5In the Aftermath chapter1 Hope

by Hardwing

I write my next fic and see that it becomes too large, so I publish it now in three parts. The first part Hope show the hatching of the gargoyle my readers know as Lucifia.

4. Epilogue

09.08.98; 02:53; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

They could have cut the silence in the air with a knife. Everybody was shocked of what they had heard of the unbelievable cruelty and evilness of this creature and had all agreed to remain silent. They were lucky that Demona had killed her so fast.

Diomedes, like some of his siblings, felt pity for his red-haired sister, a pity which completely deleted the anger he had felt for her because of what she had done to him and the clan.

~ All this years ~ he thought while he looked at her ~ all this death... how were you able to keep at last a bit of your sanity? ~

But Demona didn't show if she still felt pain from this, her face stayed even and her eyes icy.

"Have you brought them back already sister?" Diomedes asked her, but Demona shook her head and laughed bitterly.

"No and I... nobody can." She answered and now she couldn't hide the pain in her eyes.

"But lass," Hudson said. "They were shattered and not killed while they were flesh and blood so it should be easy, I mean you have done it before."

"Indeed old soldier," Demona replied thoughtfully not noticing that this name she used for Hudson made his mate glare on her. "But these time I knew that they were dead. I was sure."

"Because you had felt them... " Asrial noted. "Because they were with you and gave you the strength to defeat Lucifia... to imprison her."

Demona nodded, her face unmoved again. "Yes, that was it," she explained. "I felt every single soul of them was one with them, even with the souls of the eggs. There is no way."

"And if you would have tried it?" Angela asked her mother, "you simply would have changed the statues?"

Demona looked deep into her daughter's eyes and Angela realised that her mother had thought about this, for a long time perhaps.

"To be honest, I don't know," Demona answered. "I would have crossed the line, would have broken what I knew was reality. I would have let someone live whom I know couldn't live, at least not in my reality. Perhaps the universe would have created a new timeline to replace the old or perhaps it would have destroyed itself? I didn't want to try it and I think everybody here agrees with this."

Agreeing murmurs came from the clan, as nobody had any interest to make the test.

"What about us and the other clans you brought back?" Ajax asked confused and Demona reminded him that he wasn't the most creative head in the clan.

"Let me explain it so," Demona began anew. "How large is the possibility that it is that you weren't smashed by the Vikings or by the English, but your stone-double created by a visitor of a future like this. Low?" She saw some clan-members nodding. "Well low indeed, but not impossible at least since nobody could proof the opposite and I didn't see you in the world of limbo. As long as there is no proof of the opposite then anything is possible. But if you want to change or better betray the timeline you have then always take care for this."

"We have," Goliath replied. "We brought back the eggs of a clan in the woods of Caledonian in Scotland, which were supposed to be destroyed by a mud-avalanche." He explained and ignored the slightly disapproving look in Deborah's face. This was a sign of his new trust in Demona, to let her know the location of one other clan and they all knew it, but Demona simply nodded. "The leader told me that she herself had held an eggshell, which had been dug out of the mud, so we asked another clan to give us the eggshells they still had to replace those. On this way our interpretation of history was possible."

Demona nodded, trying to hide a smirk. She knew that Goliath would recognise the possibilities of the Phoenix Gate, at least after she had shown him how too. She had no doubt that he had already brought some more clans back, at least in Scotland, Lothian or the destroyed Welsh clans that they had heard of perhaps. There was no hurry as he had all the time in the world.

~ He is no fool ~ Demona thought ~ at least in those things. ~

"You won't have such problems with clans you didn't know," Demona replied. "You can simply take the eggs instead of replacing them."

Goliath looked in her in wonder. "What do you mean?"

"Back in Moray," Demona explained. "I saw the eggs shattered, the same which lay now here in the rookery. I thought for a long time that I couldn't bring them back. But then I allowed them to be cloned by Sevarius from samples, which I had taken from them and replaced them in the night before the massacre."

"Clones?" Angela asked shocked. "You let them kill clones instead?"

"Soulless copies," Demona explained emotionlessly, ignoring the shocked views of some of her siblings who knew the meaning of this word. "Simple flesh... nothing which ever lived or would live." She looked to Desdemona and Othello. "Like the bodies Sevarius made for you with my instructions."

"Couldn't we just do the same again?" Brooklyn asked with a look to Demona. "I mean, couldn't you replace the ones who were supposed to be dead through soulless clones?"

Demona shook her head. "No, not all," she replied. "When you miss a gargoyle and discover him later dead in the woods killed by something natural then yes. But if you see him dying in the battle or on the death bed then there is no possibility for such... at least nothing if you were 100 percent sure of it."

"And what about me then?" Deborah asked her former pupil angrily. "Like I've heard, I fought in the battle and died later from a wound caused by it, but seemingly I haven't. Tell me you faker, how have you betrayed the time then?"

Demona noticed that her teacher laid a special pronunciation on the word *betrayed* but chose to ignore it.

"Once, I killed a mage and discovered amongst many other things three scrolls in his lab." Demona explained. "They were illusion spells, but of a sort I had never seen before. Bounded on these scrolls they resisted every one of my tries to copy it. The scrolls allowed the user to copy a person completely, not just with a mere illusion without matter, but a real copy which seems as living as the original and follow the ways of the original. The only problem is that the copy vanishes after a day and the scrolls had been destroyed after I used them for you, Valejan.... The leader of the Paris Clan and his mate."

She sighed shortly. "On this way, if you know that the person disappears shortly after this or don't know the opposite, you can use it on this way. Even when I doubt that these spells were ever supposed to be used so. It didn't seem to be his magic, but which he had stolen or bought somewhere."

"Pity that you killed him," Deborah noted sarcastically. "Else you would perhaps have known where they came from and would have been able to bring more people back."

Demona responded this criticism with a slight snarl and stood up while leaning on the desk to look her old teacher directly into her eyes.

"He captured me… And killed me to use parts of my body for his magical experiments." She explained, her eyes flashing red. "I had no intention for a talk between sorcerers."

Deborah, despite the warning looks of her mate, had no intention to stay down and stood up even so to throw her face against Demona's until there was just a few centimetres that separated them.

"You have no respect of life have you?" Deborah asked angrily.

"I have no mercy for my enemies." Demona responded with a slight smile.

"Enemies?!" Deborah asked angrily, her eyes blazing red. "You call some humans who tried to defend their families in the town, all the humans who died because of the massacre in Wyvern, your enemies?!"

There were many murmurs in the hall, as this was definitely going onto dangerous territory. Angela stood up and lay a claw on her mother's shoulder if just to stop her from attacking her old teacher and Hudson did the same with his mate.

Goliath saw this even so. He had no intention to let this escalate especially since they knew now what they wanted to know.

"That is enough Deborah," he ordered. "She... "

"Yes I do." Demona replied looking deep into her old teacher's eyes while she dug her claws into the wood of the table. "The humans in the town betrayed us to the Hunter, they were responsible for my mate's death and ultimately even so for what had happened to my daughter and my clan. The humans of Wyvern... " A devilish grin came across her face. "The only thing I regret is that I didn't see the Vikings slaughter them all."

Angela took her claw from her mother's shoulder, as if she had just touch fire. She and the whole clan looked in shock on her except Deborah who just looked on her with contempt.

"I'm constantly asking myself where you take this self-righteousness," she said more to herself than to Demona. "You stand here and explain us how lucky you are about their death..."

"Yes, and?" Demona asked even though she knew what Deborah meant.

"THEY WERE OUR ALLIES!!!" Deborah screamed in rage into Demona's face and Shade, who disliked the way Deborah spoke to her master growled on this on her.

"ALLIES?" Demona asked, laughing sarcastically. "When you have those kind of people for allies then you need no enemies! They treated us like dirt only good enough to defend them, but not good enough to share the rooms of the castle with them or to give us one good word. Why should I have been loyal to them?"

"Because we protected them during the night and they us during the day," Deborah explained like she had ever explained it to Demona and her siblings long before. "Remember?"

"They didn't protect us, but simply didn't shatter us during the day." Demona responded on this. "Even when they would have liked to do so, as I know."

"What do you mean?" Deborah asked, her voice was icy but Demona sensed the slight insecurity in her old teacher's voice, as if she feared that there was a part of the story she didn't know… and she was right.

She threw a short look to Hudson who had a warning glance in his eyes and then to Goliath who kept his usual stoic pose, but Demona knew him well and sensed the small signals of his body, which showed how strained he truly was.

~ He has all the more reason to ~ she thought, remembering all too well.

16.10.988; 21:32; Castle Wyvern, Window of the Chapel:

Goliath, leader of the Wyvern-clan since four years and Angel, his mate since thirteen years, which were for him were the luckiest years of his life and even so his second in command since three years, stood in front of the window and looked down in the inner chamber.

There, bared on a bier before the altar, lay Prince Malcolm the former ruler of Wyvern and a symbol for peace and stability in the country. He was clothed in his finest clothes, his sword on his breast and his crown on his head, but the signs of death like his pale face and motionless were evident.

His face showed more than the signs of death, it was lean and its deep lines showed of a hard life. During the last morning, Malcolm had died of influenza, which had ended four years of constant illness in which he had become weaker and weaker.

It was a tragic irony that they stood here now again, where they had sworn each other their eternal love while down in the chapel Malcolm had done the same to his wife Elena. It had been the greatest night in her lives, full of hope of the future despite what her older self had shown her, but now she felt all her hope vanishing like the life had vanished out of Malcolm's body.

"This is the end of the alliance between us and the humans," Angel noted. "With her father's death, the Princess will no longer be stopped to expel us from here."

Goliath frowned at the pessimistic words of his mate and laid a claw on her shoulder.

"My Angel, we can't be sure of this." He tried to assure her. "Yes the Princess dislikes us, but... "

"She *hates* us my love." Angel replied and looked deep into her mate's eyes. "I see this every time she looks on us. She blames us for what the Archmage did to her father and the churchmen even feed this hate by telling her that we are demons or soulless animals." She shook her head. "When she has free hand now, she will surely do what the churchmen demands and… "

Goliath enfolded his wings over his love's body and softly stroked her hair.

"She won't," he assured her. "Remember, she practically reigned on the place of her father the last two years and hasn't harmed us."

Angel leaned her head against her love's broad chest and wished that she could believe his words and live in this rare moment they had for themselves, a time of pure happiness. But she couldn't, her mind and her duty as second demanded other things. Besides, there was her little egg now lying in the clan's rookery and her heart ached when she thought where it had to hatch.

"Yes, but he still lived and could tender her," Angel explained. "Now she will reign alone."

"And such she will want to honour her father's memorial and follow his path," Goliath responded. "Prince Malcolm has forever been a friend of our clan and a loyal ally. She wouldn't bring shame on him by breaking with this politic, especially not in the days after his death."

Angel nodded slightly. She had less faith in the respect of the humans for their dead, but she knew that there was no other way. She had even lesser faith in the humans' trustworthiness as well. The Archmage had taught her so, when he had ended her apprenticeship in such a cruel way. She still remembered the pain his spell had brought her and how it could have been worse if the old leader hadn't have helped her.

Sensing the trouble his mate still felt, her mate softly took her chin and lead her face to his.

"We must have faith in the humans," Goliath said. "Else there is no alliance."

Angel nodded. She knew he was right and that she had to trust in the future despite all her future self had shown her. Yet, when she looked on her love she noticed that he had grown even more since they had sworn their love, becoming more and more similar to the future self she had seen that night, and she herself...

~ I will never be like her! ~ She swore to herself and her mate angrily. ~ Never. ~

"Come, the time has come to honour him," Goliath explained and removed his embrace to go to the border of the roof until he noticed his mate's hesitation. "Will you come?"

Angel nodded and followed her mate gliding to the gates of the chapel. There the old mentor waited already on them like what had been arranged. Angel sighed, as the old soldier had taken the news of Malcolm's death much harder than any other gargoyle and maybe even harder than any other humans besides the Princess had. She could still see the pain in his eyes and asked herself when he would finally stop blaming himself that he hadn't been able to protect the prince from the poisoned dart.

The dart hadn't killed him since the Magus, as he was called now, was able to create an antidote with the help of the Grimorum Arcanorum that she, her love and the old leader had brought back. Unfortunately, the Magus had not been fully capable of magic yet and so the antidote had been too weak to cure the illness completely and left Malcolm vulnerable to the illnesses to come.

"Leader, Second." Hudson greeted, nodding to them both.

"Mentor," Goliath responded with the greatest respect.

"Elder," Demona greeted not with less respect but more distance than her mate did.

She liked and respected the former leader despite the fact that she had forced Goliath to replace him, but for Angel her only mentor had just been his mate.

"Shall we really do this?" Angel asked both males. "I mean, we have honoured his memorial in the clan already, taking absent at his corpse is a human custom."

"Aye," the mentor agreed. "But he was a human and so we should honour him after his customs too."

"The Princess won't allow this," Angel noted.

"She won't discover it," Goliath replied. "The princess sleeps now. But I understand if you don't want to come with us."

Angel sighed and shook her head. "No," she said. "Where you both go so will I go, it is my duty and besides... " She swallowed. "He was a good ruler and a friend of our kind."

There was no more to be said and so the three gargoyles slowly walked into the chapel up to the dead prince's corpse.

They stood there for some time just looking on the corpse. They knew that unlike their own custom the humans gave their dead over to the earth and made graves for them instead of handing them over to the sea. So they could theoretically come to the grave later on to honour him. But this was more personal than the gargoyle custom. Besides, there were rumours that he would be buried in his brother's kingdom where the rest of his family were laid.

The old gargoyle looked on his friend and was going to say something when...

"What are you doing here monsters?" A small but authorial voice demanded furiously.

The three gargoyles turned around to see the Princess standing at the gate of the chapel along with the Magus who had the Grimorum Arcanorum in his hands and two guards in full armour beside her.

When Angel looked onto the Princess, she couldn't do anything but smile silently since she forgot so easily that the Princess was nothing but a child in her twelve years. Indeed, the young warriors of the rookery after hers with their 30 years and a biological age of 15 were older than the princess even though they weren't much matured, but since they lived in peaceful times then there was no need for such.

"Princess, we wanted to honour your father." Mentor started.

"You are responsible for his death so you have no right to be here." She explained in an angry voice full of contempt, not noticing the slight wincing of the old gargoyle. "Not one of your beasts have any right to be here. OUT!"

"We just... " Angel started but the child cut her off.

"You desecrate his corpse and his memorial with just your presence, now get out before I order the guards to move you." The Princess ordered.

Angel wanted to say more, but her mate lay a claw on her shoulder.

"No need to do so, we'll go." Goliath said and led them out from under the hateful eyes of the princess and the guards, out of the chapel.

"I just wish I could lay her over my knee and give that brat what she deserves!" Angel exclaimed angrily.

Goliath wanted to say something to calm his mate and second in command down, but before he could do so, the Mentor simply walked away leaving his leader and his second behind.

"He shouldn't take this so hard," Angel noticed.

"I agree, but he does," Goliath explained crossing his arms. "Remember that Malcolm was not just our ally but his friend, and having his daughter accuse him of being responsible for his death must stab his heart."

Angel sighed. "Why must we follow her?" She asked frustrated. "I mean, she is only a child and she has never given us a slight bit of respect!"

"We can't choose whom the humans see as their leader my Angel," he started. "But remember, like you said she is but a child and her... views, will change as she grows older."

Sensing the trouble still lying in his mate's heart, he embraced her and laid his wings around her delicate body.

"My love, we must have patience and be strong in the time to come," he explained. "She fears us now, but with the time when we show her that we are no beasts, she will learn to live with us and maybe even respect us."

"Do you truly think so?" Angel asked her love who gave her one of his rarest smiles.

"I know," he said honestly. "But I'll need your help."

Angel smiled and nodded, as her doubts for now were swept away by her mate's words.

"Ever as mate and as second," she explained and said out of her whole heart. "We are one." With this, the pair swelled in some more moments in this simple happiness.

17.10.988; 20:12; Castle Wyvern, the highest tower:

With a roar, Goliath the mighty leader of the Wyvern Clan freed himself of the stone shell, but this time watched by two interested eyes. Goliath felt it and turned around to see the Captain of the guard standing there and studying him with serious eyes.

"Captain" he greeted friendly, but the captain simply nodded.

"Goliath, we need to talk," he started at once and from the tone of the captain's voice, Goliath knew at once that it was an unfriendly topic.

"What has happened?" Goliath asked while he climbed from his perch.

"Princess Katherine... " The Captain started, but was stopped by another voice from his back.

"What has she done?" Angel asked while coming up the steps with Mentor at her back.

The Captain looked to Goliath with a sort of worry and Goliath understood.

"Whatever I have to know, my second and my mentor shall know even so." He explained and the Captain nodded.

"Goliath, as your friend and friend of your clan, I think it is my duty to inform you what the princess intended to do yesterday." He explained and noticed how Goliath set his usual stoic pose, to prepare himself for what would come while the Captain noticed the female tensing her muscles. "She ordered me to have you and your clan shattered through my soldiers."

Just the short growl and his closed eyes showed how shocked Goliath was, but his mate snarled out loudly with her eyes blazing red. As for the old mentor, he stayed calm not showing any signs of his own feelings, being experienced in such things.

"I managed to stop her from this," the captain added at once. "I explained to her again that we need you to defend the castle, that you have ever been loyal allies to her father and that she would dishonour his memorial if she did so. This convinced her in the end and I don't think she will think about thus again in the next time, but I think you should know this."

Goliath nodded, seemingly hit by this news. "Thank you in my name and the name of the clan," he said weakly, looking on him.

The Captain nodded. "What will you do now?" He asked.

Goliath sighed and looked to his second. "What do you think my Angel?"

"We should leave them, go back to the caves where our clan has lived before," she explained, barely able to calm her anger. "This proved that we can't trust her... what if when she won't let herself be stopped next time?"

"And what do you think old friend?" Goliath asked.

"Well leader, it is your decision in the end." He explained. "But where would we go when we leave? The eggs are just laid. This means we need a secure place and the caves are in the reach of the humans, even when we close the hole. Besides, there are more humans in this area than ever before so there wouldn't be any secure place for us." He sighed. "The Princess was upset last night, understandable as it was so shortly after her father's death, with time she will calm down."

Angel didn't really listen, as her mind was away in a time thirteen years ago.

She was there amongst the shattered remains of her clan in a time she didn't know of, her future self and the one of her love seemingly enemies and before her... she still couldn't believe what she had seen. Her love was stone by night and she had no idea what could have happened.

Her future self had told her that the humans did this and she knew... knew very well that there was a spell in the Grimorum Arcanorum and others in other magical books, which were able to change gargoyles and human alike permanently into stone.

~ The Princess could order the Magus to cast this spell on us while we sit on our perches to rest ~ Angel thought and shuddered.

'Do not worry,' the older Goliath had assured. 'Do not look or wait for this catastrophe.'

"We will stand," Goliath ordered. "We must have faith in the humans... " And with a look to the Captain, he added. "And as long as we have at least one true friend amongst them, I will have faith."

The Captain nodded on this praise. "I'll always be there to help you."

Angel looked on the Captain as if she saw this human for the first time, maybe... no sure this was the only human friend they had now and this made her angry.

'Live in the moment.' The future Goliath had said. 'Attend the petty jealousies and angers that prey upon your heart.'

"Will you tell your clan?" The Captain asked. "They have at least the right to know of the danger they live in."

"I agree," Angel said. "Everybody has to decide him or herself if they want to take this risk."

"Lass, don't forget that we have to decide thus as a clan together when we don't want to split." Mentor intervened. "And when we do, especially with this atmosphere in the clan, there is no doubt that they will decide to break the alliance and leave the castle."

~ I know old soldier ~ Angel thought bitterly ~ because it is the only right decision... and haven't you done so already once? ~

'Fortify yourself with love and trust,' the other Goliath said. 'And you need not fear this future.'

"He is right," Goliath explained. "Until the alliance shall exist further, we can't tell it to the rest of the clan."

Angel looked unbelievably on her love as this was against the clan's tradition. Even when the leader decided in the end, the clan had to know about all the important facts.

Goliath looked around. "I ask you to keep this a secret."

The Mentor and the Captain nodded under his view, but his Angel and Second in command just looked on him with unreadable eyes.

"My Angel?" Goliath asked finally.

'But most of all, fulfil the vows of love you make,' the older Goliath had told her. 'For they can surely save you.'

Angel looked deep into her mate and leader's eyes, for this was not just a simple question but a question if she trusted his judgement and him.

"You have my oath," she explained calmly and Goliath nodded, ignoring the slight irritation he felt.

"Well, I think to not make the others suspicious," Goliath explained. "We should go now to our duties."

Mentor and the Captain nodded and went down the steps. Angel meanwhile just looked on her mate, her own words coming to her mind

'I shall.' Young Angel swore, unaware of how hard it would become to hold it. 'You have my oath.'

Goliath had already jumped back on his perch when he noticed that his mate was still studying him with concentrated eyes.

"Is something wrong my Angel?" Her love asked her and Angel shook her head.

"No my love," she explained half hearty and went down the steps so that he wouldn't be unaware of the burden she felt on her heart. "I'll see you later."

~ He has my oath ~ Angel thought ~ and I will hold it, I will. ~

09.08.98; 03:13; Castle Wyvern, Great Hall:

Demona studied her former mate and she knew that he was thinking exactly the same thing that she did.

~ He knows that I could deal him a blow he wouldn't recover so fast from, ~ Demona thought.

Then she looked to Kronos, in his eyes she saw the hunger of a vulture and doubtless he would use this information to challenge Goliath at the post of the leader.

"What does she mean?" Kronos asked.

"She means..." Goliath started and Demona knew that he was going to say the truth.

~ Damned fool ~

"I mean," Demona interrupted him, "that the humans would have gladly killed us. They didn't leave any doubt by this when they talked to each other or made fun of us... No, they didn't deserve our loyalty."

"This is no reason to kill them all." Diomedes noted.

"No, but to refuse them our protection yes," Demona explained. "And you know how well they defended themselves against the Vikings the night before."

"You had no right to decide this!" Goliath told his former second angrily, but at the same time in his eyes shone a bit of gratitude for holding onto their oath.

"If I would have told you the plan... " Demona snarled. "I and the Captain. If we would have come to you and told you about it, would you have considered it?"

"You didn't." Goliath said while trying to calm himself as his eyes glared white. Thinking back to the first time when he heard of her betrayal, he felt how fresh the pain was. "You both chose to betray me behind my back instead. You, my mate and second and the Captain whom I called my friend... "

Demona had had enough of this, with red blazing eyes she stood up from her chair and despite the arm of her daughter who tried to hold her back she went up in front of her ex-mate and ex-leader.

"Would you have considered it?" She repeated, looking angrily in his eyes, asking a question that she knew the answer to already.

Goliath looked on Demona trying to stop a growl from his throat. He ignored Elisa's hand on his tensed muscles, ready to break stone, since in this moment there were just he and Demona while the others stayed witness to this little drama.

He had hoped that she would regret it or at least say that she wouldn't repeat it. But now she stood before him, proud and angry and he knew that she had learned nothing and this made him angry beyond words.

"You wouldn't have even listened to us... " Demona noted, full of contempt.

"THIS WAS BEYOND ANY CONSIDERATION!" Goliath screamed at her, crushing his claws down on the table so hard that it nearly broke.

This was enough for Shade, who had stayed at the former seat of her master. The Gargbeast jumped, growling and with red-blazing eyes, to Demona's side, ready to protect her master from any attack of this male gargoyle.

Bronx meanwhile, even so growling but with white-blazing eyes, jumped to his clan leaders side, since he had learned in the last years that this one who now threatened his master wasn't clan and brought danger.

The other Gargbeasts, a large yellow one which had been named Argus amongst them, looked unsure on this this scene since they knew both as clan, even when the female hadn't been there some time. They couldn't see the reason why these two were close to attack each other and had no special reason to help one of them.

It was silent now in the room besides of the growling of both beasts, and everybody including David and Fox Xanatos and Owen alike looked on Goliath surprised by his sudden outburst. Only Demona wasn't surprised, as she knew him very well.

Meanwhile, Goliath had calmed down and managed to stop his eyes from glowing and let his breath become calmer. It hurt still, as he knew it always would partly, but he wouldn't let this pain rule him, not in front of the clan and especially not in front of her.

"We had sworn with our honor to protect them. You had sworn even so... " He said with his eyes still focused on hers and just these two knew the true meaning of these words. "Breaking this... oath, betraying the humans and me meant shame, meant destroying the honor of not just you, but of all the clan."

"Honor," Demona laughed bitterly. "You speak of the clan's honor, but you took it when you made us HER slaves."

"I NEVER MADE YOU INTO SLAVES!" He growled, his eyes flashing white again.

"YOU BOWED TO HER!" Demona screamed on him, her eyes blazing red and just for one moment Goliath thought to see the glimmer of tears in it, but it was just a moment. "SHE CALLED US BEASTS, HER PET CALLED US UNNATURAL CREATURES AND YOU BOWED TO HER!"

Her muscles tensed by this and for a moment Angela believed that she would see her parents fight, but then Demona relaxed.

"With this, you didn't just bow in your name but in mine too and that of the whole clan." She accused him.

"I wanted to calm her down if nothing else." Goliath defended himself.

"No, this was more and you know it," she said. "With this you showed her that you submitted not only yourself, but as leader you submitted the whole clan under her rule."

"To ease her fear," Goliath explained more to the rest of the clan than to her. "To not give her one more reason to scorn us and to hold the alliance that everybody had to make sacrifices for."

"Everybody?" Demona said icily. "I never saw one human making any step back in their position. Just you! Tell me Goliath, when you sent Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Bronx into the rookery when they defended themselves against a human attack how do you justify that?"

"We have been through this once," Goliath said grimly.

"No Goliath, I told you that you were wrong and you simple told me that we had to hold the peace with the humans and then went away to help them anew," she reminded him. "Was this a discussion?"

Goliath glared on his former mate, but realized that he had to calm down since heated discussions were Demona's way, not his.

"Maybe I was too hard to them," he replied calmly. "But we had to hold the peace. When the humans thought that we were dangerous, the possibility that they would smash us during the day would have even been greater." Goliath shook his head. "There was no other choice."

"Well now you know there was one," Demona explained. "Selling them out to the Vikings, living no longer under their rule and in fear to be smashed while we slept."

Goliath's blood flushed through his veins and he wanted to tell her anew that this was unthinkable. But he knew that it wasn't so for her and he knew that many of his siblings wouldn't agree with him on this too, so he had to choose something other.

"You haven't thought further Demona, it seems you never did," Goliath accused her. "The other humans would have taken revenge against us."

"After that, they would have raided the country like they had done before. By the time they were finished there weren't enough humans left for this," Demona explained. "There were no more humans who had claimed the castle before Xanatos bought it 1000 years later."

"And from what would you have intended to let the clan live on?" Goliath asked her. "The humans shared with us their vegetable and corns, this helped us to survive."

"And how much of it was there?" Demona asked sarcastically. "She lowered our rations every year of her rule and in the last year it was so low that we wouldn't have survived if we hadn't hunted or kept our own supplies. How many would she have left us in her *mercy* the next year?"

"The medicine... " Goliath started but Demona cut him off.

"What medicine was that?" She asked, "The rests of theirs, which they gave to us instead of throwing it away because they had no need for it?"

"It helped," Goliath replied simply.

"And was it worth it?" Demona replied calmly, but with brute force in her voice. "The subjugation and the battles we fought for them, was it worth the alliance in your eyes?"

Goliath looked into her eyes and she saw that he was trying to find words for what he felt, what was his very being.

"We had to hope," he said, now it seemed just to her. "And to follow our nature to protect them, for without this we are empty and corrupt."

"Was Shaman in any way corrupt to you?" Demona asked him with contempt.

"He tried even so to coexist with the humans since he realized that this was the only way in the end. If it's true what you told us." Goliath replied. "A fact you had seemingly seen back then."

"He was killed for this in the end, with the help of the humans we had a deal with." Demona explained angrily. "And he would have not hesitated to wipe the town out if it would have been for the best of the clan.... Would you have?"

Goliath swallowed. This was a question he didn't want to hear, a question which might very well destroy all he had fought for, but for his luck a voice came to his help.

"He hadn't to make this choice sister," Diomedes noted and Demona turned around to face her brother. "If the Princess had intended to kill us then she would have done so in the years before. Sure the humans treated us bad and they were ungrateful and arrogant... But this was no reason to let them all be killed."

"Oh?" Demona asked sarcastically. "Why not?"

Again there was silence in the Great Hall, the night seemed to be full of shocks and despite all that she knew already about her mother, Angela was the one who was hurt most by this. Not just because of the fact that her mother didn't regret the massacre on the humans and didn't show any caring for their lives, but because she still seemed to hated Princess Katharine with a passion and even so the Magus, since Angela had no doubt whom her mother meant with the *pet*.

"You had no right to simply sentence them to death," Asrial tried to formulate her feelings and that of most... many of her siblings. "We protected them, we... "

"Who was that?" Demona cut her clever sister off while looking deep into these intelligent eyes. "Name me the one human you would have protected with your full heart." Since she knew that her clever sister had spent, and most likely still spent, most of her time in her workshop.

She turned around to face all the clan. "Please tell me of one human besides the Captain who protected our kind, one who stood up for us and I'm ready to say that I'm wrong." She offered her former clan.

There was silence in the great hall again, this time a tensed one in which many gargoyles tried hard to remember any such human back then. Surely there must have been at least one they knew of, but no one in the last years of Wyvern except that of the Captain of the guard had done so.

Angela looked around in shock when she realized that no one would tell a name and even when she looked into her father's eyes she saw no answer on this.

~ Is mother right? Didn't our clan have any friends amongst the humans except the one who betrayed them in the end? ~ Angela thought. ~ No! ~

"My father is right!" She nearly screamed while standing up and before she really realized what she had done, all eyes of the clan including her mother's looked on her.

"The Princess and the Magus have changed... " She started calmer. "You all know this. The Princess has told me and my siblings how much she regrets the way she had treaded you and Magus even gave his life to protect me and my siblings."

There were some agreeing murmurs in the clan, but most of the faces stayed hard since they remembered all too well how they had been treated by her back then and the fact that she had cared for the clan's children did not weigh so much of these memories.

"The clan-leader's daughter… " Kronos, who had been unusually quiet during the discussion, said and raised, "forgets that this change happened only after the massacre. After the Vikings had shown the princess how much she had needed us. If it had simply gone on, she wouldn't have changed like she didn't in the eight years of her rule before. It would have surely become even worse."

Agreeing murmurs came from great parts of the clan and while looking around, Goliath saw that apart from that of his daughter and his mate Elisa, they were mainly isolated in the clan with his position of trusting in the humans' better nature. Suddenly he realized that Demona wasn't the problem, she was just the stone starting a snowfall, which had started earlier or later by itself... or better, by another stone called Kronos.

For one moment he saw similarities between Kronos and Demona, but then he realized that they were deep inside different creatures. Demona believed what she said, she believed that she had been right and he wrong while Kronos just said what the majority believed so that he could use it to gain influence in the clan. His silence at the start of the discussion proved this since he had waited until the clan's opinion became clear and finally he would either support Demona or attack her.

Demona seemingly knew this since she studied Kronos with a rather unfriendly look.

Finally, before Goliath could stop the murmurs, Deborah raised her voice never taking her eyes from Demona and with a tone in her voice, which Goliath recognized as the one of controlled anger of a person shortly before the explosion. The rest of the clan recognized it even so and became quiet.

"So you set the lives of humans below that of gargoyles?" Deborah asked her former pupil by coming nearer, her tail lashing dangerously about the floor.

"Yes," Demona replied. "I ever did and ever will."

Deborah studied her former pupil more exactly and for just a moment Demona believed to see another thing beside the contempt, maybe sadness.

"And seemingly you set your life at the top of your little hierarchy," Deborah noticed, "since you sentenced everybody here in this room, your whole clan to death."

Demona looked deep into her old teacher's eyes, as she knew this had to come and she knew that the whole clan had a right to demand an explanation. If it just wouldn't be so hard.

"You knew that the Vikings would come that day," Deborah said while slowly circling around her former pupil and studying her with contempt. "And despite the Captain's vow that the clan would be safe you fled since you knew that he had lied."

Demona clenched her fists, she remembered that night as if it were yesterday. She had tried to warn her two siblings but then stopped when she saw the Vikings approaching, stopped to go away. She hadn't planned to run away, hadn't planned to let them all die, but her instinct had led her to the backend of the castle and finally she had glided down to the beach where she had been safe.

"You fled to save yourself instead of saving at least one member of the clan." Deborah accused her while standing now directly in front of her. "Because you were too large a coward to admit your treachery, you were ready to let them die."

Demona knew that this was true, that she should maybe ask everybody in the clan to forgive her, but she couldn't. It wasn't her nature, and it would break her.

"Yes," She replied, not letting her eyes fall from Deborah's since she knew that if she were to look on the faces of those she had doomed to death back then, she wouldn't be able to hold her feelings on the border she had set. She would cry the tears she felt deep inside or simply break down, and she couldn't allow herself to do this, not in front of the clan... never.

"Yes," Demona repeated. Her voice sounded raw since it brought her great trouble to control it. "And for that I'm sorry."

"And this is all you have to say on this," Deborah noticed grimly. "All you have to say... You are not sorry for betraying your leader back then, for the humans killed by the Vikings, nor for the pain that you caused over the millennia. Just for this one fact and if you would have warned the clan, if nobody of them would have been smashed, not even the statues, you wouldn't be sorry."

"No." Demona replied. With this, the hate of them, she could live with but not with these pathetic feelings. "I wouldn't."

Their eyes stayed linked, it was a duel of mind where Deborah wanted to show her superiority over her former pupil, but unlike 1000 years ago Demona didn't even think about giving up or showing the elder gargoyle respect and this made Deborah even angrier.

"Your lack of moral and responsibility is hardly a surprise," Deborah noticed. "Since I know who taught this to you."

Demona laughed sarcastically, happy that Deborah had moved the discussion on to a place where she could defend herself.

"It kills you that I took lessons from him doesn't it?" Demona asked with a happy glance in her eyes.

From the murmurs in the clan and the surprised looks her siblings gave her, Demona realized that this hadn't been known by the greatest part of the clan... until now.

"Lass, whom do you mean?" Agamemnon asked his rookery daughter, even though he had a dark suspicion like the most did. "Who taught you what?"

"I thought you would have already pinned it on the blackboard a minute after you heard about it." Demona said to Deborah ignoring the older gargoyle's question and made a short look to Hudson.

The old soldier had been the only one who knew of this and doubtless he had told it to his mate. He must have even so insisted on her silence or at least not making a common fact about this.

"I had been asked to inform just those who had to know about it in the first hand," Deborah informed her. "I thought the whole clan should have known about this from the beginning, about the first time when you betrayed them and me, but why not now?"

"Do you want to tell it?" Demona asked calmly. "Tell them about my great *betrayal*?"

"No, I think you should do it." Deborah replied with contempt. "At least for one time, admit what you have done and don't run away."

Demona slightly snarled on this insult, but then caught herself as there was no reason for such. She looked to Agamemnon and then around to the rest of the clan especially her siblings, their eyes were curious what their fallen sister would reveal now as Demona knew exactly that it would make them happy. Finally she shrugged her shoulders.

"In the years from 971 until the night of Malcolm's wedding, I was the Archmage's apprentice." She explained to the clan.

To say that the clan was shocked was an understatement. This evening had been full of unveilings, but this one they were totally unprepared for. Many of Demona's siblings besides that of Goliath and Diomedes, who knew this already, looked unbelieving on her while most of the other clan members looked suspicious, remembering the dark nature of the wizard and knowing what he had done on Avalon.

"You worked together with a clan's enemy?" Agamemnon asked unbelieving, again giving the clan a voice. He couldn't believe that the lass had been so wicked already back then.

"He hadn't been an enemy of the clan back then, indeed he was one of the Prince's advisors." Demona replied calmly. "And I didn't work with him, but took lessons from him."

"Lessons in dark magic," a female gargoyle of the generation above Hudson's concluded with red blazing eyes.

"Lessons in Latin," Demona replied on this. "Lessons in warfare and yes mainly lessons in magic."

"Lass, this is against every tradition," Agamemnon started. "Only the clan teaches its youngsters how to fight as true warriors and magic... "

"Is against the clan traditions, I know." Demona cut him off since she knew that it could have very well been continued until the morning through this special gargoyle. "But seemingly it had some use didn't it? Else not one of you would be here."

"Oh yes, I think the night when you changed all humans in the city to stone you proved very well what you use your magic for." Deborah said to her. "But why don't you tell the clan of the first time when you used magic?"

Demona looked deep into her old teacher's eyes, she had hoped that her former teacher would let this be something between them, but seemingly she had no intention for thus.

"You're right, why not?" Demona replied coolly. "Well," she said while taking a look to the clan. "I was the one who summoned the creature called the Nuckelavee."

Again there was a large silence in the clan. Even Goliath and Hudson who since they knew the former facts had stayed calm, couldn't hide their surprise.

"What?" Screamed many clan-members more in surprise than anger while Angela and Elisa informed themselves by their mates of what in heavens name was Demona talking about this time.

Demona shrugged her shoulders. "It was an accident," she said and nobody, herself included could say if this was an attempt of an excuse.

"Oh yes," Deborah replied sarcastically. "Let me guess, a hard wind you couldn't fight against forced you to land in the Archmage's chamber. Then a mysterious magic lead you to the Archmage's books and forced you to summon the creature... An accident?! HA!"

"I added too much of one sort in a magic mixture, that was it." Demona answered on this coolly. A young Demona had once feared what might happen when this secret would have been revealed to the clan, now it didn't matter for her. "Else the spell would have brought no harm."

"You had nothing to search for there!" Deborah screamed angrily on her. "You know this creature had nearly killed us all and you hadn't the courage to admit this, but then you have forever been such a coward haven't you?"

Demona didn't respond on this, but just looked on her old teacher.

"Would you have allowed it that I took lessons from him?" Demona asked her calmly. "That I learned from him not just magic, but even some damned good hints in warfare, hints which weren't such compatible with the way you wanted us to fight?"

Deborah snarled while she imagined what the Archmage might have taught her.

"NEVER!" She growled on her former pupil. "Never would I have allowed this snake to teach one of you, to infest you with his evil... He poisoned your mind."

"We have been through this and..." Demona said bored, but then stopped when something came to her mind.

She looked to her old teacher as if she had noticed a new facet on her and indeed she had. An evil grin formed on her face and she started to giggle and finally to laugh evilly, something which made some in the room shudder.

"I really must have been a fool," Demona noticed smiling evilly.

"You are a fool," Deborah noted. "That and worse."

Demona didn't let distract her now, she had tasted blood and her prey wouldn't escape from her.

Meanwhile, Owen's cell-phone beeped and the servant took the call. His eye-bridges lifted a bit when he listened to what the voice said, he then went off into the hallways while his master listened to the discussion fascinated.

"When you came to me in Berlin," Demona explained. "When you told me this rubbish about him poisoning my mind I should have known it, at least when I heard from what Coldsteel has done."

She grinned on her teacher, something which made Deborah feel nausea while Desdemona looked on her sister slightly shocked while asking herself if she had told her too much.

"It is all this?" Demona asked her old teacher. "I, Coldsteel and Roland… This must kill you."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" Deborah snarled since she felt a stab in her heart by these names.

"We were all your pupils, you taught us how to fight and what a *true* gargoyle shall do or not do." She held her look to Deborah as if she had caught her. "And you failed."

These last words came out of her mouth like spells and nobody of the clan dared to breath by this.

"You failed by Roland, you failed by Coldsteel and you failed by me and this kills you." Demona explained viciously. "Oh really, three failures in one generation... You had to have done something wrong!"

"You speak nonsense," Deborah snarled on her, even when she felt her heart beating like mad.

"Oh yes... " Demona said ignoring Deborah's protest. "Roland the Prince of the thieves, all his rookery siblings, me included, treated him badly when he was a hatchling. All because he was ugly and nobody of the elders, you included, stopped this until he ran away. I hadn't had any second thoughts about that until now, but now... "

Demona smiled. She ignored the disgusted looks of her siblings and the shocked look of Asrial, nobody could understand why her sister defended him after all these years and after all he had done.

"It would have been your duty like that of all the other elders in the clan to help him, to give him at least one friend in HIS clan, but you didn't." Demona accused her, especially even when it could be seen as an attack on the whole clan. "It has a reason to why he went out with this human child back then, rather then to spend time with his siblings. He had no friends amongst us, just other hatchlings who liked to torment him and when he tried to defend himself the only way he knew how, he was scolded by the elders. Finally I realize why he hated us so and you too."

On this question, she just got an angry glance from her old teacher.

"Then Coldsteel," Demona continued. "He has always been the way he is now, a schemer, jealousy and of dark passion. Not just when he made this scheme to let Othello attack his leader, but even so before... " She didn't see how Javin lowered his head and didn't see the surprise in Goliath's eyes when he remembered how his brother's advice had once helped to temporary remove him from his post as second and nearly led him to break the relationship to Demona back then.

"But you didn't see it, even when it would have been your duty as his teacher to do so." Demona noted. "Is it your failure? Oh I know you're asking this to yourself since you heard of it."

Deborah looked on Demona with blood-red eyes and slightly snarling, a warning which left her former pupil cold.

"And then there am I," Demona said with a cruel smile. "Surely I don't overestimate myself if I say that I hurt you most."

"You *are* overestimating yourself!" Deborah replied angrily.

~ How dare she... ~ Deborah thought furiously, ~ to think that I would care any more for her than for her other rookery siblings. ~

"I, the betrayer, the killer, the one who seemingly stands against everything you think should define a gargoyle, everything which is important to you." She said looking rather proud of herself. "I didn't follow my clan leader, I ended your oh so important alliance with the humans, I never fight fair or with honor and I killed so much that I can't count it anymore and all this despite the fact that you trained me." Goliath could see how an idea crossed Demona's mind and he hoped that she wouldn't make it worse, that she would be intelligent enough to let Deborah calm down herself... she wasn't. "Or should I say, due to the fact?"

"UH OH!" Thersities, who felt troubles ahead, whispered.

~ She must truly be mad ~ Goliath, like many other clan members, thought.

This broke the border. It was much, much more than Deborah could tolerate from this gargoyle and snarling she leaped on her opponent. But this opponent foresaw this attack and made a fast step back to escape the deadly claws of her old teacher.

"STOP!" Goliath ordered in a booming voice, not interested in this fight now. "This is... "

Meanwhile, nearly the whole clan stood up to separate the opponents. Hudson was despite his age the fastest and laid a claw on his mates shoulder to prevent her from attacking further while Angela went to prevent her mother from making the situation worse.

Angela failed.

"Well old teacher, is that it?" Demona, who was despite the best efforts of her daughter able to come nearer to Deborah, asked.

"Demona this is enough!" Goliath ordered. "You're a guest here... "

"Mother you've made your point," Angela pleaded. "Stop this, we..."

"That is the reason why you're always blaming the Archmage for corrupting me and I for letting it happen," Demona accused her former teacher. "It is more easy isn't it, to say that I've learned all this from the Archmage. Because if I did, you would have just failed by not noticing that he had corrupted me. But if the Archmage would have just been a minor matter, if I would have just learned the art of magic by him and nothing else, then you must have made larger mistakes with me, like with Roland and Coldsteel."

They didn't notice anything else other than each other anymore, neither Goliath's voice nor that of any other gargoyle in the room. It was just them two.

"And want you know a really, really funny thing?" Demona asked evilly and ignored the fact that nobody of the surroundings wanted to know it. "You... "

"Miss Destine," a dry voice beside Demona demanded.

In the end she couldn't say what lead her to react on Owens request. Maybe it was partly the magic of the Trickster deep inside the wooden servant which brought her to listen, or maybe the slight tremble in his voice, whatever it was she listened and the whole clan with her.

"What?" Demona asked angrily. She hated that Fay for the humiliation of changing into a human every day more than for the pains it brought and the fact that he was in the form of Xanatos's servant now didn't ease her anger.

"Someone wants to speak to you in a *familiar matter*." Owen replied.

Demona looked at him in shock, a fear rose deep in her heart, a fear which made her claw shake slightly while she took the cell phone.

The whole clan, even Deborah looked at her in unhidden shock. It couldn't be. It couldn't be the person they feared...

"Hello Lucifia," Demona said with an emotionless voice. She was far, far beyond shock or fear.

"Hello mother!" A voice said happy, not even trying to cover the darkness which lay behind this happiness, a happiness as dark as her eyes.

To be continued...