07.08.98; 22:36; Demona's Mansion:

Demona sat in her comfortable chair in the living room, reading the daily newspaper and waited. Shade sat at her feet, slightly depressed since she smelt the scent of a well tasting goose, roasting in the kitchen, but was banned out of the kitchen by Darlene.

Gem sat in her playpen, where she had to sit in much too often, and looked around, still feeling not restless enough to complain or to break out, but restless enough for not finding any fun in playing with her toys anymore

Finally the waiting ended for all three, since Shade lifted her head and one-second later, there was a knock on the glass-door to the veranda.

Demona looked up, seeing her daughter and her sister standing at the other side of the door and raised her claw, beckoning them to come in.

This was the moment when she heard someone coming... or better yet, racing from the upper level.

"MOM, THEY ARE HERE!" Jarred screamed from the staircase and let his grandmother guess that the whole neighborhood knew it by now.

Jarred arrived at the door even before his grandmother, making Demona asking herself when she had to renew the floor from the hatchlings feet-claws... Of course, then again, this was nothing she had to worry about.

"Thank you." Angela told her nephew when he had opened the door, letting her and her aunt in.

"Very gallant." Desdemona praised the hatchling, making Jarred smile.

"Daughter, sister." Demona greeted, coming nearer.

"Mother." Angela replied smiling, embracing the surprised ancient gargoyle. "Good to see you."

"Yes, it has been too long." Desdemona commented. "Some believe already that you don't want to come to the castle ever again."

And most are happy about this. Desdemona added in thought but decided it better to let it be unspoken, guessing that her sister knew this by herself.

Demona commented this by shrugging her shoulders.

"I had a lot of work to do for Nightsone," she began, "and..."

She never got the possibility to finish this sentence, since at this moment Darlene entered the room, still wearing a glove on one of her claws.

"Hello." she greeted the newly arrived. "Good that you're here finally."

With this, she embraced first her half-sister and then Desdemona.

"The roasted goose is nearly ready, Lana is still in the kitchen looking after it." Darlene explained, looking to her aunt. "Mother told me that you like goose."

"Like it?" Desdemona asked unbelieving. "I love it!"

Smiling, she turned to Demona.

"You haven't forgotten." she noticed.

"Yes," Demona told her nodding, slightly embarrassed by the gratitude in her sister's voice. "You never could resist it."

Before her sister could reply, Gem made clear that she was still there by making complaining screams, which were near crying, leading Darlene to the playpen to take up her youngest child.

"Hey, it is okay," Darlene calmed the infant down. "Do you want to greet our guests?"

Gem definitely wanted so, since the moment she had been lifted near an eye level to the visitors, she stopped complaining and started to reach with her little arms after Angela.

"Can you hold her?" Darlene asked her half sister. "I have to go back into the kitchen to help Lana serve the meal."

Angela nodded, smiling and took the infant, who had learned to trust this grown up and so giggled when her aunt tickled her sensitive belly.

Half the way to the kitchen, Darlene turned around again.

"Meanwhile you can tell our guests and Jarred your news, mother." Darlene suggested and her calm voice barely hid the hardness in it.

Desdemona, Angela and Jarred turned surprised first to Darlene and then to the immortal, but both eyes stayed cool.

"After the meal, Darlene." Demona replied and shot an icy glare to her biologically eldest child.

"What news, granny?" Jarred asked Demona when his mother had vanished out of the door.

"You will hear it." Demona replied calmly, realizing maybe for the first time how much it would hurt Jarred.

"Good news?" Angela asked.

The immortal simply shrugged her shoulders, which made Angela and Desdemona sigh in union. They would have to work with Demona on her diplomatic skills some time.

"Have I shown you my sword already?" Jarred asked the guests, which led them both to shake their heads. "Deborah gave it to me for practicing... Do you want to see it?"

Desdemona and Angela looked to each other, unsure at first, but then the glittering in the hatchlings eyes convinced them.

"Sure." Desdemona replied with a slight smile.

Jarred grinned and raced up the way to his room.

"He seems to like his sword a lot." Desdemona noticed while she sat down on the couch.

"Yes." Demona agreed. "I noticed that when he held the sword at morning, and turned to stone... it turned to stone with him."

"And?" Angela asked, who sat down on the couch beside Desdemona.

Demona looked surprised on her daughter, but then remembered who had raised her.

"Do you know why our clothes turn to stone during the day?" she asked her daughter, forgetting the fact that she didn't turn to stone anymore.

Angela simply shrugged her shoulders.

"A biological process?" she guessed.

"No," Demona explained. "When our bodies turn to stone, it is biological, but our clothes turn to stone by magic."

"Magic?" Angela replied surprised.

"Yes," Desdemona agreed "according to the tales of our clan, the clothes we wore were destroyed when we turned back into flesh. This was until a Roman king, who met our kind, ordered his sorcerer, the first Magus, to cast a spell on our whole race to let things turn to stone with us if we wear them.... Provided that we own them."

Angela nodded; this sounded understandable, even though it sounded weird.

"And before?" she asked.

"Since it would require too much time to create new clothes every night, our race was naked." Demona replied coolly, slightly amused at how her daughter's cheeks turned red.

Gem had meanwhile freed herself of her aunt's arms and crawled on the couch into the direction of Desdemona, who smiled and took up the hatchling.

"The meal is ready." Darlene told them, looking in from the other room.

08.08.98; 00:41; Demona's Mansion, Dining Room:

The meal tasted well, which was a common agreement among the ones sitting on the table. Jarred had placed his sword in the corner, after showing it, and Angela and Desdemona were now busy playing a bit with Gem in her high chair.

Darlene meanwhile talked with Desdemona and Angela about anything, which was necessary since these three were practically the only ones who talked. Finally, after a short but hard look from her mother, Lana decided to say something, especially when she remembered the chores her mother had threatened her with if she would remain silent the whole evening.

"Why are your husb..." she hesitated, remembering that this was not the word that gargoyles used, "…your mates not here?"

This led to Angela looking embarrassed for a second, as well as with Desdemona.

Great, Lana thought when she noticed the slight glare of her mother. Chores, here I come.

"Broadway has to cook." Angela explained, avoiding her mother's eyes. "Since father made him the official cook of the clan, he has had plenty of work to do every night."

"And my mate wanted to speak with Bluestone about a possible place in the police program." Desdemona explained, looking to Lana with a smile, which was as false as the excuse.

Demona just eyed her guests calmly. She knew they lied. Gargoyles, with exceptions, weren't very used to lying, these ones especially. But it didn't matter for Demona that Broadway and her brother avoided her.

In the end she thought it was even better, since Darlene wouldn't have been able to cook enough for this mass, especially for Broadway. Jarred's hunger was close to rivaling Broadway's and Darlene had been very hungry too, especially tonight which didn't escape Demona's attention.

"What about your siblings on Avalon?" Darlene asked, trying to get over this. "How did they react when they learned that the clan is alive again?"

"They were totally surprised." Angela replied. "Some even came to visit us, but it was nothing lasting... In the end we decided to see my siblings on Avalon, as a clan on their own, even when some in the clan didn't agree to this."

"I heard tales of it." Jarred noted. "Is it true that fairies live on it?"

"Oh, come on." Lana snorted before Angela could answer. "Next thing you'll be asking her will be if King Arthur lays there sleeping until he is needed."

"Well..." Angela began swallowing, looking on her niece with a slight smile. "Recently there have been Fay living on Avalon again, but King Arthur is awake and on a quest to find Merlin."

This made Lana's jaw drop down, while Jarred grinned superior on her.

"I will move back to Berlin in two weeks." Demona suddenly said, using the silence.

Now, all eyes including Gem's and Shade's were directed on her.

Wonderful, mom, Darlene thought cynically. Now I know where Lana has her great diplomatic abilities from.

Angela was the first who regained her voice.

"What?" she asked her unbelieving.

Demona shrugged her shoulders, unimpressed by her daughter's shock.

"I never planned to stay here for long." she told them. "I just had to regulate my business with the clan. Such I have done so and now there is no reason to stay."

The whole table, except Darlene who held a cold face, looked unbelieving on the immortal.

"I don't want to go away." Jarred told both his mother and his grandmother.

"We're not moving away." Darlene explained to her son with an unmoved voice, never letting her mother out of her eyes. "Just your grandmother is."

This made Jarred to look unbelieving on his grandmother. "This isn't true... " The hatchling said, but Demona shook her head.

"It is, Jarred." she told the hatchling, looking into his brown eyes for just the touch of a second. "I don't belong here."

"You do." Desdemona protested. "Sister, your clan is here, your family..."

Demona just shook her head.

"It hasn't been my clan for already over 1000 years." she explained. "And I don't plan to start this up... especially since there are no foundations."

"Mother," Angela exclaimed, "sure, we have different... opinions, but we will find a way to live together... We have to!"

"No," Demona replied determined, studying her daughter with unreadable eyes. "I have..."

The immortal didn't say anything further, since Jarred jumped up, letting the chair fall down, and ran off in the direction of the stairs and leaving the remaining silence.

"Jarred." Darlene called after his son, but he didn't hear... didn't 'want' to hear.

Worried, since she had seen the tears in her son's eyes, Darlene was going to stand up and go after him, but her mother stopped her.

"No." Demona ordered while she stood up and walked around the table. "I will clear this up with him."

With this, the immortal walked off, following her grandson up the stairs and leaving the speechless gargoyles, including a worried gargbeast, alone.

"She can't be serious." Angela finally asked.

"She is." Darlene replied.

She had taken Gem from her high chair since the infant had sensed that something was wrong and had begun to cry.

"I have talked with her already." Darlene told the three gargesses in front of her, including her eldest daughter while she tried to calm Gem down. "She is serious and I doubt that anyone can talk her out of this... Mother is too stubborn."

"But this makes no sense!" Angela told her sister, as if she had to convince her. "Why should she go now?! Everything is going so well!"

"It is not going well, Angela," Desdemona corrected her. "Sure, it might be a little better now, but many in the clan still hate her... and many might do forever."

The caramel-skinned gargess swallowed, unsure if she should say anything more, but then she decided for it, even when Lana was sitting at the table.

"Last time my sister was with the clan, when you were away, an elder accused her because of the massacre." she explained. "I think this might have led to a fight if Goliath had not intervened."

The blood partly dropped out of Angela's face, but her biological older sister stayed unimpressed.

"Mother wouldn't hide herself from a confrontation." Darlene noticed. "I think she might have other reasons."

Slowly Lana, who had stayed a bit shocked since the revelation, came back to life, when a terrible thought crossed her mind.

"But we can stay here?" she asked her mother. "I mean in this mansion."

"Sure, your grandmother would allow this and even give us more than enough money to come along." Darlene replied and calmed her daughter down. "But I think it is more secure to move in the castle."

Lana stared on her mother, remembering the gargoyles that were definitely much too interested in her and imagining how to have them around from dusk till dawn.

She had to convince her grandmother to stay!!!

08.08.98; 01:16; Roof of Demona's Mansion:



Demona slowly walked through the door, entering the roof which was illuminated from the moon and seeing her grandson crouching in the shadow of the large satellite dish.

The immortal closed the door behind her, loud enough so that even a human could hear it and her Jarred had much keener ears now.

Jarred turned his head shortly, but from the look in his tearful eyes, Demona knew that he had expected his mother and not her. When he turned to look again on the city, outside the walls of her mansion, it seemed as if he was going to jump up and glide away, but somehow he held himself back.

Demona slowly walked to him, thinking about the right words to calm her grandson down.

"Jarred," she began, "I'm sorry..."

"No, you're not." Jarred told her angrily. "If you were, you would stay."

He stopped and Demona used this break to slowly come nearer to him until she kneeled down beside of him.

"You have to understand that I can't stay here, Jarred." Demona told the hatchling.

"Because we are human..." Jarred noted, now with tears running down his cheeks. "Too human for you..."

Demona had to suppress a gasp, from these words from her grandson, which indeed hit her.

"Who said this?" Demona demanded to know.

"You..." Jarred replied, and when he saw the surprised look on his grandmother's face he added. "I mean..."

He sighed, as he looked on his claw, a claw with five talons, not four like a 'normal' gargoyle would have and Demona began to understand.

"We are not true gargoyles and so you don't want us." he continued sadly.

"No," Demona replied uncommonly soft, placing a claw on his shoulder. "Jarred, for the last time, I don't see you as a human, I never have and never will."

She swallowed, knowing that this was not completely true, but when her grandson looked into her eyes, she continued.

"This," Demona said and softly took her grandson's claw in her own, "doesn't matter." she looked in his brown eyes. "It is your soul, which makes you a gargoyle and even if you would be human now... It wouldn't change what I feel for you."

Jarred stayed skeptical and removed his claw out of hers.

"Then why do you want to go?" he asked her. "Why do you want to leave us?"

"I don't fit in here, Jarred." the immortal explained. "I and the clan don't get along."

"Because of the humans?" Jarred noticed.

Demona shook her head. It was naturally the main reason, but she couldn't tell this to her grandson.

"The humans are one reason, but there are others." she began and when the immortal saw her grandson looking up to her, she stared ahead of herself.

"Which then?" Jarred asked surprised.

Demona swallowed, she didn't know how she could explain this.

"Jarred, what has Deborah told you in your first lesson?" she began.

"Well..." Jarred swallowed, "that we protect, that this is our nature and our purpose."

"And?" Demona asked him, nodding slightly since she had known that this would be the very first thing her old teacher would have taught Jarred.

"Well… and that we have to fight with honor." Jarred continued. "That we have to watch out for each other and the weak..."

"Yes." Demona told him. "This is what for her, for the clan, a gargoyle should be... but it is not as what I define myself."

"But..." Jarred began, "you wouldn't have to leave us. Maybe you could live outside the clan somehow."

Demona sighed.

"Maybe." she lied. "But even then, there would still be many reasons not to stay."

On the questioning look in her grandson's eyes, she added

"Reasons I don't want to speak about." she explained, now in an unusual soft voice. "Jarred, all I want is to ask you to trust me that I do the best. Will you do this?"

Jarred looked on his grandma, still doubting, but finally his trust in her overcame his worry and since he wasn't the reason.

"I will." he swore, even when his voice had more than a hint of sadness in it. "But please stay until I have become an adult!"

Demona looked on him, remembering shortly her own ceremony at this time.

"I can't." she told him and added at once. "But I will be there when you ascend with the others, as CEO I can choose when to take my vacation time."

"You promise?" Jarred asked and the happiness in his voice made Demona shudder.

"I promise that I will do what is in my power to try." she told him, cautious of promising anything and laid a claw on his shoulder. "So I will do so."

Jarred looked first on the claw and then on his grandmother, giving her a weak smile.

She would go, but this wasn't forever so there was no real reason to be sad, wasn't there?

"Come, let's go back down." Demona told her grandson, standing up, her face now having a cool manner and Jarred nodded.

08.08.98; 01:23; Demona's Mansion, dinning room:

"We have to make grandmother stay!" Lana exclaimed, near of a panic.

The three other gargesses looked surprised on her by this urgent request and finally, Desdemona shrugged her shoulders.

"But how?" she asked.

"Maybe we should simply show her how much she means to us." Angela suggested. "To us and to the hatchlings at least. She is their rookery mother and Connor..." she stopped at the last moment, looking to her niece who according to her mother, definitely should not learn of who Connor's mother was, "…will miss her most of all."

Darlene nodded, knowing what her sister had wanted to say and meanwhile Gem, who had grown restless again, sat on the floor in front of Shade.

"I doubt this, but we have to try." she explained "Best tomorrow night after dinner."

"Tomorrow night?" Lana asked her mother surprised.

Darlene nodded.

"We planned to ask your mother to come to a dinner with the clan in return, tomorrow." she explained, exchanging a special look with Angela and Desdemona by this. "Maybe there we can change her mind."

Gem, unseen by the grown-ups, meanwhile had managed to climb on Shade, sitting happily on the patient beast that had placed her head between her claws.

God I hope so. Lana thought, finding the possibility it even worth to be with the clan for a night.

"But if not?" she asked.

"Well, there is still a cell down in the dungeon here." Darlene said smiling, despite this evening, slightly amused by the look in her daughter's face.

She looks like I have threatened her to move into Hell, Darlene thought.

"Which I haven't built to be imprisoned in, daughter." her mother's voice noticed from the stairs and when they looked to them, they saw Demona standing there together with Jarred. "What exactly are you planning to do?"

Another one would have thought this was a joke, but Demona's dry voice didn't had a spark of amusement. While Jarred approached his mother and sat down in the chair beside her with a face still slightly unhappy, Darlene noticed that she couldn't remember her mother ever making a joke.

"We just talked about tomorrow night." her daughter replied in the same dry tone while she shortly looked on her son.

Meanwhile, Shade had risen and approached her master to smell if everything was okay, with Gem holding on her back, holding herself with her tiny claw.

"And what about it then?" Demona asked, her tone having a hint of aversion in it while she took up Gem from Shade's back, tickling the infant's sensitive belly.

"Well, you and Darlene, along with her children, are invited by the whole clan to visit us for a meal, sister." Desdemona explained to her sister, having a slight smile on her face.

Demona's mood dropped by some degrees and she stopped tickling Gem in her arms.

"Tomorrow I have..." she began only to be stopped by Darlene.

"No dates in business, neither in private," Demona's child noticed. "I have checked your calendar, mother." On the slightly angry look of her mother she added. "And I think this is the best way to explain your plans to the others, especially the hatchlings."

Demona looked on the gathered females unhappily, approached them and after having given Gem back to her mother, sat down on the free chair.

"It seems you leave me no choice then." she asked coolly, but her voice showed that she had been defeated while Shade sat beside her master's feet-claws on the ground.

"No, we don't." Darlene replied smiling, knowing that she had won.

"Come sister, you will see. It will be nice." Desdemona told her, having even so a soft smile on her lips.

Sighing, Demona began to stroke Shade's head, who replied to this with a soft, but constant purring. Somehow she doubted her sister's words... and she would be proven right soon.