at her, glowing with rage. "NOOOOOO!!!"

With a panther like scream, Demona flung the grizzly remains away from herself and staggered to her feet, backing away from what had once been a clan member. In desperation she raced from one turret to the next, checking every place that the members of her clan used to roost, finally falling to her knees in despair as she realized that all... from the eldest to the youngest, lay along the castle floors, most shattered beyond recognition.

Demona screamed again, wings flaring to their maximum extent as she let the world know of her grief. Tears falling slowly from her eyes, she looked around slowly for one last time, hoping that she had somehow missed one gargoyle, that somewhere in this castle one more gargoyle still drew breath. She could not bring herself to look in the direction of the rookery, much less go there... In her minds eye she saw the stone fragments of egg shell and small bodies, the slow drip of the water like blood... Demona shuddered again and looked around one last time...

Then, on the highest tower, she saw a form sitting, staring down at the destruction below, sable hair waving and twisting in the wind. Demona raced forward and leapt out onto the winds shivering back, wings spread wide as she raced to the tower. To Goliath.

Demona landed behind her mate, and ran towards him. "Goliath! My love, you're alright! You... Goliath? What's wrong? Don't you hear me?" Demona reached over to touch the purple giants shoulder, then snatched her hand away when Goliath suddenly vanished, reappearing beside her. He stood now, one foot resting on the turret as he leaned forward, staring down from the towers dizzying height to the city below. "Goliath? Goliath! My love, answer me! Why don't you see me?!"

"Hey, Big Guy."

Demona spun around again and stared as that HUMAN, Elisa Maza, walked up the staircase and towards Goliath, who turned suddenly and walked forward to meet her. "Elisa... My love," he rumbled, drawing her into his arms, then wrapping his wings around her, as if to protect Elisa from the rest of the world. As he had once done for her.

"You! You've taken EVERYTHING away from me! You took my clan, my pride, my honor and my mate!" You deserve nothing but death!!" Demona swung wildly at the human, trying to kill her, or at least maul her. Anything. Anything to drive Elisa Maza away from Goliath of Wyvern... and her clan.

But Demona's talons just passed through the human harmlessly, as if they were made of smoke and mist. Demona stared dully at her hands and fell to her knees again as Elisa kissed Goliath and both walked down the stairs, still linked arm in arm.

"No... No, come back. Come back..." Demona's voice broke, thick with unshed tears. "I need you. I need my clan... Don't go with that human, she'll betray you! Like the Captain! Like Macbeth!"

"Like you?"

Demona's head snapped up to focus on the speaker, her anguish quickly turning to rage, now that she had a target, her eyes began to glow red and she growled deep in her chest.

Brooklyn lounged at ease on the turret that Goliath usually rested on in stone sleep, his right leg was drawn up, foot flat on the stone, while his left leg hung over the edge, swinging slightly as his tail moved like that of a lazy panthers. Leaning forward, he rested his right elbow on his raised knee, then grasped his wrist with his left hand. As the rain began around them, he cloaked his wings, face serious and intent. "Yo, Dem, done screaming out lies?"

"They're not lies!" Demona roared, surging to her feet, mantling her wings and lashing her tail as her eyes grew a brighter red. "I spoke the truth!!"

"Uh-huh. Yeah, sure, and I'm Xanatos. Mind telling me why I'm supposed to believe this?" the red gargoyle asked calmly, utterly unaffected by Demona's threat display. "What humans have ever done you harm that you didn't bring down on yourself?"

Demona swung out at the young second-in-command. "How DARE y-" Demona froze and stared in shock at her hand swung through empty air. No puff of smoke, no flash of light, he simply wasn't THERE.

"I dare because it's the truth. And somewhere deep inside, you KNOW that." Demona spun around again. Brooklyn leaned against the wall near the fireplace, idly studying a long dagger. The fire accented the reddish-brown gargoyle, now seemingly somewhere (had he been human) in the mid-thirties. It flared, and the beaked gargoyle glanced up from the dagger he held and locked eyes with her. "Everyone that you say betrayed you, was reacting to something that you had done."

"No! That's not true!"

"Isn't it? You and the Captain of the Guard. That's what started this whole mess. The two of you decided between you to get 'even' with the humans of Wyvern. You betrayed the people of the castle, then, when Goliath refused to take the rest of the clan, you had a chance to NOT betray the castle. But you decided to take that risk, and as a result, you killed your own clan."

"No!"

"And it gets even better from there!" Brooklyn said, picking up the Grimmorum and casually opening it up, reading Demona's history from its pages as one would read the story of middle earth and hobbits. "Let's see... Hmmm, a few decades after the clan was killed by you, the captain and the Vikings-"

"It was the humans!"

"-You snuck into a human barn to steal some grain for you and your new clan to eat. Before you could leave, you were confronted by a young human, who you attacked, scarring his face. Congrads! You started the landslide of deaths over a bag of grain! Isn't it nice to know that the Hunters... and now the Quarrymen... came into being because of you?"

"It was the humans fault for trying to stop me... It was only a bag of grain and some fruits..."

"Uh-huh... Oh, and look here! A decade of so later, you ran into a brown haired youth named MacBeth. You saved him and a young woman from the Hunter. Oh! And here's where you ran into him years later. You allied yourself and your clan to him, and let the fairie cast a spell of immortality on you? How long did you stay loyal to THIS group, I wonder?"

"Stop! Stop it!!" Demona screamed, covering her ears with her hands and closing her eyes, dropping to her knees as if she were blocking out a spell.

But no matter what she did, she did, she could not block out the relentless march of Brooklyn's words. They echoed around her, rumbling in her very bones. "Nooooooooooooooo...."

"Tut tut... Such a short alliance! Ended with the death of both your clan AND the humans! Shall I go on?"

"NO!" Demona snapped her eyes open and found herself staring into the older-Brooklyn's eyes. The red gargoyle rested on his knees before her, a simple metal 'brow protector' like the one Thailog had worn adorning his head. The chest plate and shoulder guard he now were faded with age and much toil, the leather straps still in good condition, despite their faded appearance. Metal gauntlets protected his forearms, a laser scope on one arm, padded knuckle protectors on the other. A metal belt now held up his blue loincloth, but it was the kindness, and understanding, in his eyes that froze Demona in place, rather then his different appearance. The red gargoyle reached forward and clasped her cold hands in his own as the snow began to fall around them and the winter-bound land and lake that they knelt beside.

"You started to believe it... Didn't you? Somewhere along the way you truly stated to believe the lies you told me once. You were so desperate to believe that it wasn't your fault, that you took the obvious answer, your con-conspirator, The Captain... And just when you started to trust humans again, you heard Macbeth apparently about to sell out your clan to save the humans... So you started looking just for evidence of the 'evil' of humans, refusing to see anything else. And... A gargoyle needs clan, don't we? Without clan, we go insane. And somewhere along the way, you stopped seeing your guilt and only saw a plague to be extinguished. You could only see the evil in humans, and non of the good."

"No... Humans are evil. They betray us, hate us, fear us... call us demons..." Demona's voice was soft, sad and thick. She stared blankly at her hands, still held captive by Brooklyn's.

"Some do, but not all of them. Elisa and Matt are good humans, and there are other good people out there."

"Elisa stole my mate!"

"No, you lost him when you betrayed him."

"He was supposed to understand..."

"How could he?"

"No one understands what it is like to be alone..."

"I do."

Demona looked up from her hands and stared into Brooklyn's dark eyes.

"That's why you choose me to try to sway to your way of thinking... Wasn't it? I was the biggest risk, because of my intelligence, but still you chose to try and sway me. I am the most inhuman of the clan, and even as part of the trio, I was still a bit of a loner. And now, even as second in command, I am not truly part of the clan. Always alone, always standing on the edge, but never fully a part of it... And as time goes by, I seem to drift further away. You saw that two years ago, and used that to get to me."

"Alone... always alone... Doomed to be forever alone..."

"You don't have to be. The rift is deep, the mistrust is strong, but two lonely souls could finally find someone that understands."

Demona closed her eyes, a few tears leaking out... then suddenly opened them at the feeling of fast moving wind. The ground was rushing up to meet her, and she was trapped in her human form.

"You are falling, Dem. Who will be there to catch you if you always remain alone?" Brooklyn's voice asked by her ear.

The ground was so much closer now... She could see the hand held out to her, ready to catch her, should she only reach out.

"Come on Demona! The chance is there, take the risk!!"

The ground was so close...

"Dem!"

Always alone?

"DEM!"

She couldn't reach...

"DEMONA!"

I don't want to be alone!!!

Darkness.

Demona woke in her bed with a sharp gasp and snapped her head to the left to stare out the window into the sun filled sky. It was near sunset... and she was alone...

A hand held out, offering to take the loneliness away...

The dreams are always the same.

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Author's Notes:

As you'll no doubt notice, Demona, the people and the places around her keep changing without rhyme or reason. There is actually a very simple explanation for this. Demona is dreaming, and within a dream, time has no meaning and people can change age, position, clothing in a way that makes no sense to the waking mind, but makes perfect sense within the dream itself.

Also, if anyone is wondering 'why Brooklyn', the answer is, well... he's the only one that fit. I needed someone that Demona would consider 'like' her in feeling alone, separated from a clan. Brook is VERY alone in the later part of the series (including Goliath Chronicles). For the entire length of the Avalon saga, Brooklyn is leading, and to lead is to be alone. That's actually where the trio probably started to break apart, because while we see Broadway and Lexington 'hanging out' during the Avalon saga and afterwards, Brooklyn is usually solo, or just walking into the room or the like. With Angela's arrival, the trio seemingly fully breaks apart, first during the competition, then after Broadway is chosen to be the mate of Angela. During those last few episodes, and during the GC, Broadway is always spending time with Angela, either on patrol or around the castle. Lexington, during the GC, is always either spending time with his favorite 'baby brother' Alex, or he's on the computer for one reason or the other. Hudson is usually zoning in front of the TV with Bronx, while Goliath is spending an increasing amount of time with Elisa, Brooklyn is the only one that has no one to be with. Demona has probably seen this, and realizes that Brooklyn is becoming as alone as she is, thus Brook showing up as Demona's sub-conscious. Please note that Brooklyn IS Demona's sub-conscious in this, and as such, is purposely written slightly out of character... or what I see as slightly out of character;)