Chapter Two: Titania's Confession

By early morning the party had wound down, each Gargoyle and human friend having other obligations to attend to. There were still patrols to be flown, sleep to catch up on, and work to get to. Tanner found himself again upon a parapet looking now on the jewel-flecked canvas before him.

He did not even see it, all his thoughts were turned inward, his eyes unfocused. Running a hand through his hair and smoothing back one loose strand, Tanner smiled. The memories of the night's events had lifted his spirits for a space and he had truly enjoyed the companionship offered by all. Even Brooklyn had been in a fair mood, seeking Tanner out to tell him how impressed he had been with the action the night before.

When the crowd had separated the levity he had felt had dissipated like a wisp of fog in the light, leaving him only his doubts. He was suspicious of such a show from Brooklyn, when no favor had been previously shown him. Did he truly change his mind? Had Brooklyn actually begun to accept that in his heart, Tanner was truly a Gargoyle, even if his blood was only half?

Tanner snorted loudly, certainly it was not the case. There was nothing save Clan bond that held value in Brooklyn's eyes, it was the only thing, besides his relation to Goliath, that kept Tanner in this castle.

"Why so sullen boy?" A distinctly feminine voice said behind him. Tanner was unable to help the shock that went through his body at hearing her there. He whirled around to face the owner of that silky voice. Appearing out of thin air was the Lady of Avalon standing just feet from him. She was standing on one leg with a hand on her hip.

His eyes were captured by hers, going wide moments before protocol had him stooping in a grand bow, "My Lady."

Tanner could feel her eyes on him, examining and judging him, feeling his temper rise again. He dared to look up seeing her smiling that smile that always served to irritate him. He noted that she looked no different from when he had seen her at age six. She was still thin and gracefully proportioned with a thin waist and wide hips. Her form was draped in gauzy cream and rose material that tantalized all who saw her with what those almost clothes kept barely hidden.

She motioned him to stand, seeming to know he was looking at her. He straightened turning to glance out over the city then back to her too knowing face, "I'm just thinking," He muttered wondering suddenly why she had chosen now to seek him out. He never considered it a good thing when she was around, father had told him too many stories of what happened when her attention or those of her creed was turned on his kind.

"I would think that you would be merrier today," The corner of her mouth turned up a bit more, "You're fifteen today! An Adult and equal now in the standing of the Clan."

"Somehow that's not a comfort," Tanner muttered, then turned back to look at her, "Why are you here?" He went on boldly.

An eyebrow raised above her mint green eyes, "Such a tone!" She stated haughtily, "I came here to give you my gifts, of course," She said smoothly, now smiling again. A feeling like lead dropped into his stomach. He was unsure that he wanted any gifts from this beguiling lady. Her face sobered, "The first…is not a pleasant one, but necessary."

"What do you mean?" Tanner said frowning.

"Do you remember when you were young?" She asked instead of answering his question.

"I remember being happier," Tanner replied his eyes glazing a moment at the thought of those times, "I was…carefree."

"And falsely so."

"Huh?"

"Goliath has told you of your birth, I am sure, of what transpired?" She queried.

"Father has told me of how my birth nearly killed my mother…Yes," Tanner said with a suspicious nod. He wondered where this line of questioning was headed.

"But nothing of what happened after? Do you not remember that time?" She pressed, "Most Gargoyles are aware in their first week."

He was sure he looked to her like a deer in the headlights, "I have no recollection before about my fourth week."

Lady Titania looked down and an expression of…was it guilt, passed quickly over her ageless features, "No I did not think that you had…I had to protect your sanity."

"Excuse me?" Tanner asked incredulously.

Before he could react she had closed the distance between them. He tried to back away from her proximity, startled by her sudden approach, but found that he was unable to move, even to blink it seemed. She gazed at him with her light pupiless green eyes for a moment before waving one slim hand before his face. He tried to resist the sudden fatigue that was causing his eyelids to slide shut.

He was in darkness behind his own eyes for moments before he had a sensation of sliding away and he panicked inwardly still unable to control his body. Down…down he slid as flashes of light and images streaked past his inner sight and he realized that they were images from the short duration that had been his life so far. He reached out intent on latching tight to one of those quickly moving images, trying to stop his slide back into what he thought might be nothingness. He could no more stop his regression than he could open his eyes.

With a sudden lurch he was thrust into darkness, and no sound surrounded him, not even that of his own labored breathing. He waited in the pitch trying to make sense of what Lady Titania was trying to show him.

The confining darkness pressed in on him from all sides and there awoke an overwhelming urge to break free of its oppression. Without thought he flung himself forward and lay his claws (Suddenly smaller than he remembered them) to what proved to be a pliable, warm, and fleshy substance holding him prisoner.

Somewhere muffled by either distance or insulation he thought he heard screams, as of someone in intense pain. He continued to work at the surface before him, as the claustrophobia became more intense in him. It took him long moments to notice the change, as a taste filled his mouth, it was warm, salty and tinged with a taste of iron…Blood! He found his tongue working in his mouth searching for the wound that must be there. He found nothing, it was as if the taste came from his very surroundings. He cast blind eyes around him, scared about the implications of that. His conscious thought was overridden yet again by that drive to be free now a fever under his skin. As he returned to the work before him he noticed a slowing of his body, a dulling of his senses, and watched as if from a distance as his arms went limp and fell slowly to his sides.

Now there was sound, like a great heart, beating percussion all around his immobile form. This did nothing to abate the desire to rip and tear at that covering to be freed. His nerves jangled with the conflict of mind and body.

Above him a small shaft light broke through the "ceiling", growing longer and brighter as the slash grew larger. It was tinted red casting him in an eerie light, and he found his lax body rising slowly toward that reddish light surrounding him. He passed the barrier moments later blinded by the light now flooding the room. There was a sensation of movement again and he moved from light to dusk.

His vision then shifted forward, not far but enough to know that a passage of time separated his last vision to this. He was holding one finger of a very large hand and his gaze turned up to see who possessed that mighty limb. He found Goliath towering over him as he did often when he was young, keeping tabs on his young son and spending Gargoyle time with him. He looked forward again seeing a curtained off area in the middle of a large room. He realized then that this memory was not familiar to him. He watched with a sense of foreboding, as if he was looking over his younger self's shoulder, as the boy played and flitted alongside his father, yet never losing hold of the large digit in his palm.

His younger self continued to play as Goliath parted the curtain surrounding what turned out to be a hospital bed. On that bed…was Elisa…looking like he had never seen her before. She was younger, that much was obvious to him, but she was pale of face and weak of body. Something he knew he had never seen in her, at least that he could remember. The garglet that he was leapt to the bed beside her, looking down into her pain teared eyes. The garglet was motionless for long moments staring at her. A great sorrow welled up in that small mind…a realization of the part that he had played in her injury. It was a great weight bearing the lightness of that mind down and almost extinguishing it completely. His younger self said words that he could never remember saying, and heard his own mother's words of forgiveness. It should have absolved that feeling, yet he had grown only more sullen and sad that his mother was so generous in her heart. It was a weight that began to smother his young innocence.

His consciousness spun forward again and he found himself back in the present. He was knelt onto the hard cold stones of the parapet, his wings hanging limply beside him and his hands over his eyes pinched tightly shut. Even when he became aware of the return to his present he remained thus, reviewing the event in his own head. He was frozen…unable to move as the emotion swept over him. He had thought the guilt he had felt with just the knowledge of his parent's words was sharp. But as the weight returned, weightier, perhaps, for the time elapsed that he had never known of the burden, he felt himself curling inward. A depression was settling over him, and he found himself unwilling to face the lady he could still sense before him.

Another emotion came over him then as a question surfaced in his mind. Anger fought the depression when he realized why he had never known of those events before now.

"Why?" He whispered, at first not looking at her. His hands fell from his eyes and he slowly got to his feet. Glaring at her, a daring move considering, he went on, "You took those memories, that knowledge from me…why?" He bellowed.

One brow raised over her mint green eyes, as if she was amused by his anger, "Because," She began smoothly, "I foresaw what your life would have been. I saw you shackled by guilt, depression, anger, and self-loathing, unable to cope with the knowledge of what you had done. You would not have been a viable member of your Clan. I would not have that for you!"

"But Why?!" He bellowed showing the same depth of voice that his father showed when angered, "Why am I so fascinating to you? What makes me so special that you would alter my path?"

The Lady looked on him with half lidded eyes, her fair cheeks drawn in. She said nothing on her motivation, "I have undone the wrong, young Gargoyle, now that you are better prepared to deal with the pain."

"You think that it's easier for me now?" He growled, "This is like a pain in my heart, a steady squeeze of a mountain above me! How is a passage of a few meager years supposed to better prepare me to deal with that knowledge?"

"You had already been told," She replied in a calm voice, cold with a rising anger of her own, "That measure of distant guilt has cushioned you, made it easier for the whole of the truth to be told."

Tanner's eyes narrowed slightly, but he acquiesced feeling the knife-edge under his feet begin to tilt toward danger. He knew better than to provoke the timeless Lady of Avalon, she could be as destructive as a hurricane in her fury, and he dared not find himself on that side of her. More tactfully he said, "That my interest you held in your heart I don't question, Lady. But you have done me an injustice, for the pain and guilt are no less for the passage of years."

"Nor were they meant to be," She replied coolly, "But you are more ready than you were in your third week of life. It will not cripple you as it was to do then."

She smiled maternally then, and Tanner was hard put to keep the irritation at the look off of his features, "So I make amends, I will forewarn you of the gift of your heritage. It will be bestowed on you when you wake this very day. Do not be frightened of this gift," She said softly, then raised one slim finger as caution, "But I caution you in the use of the gift. Abuse it to your peril."

"And just what is this gift?" Tanner asked.

Titania smiled crookedly with mirth, "You will know tonight."

Before he could question her further a cloud of mist rose to surround her. A breeze slid tendrils through the air taking the shrouding mist with it. When the wind had torn it to tatters the Lady was gone.

"What could she have meant?" Tanner muttered to himself as he turned from the parapet and moved toward the stairs leading down into the castle.