"I am a stranger to you as you are to yourself." - Smashing Pumpkins, "Blue Skies Bring Tears"

"Now you've gone and done it! I hope you're happy in the county penitentiary--it serves you right, for kissing little girls

But I'll visit, if you miss me" - The Dresden Dolls, "Missed Me"

"So turn around and run back where you're from/you can't get on/don't shake those hips don't bite those lips/just keep it hid" - The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Between Planets"

"there are few good men--ask yourself--is he one of them?--the deadliest of sin is pride--makes you think that you're always right--but there are always two sides--it takes two to make love--two to make a life" - Massive Attack, "Special Cases"

............................

Robin had woken up alone, in someone else's bed. And she wasn't sure why, but it had put her in an utterly foul mood. Amon had evidently awoken before she had and instead of waking her up or saying good morning or anything he'd left and henceforth, she hadn't seen him all day. Robin really wasn't sure why it had put her in such a foul mood, but it had, and she'd agreed petulantly to go with a wan, ill-looking Sigrún into the city of Copenhagen for some clothing shopping. She knew that Amon would definitely not have agreed with the idea of Robin traipsing off by herself with a semi-stranger, and even though she didn't feel much like going out or doing anything, Robin figured that secretly irking Amon was the reason why she'd agreed.

A fragment of her had been offended, unnecessarily, when halfway to Cophenhagen proper Sigrún informed Robin that the clothing expedition was to be for her. Instead of voicing said opinion, Robin bit her tongue and kept the disgruntled remark within. Apparently her clothes were too quiet, too meek—in preparation for inevitably meeting the committee and meeting other, fellow witches, Robin needed to be able to give off an air of competency; of cool, calm, collectedness.

"Clothes make the woman," Sigrún had commented to Robin, in the back of the Checker Marathon, dabbing lightly at some sweat on her forehead. "This is not to say, Robin, that there is anything wrong with your current clothing. It would just be better to look a bit more businesslike, more...mature."

Robin had not replied.

She allowed the older woman to drag her from store to store, boutique to boutique, and at one point even agreed to have some measurements taken. Robin wasn't sure what for, but Sigrún had insisted that it was always good to have at least one clothing-maker who had your measurements in case you needed something made for you on the fly. The numbers of Robin's measurements depressed her, like a numerical reinforcement that she needed to be more mature.

Shaking herself out of her angry, depressed haze, Robin remembered to thank Sigrún for the clothes she'd just purchased, even if Robin hadn't really desired them at all. The bags sitting on the floorboards of the Checker only served to remind Robin that she was so, so far away from being that which was almost required of her to assume the role of the Eve of Witches.

How much more mature did she need to be? A part of her brain, evil, insinuating and sly, reminded her that she had woken up alone in a man's bed that morning. That's pretty mature, the dark part of her brain whispered.

Back at the house, sitting in the bathtub, Robin had plenty of time to mull over these things. Her immature clothes, her sweater and her long, flowing reddish-ochre skirt lay in a heap on the black and white tiled floor. She slumped in the claw-footed bathtub like a tired, aging monarch on his throne. Her toes, on the other side of the bath, just barely poking above the waterline, wiggled slightly.

She didn't like feeling this way. She imagined that this must have been how Amon felt frequently; irritated and somehow sad, and very, very reclusive. To him, it must have felt normal. To Robin, it felt like a fifty-ton weight sitting right on top of her blonde head, threatening with single movement she made to snap her neck and let all the anger and sadness come spilling out her broken-open body, smothering anyone who happened to be standing nearby.

The silence of the bathroom was broken by a knock at the door, loud and purposeful, meant to startle her. She sat up above the waterline, figuring it would be Amon having come to lecture her about something. Instead, his brother's voice came through the door.

"Hey, kiddo. You drowning in there or something?" he called through the heavy wooden door, and Robin blinked.

"No, just taking a bath," she called back, twisting some towards the door, feeling the cool porcelain against her almost-just-as-white skin.

"Well, close the curtain. I'm coming in," Nagira's voice replied. Robin reached over and grabbed the dark green shower curtain, and pulled it around the bathtub, shrouding her little watery-white world in a dark green haze. The sound of the water around her was muffled by the fabric and echoing. Exactly five seconds later, the door opened and she heard the sound of Nagira's expensive dress shoes on the old tiled floor. "I hope I'm not disturbing the Queen in her bath?" he asked, closing the door behind him.

Robin found that Nagira was the one person she felt she could tolerate at the moment, even if deep inside she'd roiled at the Queen remark given her current disposition. "No."

She heard him pulling up a footstool and seating himself upon it, his familiar scent of expensive, rich cologne and spent cigarettes wafting to her through the shower curtain. There was another, unfamiliar scent there with him. "I brought you a cup of coffee. Black, just like you like it. Here you go," he said, and Robin took the cue and stuck one white arm out to blindly accept the mug and bring it through the curtain into her dim, green, little world.

"Thank you," she said, suddenly grateful. She was certainly more grateful for the coffee than she was for the new wardrobe she'd gotten, or the empty comfort in waking up to discover one's self alone in a foreign bed. "It smells great," she commented, taking a tentative sip. "Thanks."

"So I heard you went shopping earlier," Nagira said, conversationally. It sounded like a lead into something bigger, a conversation with a purpose. "Did you have a bunch of other clothes that were too big for you too, or what?" he asked her, referring to the winter coat that she'd sported before he'd dragged her out and bought her a new one. Behind the curtain, Robin allowed herself a frown.

"No," she began, slowly. "I guess...my clothes were too...childish."

A pause. "Childish?" Nagira asked, confusion evident in his voice. "How so?"

Robin shrugged, drinking from her coffee. "I'm not sure. Sigrún took me clothing shopping for some new clothes so I would make a better impression on all the people I will meet. I..." Robin felt guilty at the seething tide of mysterious anger within her. "...she was just trying to help me. I suppose that I am going to need to look more professional and businesslike when I meet people, instead of looking like..."

"Well," Nagira sighed, "I suppose I could understand where Sigrún's coming from, a little. You didn't dress childishly before, Robin, you just dressed like you. You dressed like a girl who was raised in a convent, all dark colours and long things that would cover you up. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. I think it's better than you running around dressed like all the other girls your age nowadays—somehow I can't picture you in a skirt that barely covers your ass."

Robin squirmed a bit in embarrassment at the very thought of herself in such a garment. "You're right. I just..."

Nagira chuckled a bit. "It's okay, kid. I understand. It never feels good to have someone insult your fashion sense, I know. You know how much crap I catch for wearing that big old coat of mine?" he asked, and Robin's mouth turned into a smile against her will, thinking of Nagira's trademark white coat. "It used to really bother me. I even stopped wearing it for a while, but then...I realized that I liked wearing it, so I started again. I may have to dress professionally for my job, but I'll be damned if I stop wearing that coat. You might have to dress up a bit from time to time, for stupid people who only judge each other by their appearances, but it's not going to change you any." The familiar crinkle of a pack of cigarettes was heard. "Besides, who knows? If you cut the right figure in a pencil skirt, I might just end up firing Mika when I get back to Japan and hire you as my new secretary."

Robin was giggling then. Just as somehow Amon could manage to make Robin feel sad no matter what mood she was in, Nagira managed to make her feel cheerful no matter what mood she was in. "I did get a couple of those skirts. Sigrún said they looked good on me and I liked them because they're not so short."

"Great!" Nagira enthused, and she heard him lighting his cigarette. "You know, there's a saying: a pretty woman can look pretty in whatever she wears. Some women dress themselves up in tight clothes, short clothes, all just to try to look pretty—women can look pretty even when they're not showing all their skin, you know."

Robin blushed. "I...you're not supposed to smoke in here, you know," she said, quietly. Nagira scoffed.

"Bah. The steam will get rid of the smell," he dismissed. "You can always get away with smoking in a bathroom, kid."

Looking down at the mug of dark liquid in her hands, Robin bit her lip and shifted in the water. "...Can I have one, then?" she asked hesitantly. Nagira was laughing, then, and she heard the crinkling of a cigarette pack once more.

"Sure," he agreed. Robin stuck her hand out from the curtain and felt a cigarette being placed into her hands. She drew it into the bathtub world to find it already lit. Coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other, Robin felt kind of silly sitting there in the bathtub, but she felt the most cheered that she had all day long. She felt like one of the characters that she'd seen on various television shows across Europe—sitting in quiet reflection with her coffee and her cigarettes.

"So did you sleep okay last night?" Nagira asked then, and Robin felt some of her disgruntlement coming back. "We don't have to talk about the nightmare if you don't wanna—I'm just wondering if you managed to get back to sleep okay."

"Yes," Robin said, her voice sounding cool and detached even to her.

There was a heavy silence from Nagira's side of the curtain. Then, a sigh. "What'd he do?" he asked, sounding as if he should have known better. "I shoulda known there was a reason Amon would have asked me to come check on you. What'd that oaf do now?"

A funny feeling formed in her stomach at the concept of Amon asking Nagira to come check on her. Her mind tried to picture Amon expressing concern about her to someone else—someone besides her—and it was almost impossible to conjure. Robin took a small puff of her cigarette before she replied. "Nothing, really. I just...never mind. It's silly. I don't know why it bothers me. I think I'm just tired and under a lot of stress."

Her comment was met with silence from Nagira's side of the curtain. Obviously he wasn't buying her story.

"...I woke up alone," she said in a small voice. The words had been forced out of her by the leaning of Nagira's disbelieving silence. "It felt so...strange. I felt...abandoned. I wish he would have at least just woken me up and sent me back to my own room or something." She shook her head, mostly at herself. "It's completely foolish, I know. And then I was already kind of in a rotten mood when Sigrún took me out, and I wasn't even very grateful when I told her thank you for buying me all those clothes...after she spent all that money on me, I couldn't even bring myself to give her a sincere thank you." Robin sighed heavily, disturbing the enclosed smoky air in front of her. "I don't know what's wrong with me today, Nagira. I'm certainly not looking forward to having people over here tonight. That's not my decision to make; it's Sigrún and Trygve's, since it is their house, but they're all coming over because of me and I...I just don't know if I can do it."

"Do what?" Nagira asked, gently.

"Be what they want me to be," she said, after a moment's reflection. "Everyone is expecting me to be this big, impressive woman who dresses a certain way and acts a certain way; certainly not one who dresses like a...convent girl, and who has nightmares still, and gets upset when she wakes up in the morning alone, like a spoiled little—"

"Hey, kid," Nagira said, cutting right into the middle of her words. "I'm not gonna tell you what to do, okay? You've obviously had enough of that lately, and obviously had enough of everyone either purposefully or accidentally placing all their expectations on you, so I'm not going to do that either. You don't have to do anything, Robin." He paused for emphasis, allowing Robin to think. "People want you to do certain things, but you know...if you don't want to do those things, or it makes you upset to do them...then fuck 'em. Tell those people to get bent. Your responsibility is to yourself, first and foremost. Just because you're the Eve of Witches doesn't mean you have to change overnight, even if people wish you would or want you to or whatever. You're allowed to have bad days, too, you know." There was a gap in conversation filled by the sounds of coffee-sipping, water moving, and cigarette smoking. "Just do whatever feels right to you. You don't have to impress anyone, Robin. People will come around in time, and they'll respond better to you being yourself than to anything else."

She could hear him standing, his dress shoes grinding against the tile. "Look, I'll leave you be and let you have your coffee and your bath. I'll go let Amon know that you haven't drowned or anything. But think about what I said, you know? If you want to talk more about it later, then come find me."

The clicking of his shoes heading away, then, sounding polished and efficient on the tile. "And listen—I think you're doing a good job, just the way you are." The door opened and closed and Robin waited a few seconds before opening the shower curtain, sliding it along its oval-shaped path to bunch in the corner. Light flooded back into her bathtub world, and she sighed, sinking back into the water. Flakes of cigarette ash fell into the bath water with a quickly drenched hiss.

Half of power is making people think you have it. People will come around in time. Her mind swam with advice, just as the bathroom air swam with steam and cigarette smoke.

............

The parlor, with its giant overstuffed chairs and selection of interesting books, was quickly becoming Nagira's favourite hangout since he could smoke in there. "She's fine—just taking a bath. You know how long she can be at that, sometimes." His brother came up and sat down in the open chair next to Amon's, an overstuffed leather affair that was facing an unlit fireplace. The parlor was cold and grey, and eerily silent. "So what was that all about, last night? I open the door and turn on the light and you're rocking Robin like she's a baby or something."

Sighing, Amon knew deep inside that he should have expected Nagira to grill him for details in the morning instead of just letting sleeping dogs lie. "She came rushing into my room in the middle of the night, bawling—not to mention startling the hell out of me—and threw herself onto my bed. She startled me so badly that I actually sat bolt upright, grabbed my gun, cocked it and pointed it at her." He frowned, sighing. "Didn't seem to faze her a bit."

The room was still and chilly, and Nagira's cigarette smoke spiraled off, unrivaled by airflow, into eternity. "Time to switch to decaf, buddy. Be more careful! You could have blown Robin's head off." Amon set his copy of H.P. Lovecraft down on the small table between the chairs, rubbing his eyes.

Amon shot the lawyer a warning look after having rubbed his eyes for some time. "I would not have. I don't fire at something until I know what it is. I am not that trigger happy or that green. Give me a bit of credit."

Nagira let it slide, eyeing his cigarette as he rolled it between his fingers. "So what was little Robin's hellish nightmare about? Must've been pretty bad if it sent her flying into your bed. The witch world?"

"No." Amon rubbed at a spot behind his ear and then folded his hands in his lap, slouching down in the chair some. "It was about the night at Gróa's house. She was talking all kinds of frightened, nightmarish nonsense. Gróa's corpse was talking to her, there were rotting bodies lying around, and that Gróa's corpse was trying to tell her something about the future." He looked over to catch Nagira looking at him with an eyebrow raised, and Amon tendered a small shrug. "Don't look at me. Typical post-traumatic-stress reactions, I think."

"Hell of a dream," the smoking man said after a moment, appreciatively. "Probably would have scared the bejeesus out of me." He looked to Amon again, who was staring at the unlit fireplace in thought. "What kind of things about the future was our poor Gróa trying to communicate to Robin?"

Amon shook his head dismissively, staring into the cold fireplace with narrowed eyes. "Typical nightmare fare, it seems. Robin is now convinced that Sigrún is going to miscarry because Gróa told her that it would happen, in the dream."

Nagira let out a whistle. "Oh that's lovely," he commented. Then he paused. Amon knew which direction the conversation was going to turn, immediately. "So you let her cry her little eyes out and then you took her back to bed and tucked her in and told her to have sweet dreams, right?"

Amon frowned. "Sure."

"Liar." Nagira looked over with a grin at his brother, whose mood was darkening almost audibly. "So she didn't sleep in your bed last night?"

The frown intensified. "No."

Nagira actually let out a laugh then, his head rolling back. After his laughter he remained looking up at the elaborate molded ceiling with a smile. "Fuck, Amon, remember who you're talking to here. I saw through your lies when you were still lying to me about whether or not you'd been spitting out the parts of your dinner you didn't like into your glass of milk. I saw through your lies when you were still trying to tell me that no, as a matter of fact, it hadn't been chocolate-fingered chibi you who ate the last box of Pocky." He started laughing again, taking a drag of his cigarette.

By then somehow infinitely irritated, Amon slouched down further in his seat and looked over to Nagira with a severely heinous frown on his face. "She had a nightmare, Syunji. Of course she slept in my bed. She was terrified. It isn't as if I lured her in there and molested her." He rubbed his face. "Jesus."

"Why'd you try to lie about it, then?" Nagira asked, grinning like the Cheshire Cat personified. He pointed at Amon daringly. "You've got a guilty conscience. Oh, and by the way, way to go on the emotional one-night-stand. You're a big boy, Amon, I shouldn't have to tell you how much any woman—be it one you're screwing or Robin—hates to wake up alone."

Amon sat up then, hands on the arms of his chair, face leaning into Nagira's. "Do you really want to know why I lied about it?" he growled at his brother, who smiled back at him unflinchingly.

"Try me," said the older brother, casually taking a drag from his cigarette.

"I am through with you sneaking around, snidely questioning my every move around Robin. I am not some kind of predator, Syunji. I am just trying to be the best protector and companion to that girl that I can be and more often than not I fail, and this I know. My job is not made any easier by a jackass like you taunting me about my actions every five seconds." Amon remained in his brother's face, staring him down intensely. His teeth were locked and threatening to start grinding.

"Wanna know what else isn't making your job any easier?" Nagira asked, leaning in even closer in a conspiring manner. Amon narrowed his eyes at the smoking man.

"Please, enlighten me," he quipped in an unenthusiastic monotone, under his breath.

"The fact that your job isn't made any easier by the fact that you're mad fucking in love with that girl, and it's really hard to be a detached protector and companion when half the time you're probably having schoolboy fantasies about her." He grinned, watching the dark look on Amon's face shift into pure murder. "And the reason my teasing gets to you so goddamned bad is because you, like I said, have the worst guilty conscience I have ever seen." Nagira leaned back, resettling into his chair comfortably. He put his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray on the table between them. Amon had not moved an inch, but his tense with anger and poised position seemed not to threaten Nagira in the least. "You're just lucky Robin's so bloody clueless, you know. I don't know how she can still be so clueless as to what you're so-calledly 'hiding' after all this time, but methinks it's got a whole lot to do with the fact that you've worked so hard at convincing her that you regard her about as much as a dog regards a flea." Snickering, Nagira dispelled the last of his cigarette smoke from his lungs. "And you really earn points by being balls-less enough to get me to go up there and check on her, you know."

Silence passed on for a few moments, and Nagira looked over to his brother, whom had still not moved from his tense, defensive position in his chair. "Oh, for God's sake, sit back and relax," Nagira groaned flippantly, waving his hand at Amon. "You know, for once in your life you don't have some quick and snippy little logical retort to feed to me and maybe that's good. Why don't you just sit there and keep your mouth shut and just think for a while, buddy? You should try that more often—more thinking, less being a jerk."

Amon's pulse was thudding angrily in his ears and after a few murderous moments, he slowly leaned back into his chair, staring at Nagira all the while. His hand still gripped the arm of the chair tightly, knuckles turning white with the effort.

What made him angrier? Being utterly schooled in argument by his brother or being nailed on so many points so unabashedly?

Amon couldn't decide. And, inadvertently following his brother's snide advice, he shut his mouth and sat there and thought—alternating with brooding—about it.

As Amon sat in petulant thought, Nagira picked up the book off the chair's armrest and snickered at it. "Heh. Lovecraft. It figures you'd be reading weird shit like this."

.........

Looking at herself in the mirror, Robin barely recognized what she saw before her. Surely this was a prettier, worldlier, more mature girl in the mirror. It was amazing what a new change of clothes could do—and dressed up in this costume, being this-Robin-but-not-Robin, she actually felt more of the part. Guilt ate at her insides for only half-heartedly thanking Sigrún that morning for the clothing expedition.

Being the Eve of Witches somehow seemed easier in a smart skirt.

Was this vanity or pride, the thing she was experiencing? She furrowed her brow, thinking about it. No, it couldn't have been—it just felt like she was wearing a superhero's outfit, or something of the like. She'd gone into the bathroom a normal fifteen year old girl—utterly Robin—and had come out looking like a woman who knew what she was doing.

For the most part, anyway. Robin eyed the shoes next to her warily, curling her toes up. Managing to walk in shoes with even a moderate heel proved to be difficult. Too difficult. Eventually she'd taken them off and decided that she'd settle for her good old Mary Janes; at least they wouldn't cause her to almost fall down or to nearly snap her ankle in half.

She tugged at the dark grey pencil skirt, straightening out invisible folds and creases, and readjusted her sweater—a three-quarter sleeve black affair with a wide neck that somehow seemed elegant despite being a normal sweater. Robin felt elegant, and realized how silly it was to feel that way, seeing as how this was how most normal women dressed on a day to day basis.

A heavy sigh worked its way out of Robin's lungs, ruffling the choppy reddish-blonde hair around her face.

"You look very nice," a voice at the door suddenly said. Robin turned from the mirror so quickly she almost snapped, her hand flying to her heart. A bright red-haired girl—was it even possible for people to have hair that red?—was standing in the doorway to Robin's room, dressed all black. The redhead covered her mouth with a hand, freckled face looking apologetic. "I'm sorry, Miss Robin. I shouldn't have startled you so."

The beating of Robin's heart began to slow down to normal again, and she sighed. "That's fine. Um..." Her toes curled again. "Who...are you?"

The redhead grinned. "My name is Beatrix. I am one of the maids of the house." She indicated a small pile of clothes by Robin's bed, an accumulation of dirty clothing that Robin had been hauling around with her on the train trip. "Would you like me to launder your things for you?"

Instant refusal prickled at Robin's tongue. She'd never had anyone do her laundry for her. It didn't seem right to make someone else wash your own dirty clothes. "Um..."

Beatrix didn't wait for a reply, strolling into the room to gather the small pile of clothes into her arms. "Are there any special care instructions for any of these garments?" The girl spoke English accentedly and awkwardly, making it obvious that she'd learned it as a second language. "No? Well. I will have them washed and returned to you by this evening. Is your room to your liking?"

Robin was a bit flustered. It felt bizarre to have someone suddenly pop into your life with the sole purpose of cleaning up after you and tending to your needs. It was definitely not something Robin was used to at all. "It's, um..."

"So you are the Eve of Witches?" Beatrix fairly gushed out, over her armful of dirty clothes. "We have all heard so much about you. You and your caretaker...Mr. Amon?"

Robin nodded carefully. "Yes. We've, um..."

Cradling Robin's clothes with one arm, Beatrix flicked an invisible speck of something from Robin's bedcovers and then smoothed the spot she'd flicked. "He is very private, yes? He refused to let me launder his clothing. I hope he wasn't offended by me. He seemed startled to see me in his room, cleaning up."

"Oh." Robin's eyes slid to the door that connected her room and Amon's, and she imagined him sitting in his room listening to the semi-conversation between the excited maid and Robin and rolling his eyes. "Yes. Er. Well. I'm not certain if he was offended or not. He usually doesn't like to be called 'Mr.', though. And...you don't have to call me 'Miss', either."

"I understand. It makes both of you feel old, yes? Sigrún and Trygve say the same thing." Heading for the door, the talkative Beatrix noticed an errant sweater balled up on a chair in the corner of the room. She looked at it for a moment and then made a little noise of thought. "I'll just launder that as well," she informed Robin, pointing at the sweater.

Then it flew from the chair into her open, waiting hand.

"Goodbye!" she called over her shoulder, to Robin, as she exited the room. Robin blinked, trying to remember what exactly she'd been doing before Beatrix had come bouncing into her life unceremoniously. Unfortunately, her mind was too busy trying to figure out what in the world had just happened.

........

"Kid. Kid!" Robin opened her eyes to find Nagira shaking her shoulder determinedly, hovering over her. "Wake up, Robin! You're missing your own party!"

Rubbing her sleep-cluttered eyes and sitting up slowly with Nagira's help, Robin looked around her room vapidly. "How long did I sleep for?" she asked curiously, and Nagira tendered a shrug.

"Dunno. I don't know when you fell asleep. But hey, you're missing the party!" Robin looked at him with squinted, confused eyes, and adjusted the neck of her sweater, pulling it back up over one of her shoulders. He poked her, slightly. "Coven, coming over? Remember? Coven, coming over to see you?" Nagira stepped back with a bemused look on his face as Robin's eyes widened dramatically and she practically sprang off her bed, suddenly fully awake.

"Oh," she sighed in annoyance—mostly with herself. "I've been asleep for hours! How long has—"

Nagira looked at her with a grin, sticking his hands into the pockets of his slacks, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Only about forty-five minutes. Everyone's been wondering where you are, though. Amon's probably shitting a brick right now, seeing as how I snuck away and left him alone with all the strangers to come find you."

Robin rushed around her room, hunting in vain for her shoes. Crawling around on her hands and knees near her bed, looking for said absent shoes, she made a little noise of frustration. "This is the worst first impression ever, Nagira! How could I have fallen asleep for this long?" she moaned, sounding mortified. The lawyer couldn't help but chuckle at Robin's flustered state.

"Growing girls need their sleep, I guess," Nagira surmised. "Don't worry, it isn't as bad as I made it out to be. Everyone's just starting to settle in and get drinks and stuff so I don't think anyone's really noticed that the guest of honour is mysteriously absent. There's just a lot of elbow rubbing going on down there right now. No one's even noticed you're not there." He watched Robin, suddenly having located her shoes, sit down on the floor unceremoniously in her somewhat restrictive skirt and start to fasten the buckles on her Mary Janes. "Oh, and Robin?" he asked suddenly, causing her took look up from her shoe-donning, hurriedly.

"You might want to brush your hair before you come downstairs," he suggested, amusement quietly lurking in his voice. "It's a bit..." He made some motions around his own head, and Robin's hands flew to her hair immediately, feeling it sticking up in a few locations from sleep.

In a flash Robin was digging through her bag, more little noises of frustration coming from behind the mussed curtain of red-blonde hair.

Nagira couldn't help but laugh outright, then, at the whole situation.

..........

Amon was staring. He hadn't seen Robin all day long, having partially been avoiding her due to inherent awkwardness at once again having woken up, sharing a bed with her. The last time he'd seen her was that morning as he left his room—a quietly slumbering Robin curled up in blankets hadn't even noticed his departure. Amon hadn't slept too well the night before, for obvious reasons. One was that his brain was too busy working over the implications and opportunities of having Robin sleeping against his side, and another was that whenever he did finally fall asleep, Robin's movements in sleep would occasionally jar him awake again. It'd been a while since Amon had actually shared a bed with someone, not just slept on the completely opposite side of it, drunkenly.

He couldn't stop staring. He'd left a sleeping, un-intimidating Robin in his bed that morning, feeling like an ass for sneaking away but not really knowing what else to do; because he knew that if he stood there for long enough looking at her as she slept, he was going to end up crawling back into the bed and laying down next to her.

The Robin he'd left sleeping in his bed that morning seemed somehow different than the one coming down the stairs with his brother. The Robin that was coming down the stairs didn't look like a girl who'd be left sleeping peacefully in some asshole's bed—she looked like a girl who'd be busy dragging said asshole back to bed, only to release him when she saw fit.

Amon's mind chastised him for staring so wantonly, for letting the darker parts of his mind run away with themselves so rampantly at the sight of Robin in clothing that made her female enough to be dangerous. He watched Trygve ascend the curving stair to meet Nagira and Robin halfway, mouths moving, smiles being shared. The trio descended the stairs and melded into the small crowd, presumably to start making the rounds—Hi, hello, how are you, this is mankind's genetically-constructed alpha witch...we don't usually call her that, though, she usually goes by Robin—and if we'd had any idea that she was going to cut this figure in a tight skirt, we probably wouldn't ever let her out of her room. Amon found himself searching for the blonde head of Trygve and the dark head of his brother in the crowd, searching for Robin's whereabouts. This man dressed like a high income pimp is Nagira, one of her errant caretakers—yes, the alpha witch still needs caretakers!—and the frightening, murderous-looking man over there in the corner is her other caretaker—that is, when he's not too busy trying to keep himself from committing statutory rape.

Amon groaned, mentally. He needed a drink. Badly. This was already shaping up—mostly internally—to be one hell of an evening.

...........

Her hands wouldn't stop shaking, a fact she was desperately trying to hide. It was rather difficult to do so when she kept shaking other people's hands and having people kiss her own. If people noticed, they didn't seem to care. She had to remind herself that these were Trygve and Sigrún's people; these were the people who already believed in her and her power. These were the people who already supported her, not people she needed to convince.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to appear at least somewhat collected, and not like a terrified girl. Graciously, Nagira stuck by her side through the swarms of people waiting to meet her, drinks in hand, children in hand, smiling faces—Nagira had disappeared from her side momentarily but returned with a glass, which he promptly placed into Robin's confused, shaking hand.

"Wine," he said, matter-of-factly. "Drink it up. Makes socializing a hell of a lot easier." Unsurely, Robin took a sip of her wine, and moved along with Nagira and Trygve to the next small group of people eagerly awaiting their meeting with the Eve.

The faces started to blur after a while, too many eager people with too many eager words. Robin wasn't used to this sort of treatment; her days at the convent had been spent as one small face among many, her days with SOLOMON had been spent as one person in an endless army. Her first meeting with the STN-J had not been the most welcoming and warm meeting ever, and even her first meeting with Nagira hadn't been all that comforting. This was perhaps one of the first times in Robin's life that she could remember feeling like the center of attention, and it made her distinctly uncomfortable and itchy in her own skin, like it was a costume from a weird play that she couldn't wait to shrug off.

One glass of wine down, a refill from Nagira. He was right. Talking got a lot easier after the first glass. After the second glass, Robin didn't need Nagira and Trygve anymore, and she was wandering around on her own, chatting with other witches as if she'd known them all her life. Some of them didn't speak English; none of them spoke Japanese—in some cases, she used her knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and French to get along. They were from all over, all walks of life, all ages—some poor, some rich, some cultured, some working-class, some fledgling talents, some well-honed weapons of the Craft.

They were her people. And they were eager to see her. They shared with her all of the tall tales they'd heard of her and Amon and their experiences in Japan, their life on the run. Some of them made Robin laugh outright, some of them had a grain of truth to them. She eagerly gleaned all the information from her conversations that she could, trying hard to remember people's names, where they came from, who they knew; all while she drank her wine and tried to act mature and confident, playing with people's children and complimenting people on their clothing, their smiles, their polite nature. Robin thanked them for their support, their faith; once, goaded on by a boy who looked to be slightly older than she was, she reached out with her mind, through the witch world, and searched through the room for a few minutes until she found him, brushing her presence against his mind comfortingly to his amazement.

Amon was still nowhere to be found. At first it had pained her severely that she hadn't seen him all day, that he'd been avoiding her, but the more that she talked with the extensive members of the coven and the more wine she drank, the less and less she cared that Amon was mysteriously absent from her side. She'd tried to find him by reaching out, but it seemed to become increasingly difficult to focus the more wine she drank, and soon all the glows began to look the same, not even Amon's distinctive glow discernable.

There were men in the parlor, drinking cognac and smoking cigars and cigarettes, and Robin eventually wandered in, a poppy stuck behind her ear and one in her hair, given to her by a man from Hungary whose Craft was the power to control water. The smoke stung at her eyes momentarily, rolling at her in clouds like fog, but she steeled herself and continued in, feeling a bit blurry and kind of warm. Spying Nagira out of the corner of her eye, she wandered over to him and sat down on the arm of his chair, smiling at him in a supremely pleasant manner.

"Robin's come to join the men for drinks and cigars!" he said with a laugh, giving her leg a pat. He studied her for a moment, and a sly, creeping smile came over his face. "Want some more wine?" he asked, and Robin murmured a glowing affirmative. Nagira disappeared for a few moments and then returned, a glass of wine in his hand. He handed it to Robin who took it gladly. "Do you realize that you're the only woman in here, kid?" Nagira asked her upon sitting back in his seat. Robin looked around suddenly, eyes wide.

"Am I...not supposed to be in here?" she asked suddenly, fearfully. Nagira laughed.

"Go wherever you want!" he said unapologetically, sipping some sort of amber liquid over ice from a glass. An ashtray next to him spoke of multiple spent cigarettes. "All these people are here to see you, anyway—it'd be pretty damn ridiculous if you couldn't go wherever you wanted," he said. Nagira indicated the man across from him, leaning closer to Robin to speak to her above the din of deep-voiced male conversation and booming male laughter. "This here is Finn, a cousin of Trygve's. Finn, this is Robin."

Robin turned green eyes to the man sitting in the chair across from Nagira. He was slightly dark skinned and dark-haired, with deep brown eyes. His arms were covered with sun-freckles, and he appeared to be tall and lanky. Robin furrowed her brow. "A cousin?" she asked.

"Through marriage," Finn replied. "Not by blood. Nice to meet you, Eve. Heard a lot about you, y'know."

The green eyes that had been scrutinizing the man blinked rapidly. "You're...you're an American!" Robin fairly burst out, her face registering shock. "I mean...you are an American, aren't you?" The man Finn nodded, and Robin smiled apologetically. "I am sorry. That was horribly rude of me to burst out with a question like that. It's good to meet you, Finn."

Nagira shrugged, lighting another cigarette and offering one to both Robin and Finn, who both accepted. "Go figure. An American named Finn. It's like a Chinese guy being named Swede or something like that." The man Finn laughed, lighting his cigarette with the lighter proffered by Nagira, and leaning back in his chair. Robin allowed Nagira to light her own cigarette, although she really didn't have much interest in smoking it. As a result, it ended more or less just burning away in her hand until she put it out halfway through the cigarette. Nagira said nothing.

"So you're gonna go up against the committee, huh?" Finn asked Robin, narrowing chocolate-hued eyes at her through a cloud of cigarette smoke. Robin suddenly noticed the abundance of sun freckles on his face, as well. She gave him a skeptical little look.

"I hope to befriend them, actually," Robin said, and the only response she got from the American was a quiet chuckle. She felt the urge to frown but suppressed it and looked at him brightly, changing the subject. "So you're from America—where in America?"

He grinned at her. "A lovely little place called New Mexico. Ever heard of it?"

Robin nodded. "I've driven through it. There...wasn't much there."

"Exactly. That's why I'm not there anymore," Finn replied. "Mostly staying in England now, but Tryg's asked me to stick around here for a while. I guess he figures you guys could use the extra backup."

"Backup?" Robin asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "I'm not certain what you mean."

Finn chuckled again, sipping from his glass—which prompted Robin to do the same. "You know, a little extra muscle. Nagira here doesn't have a Craft, and from what I hear your so-called 'warden' is still a little dodgy with his, so...you know."

Something inside of Robin was bristling, perhaps at the man's underestimation of she and Amon's combined power, and of Nagira's competency despite his lack of a Craft. She also wondered if Trygve actually thought that it was necessary for them to need extra support, if his faith in their power was really that tremulous. "It's kind of you to extend your help to us. We've been fine on our own, so far, but your support is welcome."

"Nagira here tells me you killed a man with your mind," Finn said, looking at Robin intently, "in Iceland. I'd heard before that you were just a fire Craft-user."

A glance was exchanged between Nagira and Robin and the girl took another drink from her wine glass before answering. "Well, yes. But since I gained the knowledge of the Arcanum of the Craft in Japan, my powers have been expanding." Robin smiled. "I can do a lot of things, now."

Nagira grinned up at her. "Like talking to babies?" Robin looked at him like an embarrassed child would look at a goofy parent, and Finn looked about the parlor they sat in, interestedly.

"And what of your fellow ex-Hunter friend?" he asked, arching a chestnut-coloured eyebrow. "I keep hearing all about him, but I haven't actually met the guy all night."

Resisting the urge to bite her lip, Robin straightened up a bit, squaring her shoulders proudly. The affirmation of Amon's absence and that people noticed it gouged at her defenses. "Amon is...Amon is kind of a private person. He doesn't care for large crowds, really, and he usually prefers just to observe."

A noise like a scoff issued from Nagira. "What she means to say is that my brother is an anti-social bastard," he stated in deadpan, and Robin favoured him with a look that was almost pleading, silently asking him not to go so rough on his brother. "Come to think of it, he has been unnecessarily dodgy tonight. Wonder where the kid's buggered off to?"

Similar thoughts had been running through the blonde girl's head all night, but she just hadn't been willing to admit it to herself, really. "He's got to be around somewhere. Amon wouldn't just disappear."

"I'd like to meet him, at some point. Y'know, considering that I'm going to be you guys' new housemate and all," the American supplemented, looking pointedly at Robin. She stared back at him, and sighed very, very slightly.

"I guess," she began, standing smoothly—almost too smoothly, "I should go find him. Perhaps it would be good for him to talk to some people, meet some people..."

"Stop being such an anti-social bastard," the lawyer in the chair said under his breath, unmindful of the second pleading look Robin directed at him before turning away and striding out of the parlor, every step she took seeming too solid, as if the ground beneath her was made of rock. At the same time her body felt like rubber, bouncing with the effort of each step. Slipping her way through the witches, she was waylaid quite a few times by people talking to her or pointedly catching her attention, and it would have been extremely rude of her to just ignore them and keep walking—a bad impression, she knew. Still, even when engaged in sleep, green eyes scanned the room fervently, searching for a glimpse of a familiar black-garbed figure, a familiar stalking walk; ears listened for an echoic memory of a deep, intimidating voice, or perhaps a less familiar, startling laugh.

A flash of red at the corner of Robin's vision caught her eye and a soft hand at her elbow turned her round, mid-walk; she was facing Beatrix then, staring into the pale, too-freckled face. "Are you looking for something?"

"Someone," Robin corrected.

In one hand, Beatrix gripped three or four empty wine-glasses, and tendrils of her bright auburn hair were coming loose from their restraints. It must have been very busy for only two maids to help attend to all of these people, Robin surmised. "I may be able to assist you, then," the maid said. "Who are you looking for?"

Robin almost didn't want to say, as if it was giving something away. "I'm looking for Amon."

Something lit up in Beatrix's eyes, and she smiled. "Ah, Amon. He is in the music room, which is next to Mr. Trygve's office." She pointed off towards the other end of the main room and Robin followed the invisible line drawn by the other girl's finger. "Mrs. Sigrún wasn't feeling well, so we suggested that she sit down somewhere quiet for a while, and Amon and some others have gone along with her to keep her company."

Robin thanked the maid for her help and started off in the direction of the music room, whose existence she hadn't even known about. Keeping her head down and walking purposefully kept Robin from having to interact with anyone else along her way, and she walked down the small hallway towards the door next to the closed office door, which was open. Light poured out into the semi-darkened hallway and she paused just outside the door, looking around the corner almost shyly.

"Hello?" she called, even though she could plainly see the people in the room—Amon among one of them. He was sitting on a window seat next to Sigrún, some kind of glass in his hand, his eyes suddenly looking to the door. Sigrún looked up from whomever had been speaking at that moment and to the door, a smile creeping across her face.

"Come in," she beckoned, scooting over some, placing a space between herself and Amon. "Please, come, sit. You needn't ask to come in here."

Robin murmured a thanks and entered the room, seating herself between Sigrún and Amon, trying her hardest to not let any awkwardness or embarrassment show. Amon moved over a bit as she sat, to give her a bit more space—they'd been far too close before, all kind of meanings given out in the proximity. For the first time Robin looked at the two people sitting across from them, in chairs—an old man and a young girl who looked to be perhaps her own age, give or take a year or so. "Robin, this is Paolo," Amon said, indicating the old man, who smiled feebly at her "and this is Genevieve," he said, and the girl grinned sharkishly, adjusting herself in her seat. Robin got up briefly to exchange delicate cheek kisses with the old man, and then went to the girl to do the same, but was startled when Genevieve recoiled dramatically.

"Oh, don't," she said, her voice practically dripping with a dirty, quick Irish accent. "I've a bloody miserable cold and I can't imagine anyone with feck for a brain wantin' it."

Robin blinked at the girl's frank speech and sat back quietly, looking between the two sitting in front of her. "I'm Robin. I'm...the Eve of Witches."

The old man turned drooping brown eyes to her, squinting slightly. "So I have heard," he said, his time-worn voice speaking of Italian birth. "I'd hoped I'd get to meet you, my dear, before I died."

The girl in the chair next to him turned and looked at him with a disgustedly skeptical look, picking at her scarf around her neck. She looked like she'd just come fresh out of a youth hostel, wearing all the clothes she owned in the world—bohemian, possibly homeless, and uncaring. "Oh, shutup, you old feck. You're about as close to death as I am t' becomin' th' bloody Queen of England."

Robin was startled and even offended at the way the girl had just spoken to the harmless old man, but she became even more startled when the old man reached out and dealt the girl a severe whack on her mussy brown head, mumbling to himself. "Apprentices are good for nothing," he said to Robin. "Thanks be to Our Father in Heaven that the Eve of Witches is a good, clean, obedient girl," and he was speaking to Robin, but it was clear that he was directing his words towards Genevieve. "And not some sort of ragamuffin without a care for anything. Child, how are you ever going to learn to use your Craft properly if I can't even teach you how to follow social mores?"

Robin looked over to the Irish girl, who was busy rubbing at her head through her short, ruffled brown hair with a grimace on her face. "Oi, feck. Can I come t' live with you?" she asked, looking to Amon sourly. "At least the Eve of Witches doesn't have t' worry about bein' smacked on her gourd all th' damn time, and at least she can drink. I'd kill for a feckin' pint right about now."

Amon simply shook his head at her, seemingly amused by the girl's crude behaviour. Sigrún turned to Robin. "Paolo has been taking apprentices for years, one at a time, and schooling them in how to properly control and use their Crafts—taking them out of situations in which they might have learned to use their gift for ill." She looked back to the old Italian man, smiling approvingly. "He seeks out young people with his own Craft—the power to be able to look into one's mind, the power of persuasion—and trains them on how to use it."

Genevieve looked over at Robin with a haughtily raised eyebrow. "'E's tryin' t' teach me how t' use it fer psychology 'n stuff like that." She rolled her eyes, exasperated. "I dunno why I agreed t' this whole bloody mess in th' first place. Me power was much more useful when I was usin' it t' convince idiots t' give me all th' money in their billfolds." Noticing Robin's shocked face and Amon's concealed smile, she grew defensive. "Oh, what? Jesu, don't look so bloody vexed. It wasn't as if I was hurtin' 'em or anything—mum an' da always spent all th' money on th' drink, an' I was hungry."

There was a moment of brief silence and Robin was compelled to say something, having never had parents of her own—not ones she could remember, anyway—and reflecting upon how horrible it must have been to have parents who didn't care about you. "I'm sorry," she said, sympathetically to the other girl. "That must have been terrible."

Genevieve looked at her with something akin to disdain, and slouched in her seat most inelegantly, looking at some point far off to the side. "Bah. Save yer sympathy fer someone who needs it more than me, Eve. Mum and da are bloody useless fecks, besides. I turned out alright enough fer meself, anyway."

There was more silence and it provoked discomfort in Robin, her words having felt cheap and stupid. She turned to Amon and felt even more discomfort at having to talk to him in the silence, around others. "Nagira is in the parlor, with someone he'd like you to meet," she said to him, lowly, as if maybe if she spoke quietly enough no one would notice her talking. "If you'd like to meet him later, then that's fine too..."

Amon looked at her fleetingly, taking a drink from his glass. He shook his head. "No. I'll meet him now." Amon stood, grabbing his jacket off the cushion as he did, managing to look sharp and clean in his suit despite the lack of the jacket. Almost all black, a diversion from the usual—black slacks, black shirt, very dark reddish tie. "Sigrún, if you happen to need assistance and you can't find Trygve, you can come find me."

Sigrún looked up to the ex-Hunter, her blue eyes warm despite her tired face. "Thank you, Amon. I think I'll be fine, however. I'm just a little tired. It's been a busy day."

Grey eyes then turned to the distinguished old man and his less-distinguished ward. "Paolo, it was a pleasure to have met you. Genevieve, likewise. I trust I'll see you both again in the future?"

"God willing," Paolo replied, and Genevieve merely shrugged, looking mischievous.

Robin stood then too, leading Amon out of the music room, giving a glance at an idle violin as she passed through the door. Amon was behind her, the ice in his glass clinking with every step. She turned to him as they walked, and he looked at her. "Hi," she offered, kind of awkwardly. "I haven't seen you all day."

He looked back at her seriously. "I spent the day hanging upside down in hibernation."

Robin's eyes flicked to the glass in Amon's hand almost imperceptibly and she pondered how many of those little glasses he had drank to make him decidedly wise-cracking. "Oh," she murmured by way of reply to his odd comment. "Well, Nagira's in the parlor with a man named Finn who is a distant cousin of Trygve's. Trygve has asked Finn to stay here with us at the house for the time being, so it would be good for you to meet him. And he's curious about you."

Momentary emotions of blah passed across Amon's normally placid face. "Of course. There's about five billion people here, none of whom I know or trust, and they're all curious." Almost as if to reaffirm his words, Amon cast vaguely suspicious glances around the room at all the witches as he and Robin walked to the parlor doors.

"Is that why you've been so sparse all night?" she hazarded, eyeing her wine glass. Almost empty. "Because of the people?"

"Partially." It was a patented Amon-response, one that answered Robin's question but that insinuated that there was something else lurking beneath the surface, waiting to be dug for. At the door to the parlor he opened it, reaching around her to do so. He held it open for her and looked at her expectantly. "After you," he ushered, and she looked at him for a moment before entering, finding her way through the smoke and the men back to where she'd last left Nagira and the American Finn.

Surprises of surprises, they were still there, and the ashtray was now dangerously close to overflowing. Nagira had since switched to smoking a cigar that he'd procured from somewhere. At the sight of Robin and Amon drawing close, he looked over in theatrical shock. "Oh-ho! So you did manage to drag him out from whatever rock he was hiding under!"he exclaimed, earning him a baleful look from Amon. Robin looked to the expectant Finn and put a small smile onto her face.

"Finn, this is Amon," she said, and Amon reached around her again—it was odd how unused to his presence hovering behind her she had become in his short absence—to shake Finn's extended hand.

Finn used a tanned hand to indicate two empty chairs near them. "Pull up a chair," he said jovially. "Sit down and get a refill. We had one of the maids just bring a bottle of wine and a bottle of cognac out here to sit by us." Robin and Amon went to said chairs and moved them a little closer to the two previously seated men, and they sat, Robin caught off guard as Nagira immediately began refilling her glass.

"So instead of socializing, you two are in here getting stinking drunk?" Amon asked of Finn with a raised eyebrow. The American man nodded and Amon considered it for a moment. Draining the rest of whatever was in his glass, he held it out to Nagira. "Refill," he said simply, and Nagira complied. "I'm not very good at socializing, anyway."

Idle small talk was made, with unusual success. Apparently Amon had already had quite a bit to drink, because he was relatively talkative and even amusing and cheerful at times. After a while Robin put her glass down on a table, thinking it perhaps wise that she didn't have any more wine. Her vision was starting to swim a bit, and she found herself laughing and even giggling at things that ordinarily wouldn't have been funny enough to warrant a vocal response. A warm, fuzzy, distinctly gooey feeling was pervading her senses and her body, and she didn't know if it was entirely due to the alcohol she'd drank or whether it was partially the situation; surrounded almost entirely by witches, in her element, sitting with Nagira, Amon, and a strange new man, talking as if they were normal people and not planning hostile takeovers.

The unfamiliar feeling of normalcy was coursing through her body, just as it had on the day that she'd gone out in Iceland with Nagira. They'd been just two simple people out on a day excursion, not criminals by their very existence or beliefs. Here, Robin felt the same—laughing at a joke, unable to stop thinking that it was so funny and looking over to find Amon laughing too. Her blurry vision locked on him laughing and after a second he looked over to notice her watching him laugh, and his laughter slowly faded down into a smile, an actual smile. A smile that held even as he looked at her and she looked at him, and her own smile refused to fade or diminish any in size or character.

This was a hallmark, a moment that had never occurred. For once she was pinned by his gaze, and it wasn't a searching, intimidating interaction. They were just smiling at each other, their smiles seeming to talk to each other—hi. How are you? We don't get to see each other much, do we?

Nagira chuckled. "Robin and Amon are communicating through telepathy." He tossed his pack of cigarettes at Amon, who looked down at them in part startled movement, part annoyance, and then opened the pack with his usual mask back on his face. Engrossed in the task of withdrawing a cigarette and lighting it, he either didn't notice or pretended not to notice Robin's flustered face at Nagira's teasing. Finn was laughing quietly, and Robin settled for looking at the floor, unsure of where else to look. A soft noise that might have been "meep" escaped from her lips.

Nagira leaned close to Amon, a snarky look on his face. "So, I'm interested to learn—how does one communicate through telepathy, anyway? What's it like?"

Amon looked over at his brother, seriously, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Firstly, one must pull their head out of their ass to communicate via the mind," he began authoritively, and this led to some assorted snickers and giggles from Robin (no matter how mortified she was, things were still damned funny) and Finn. "Secondly, after removing one's head from one's ass, one must ascertain that one actually has a mind to engage in telepathy with. Have you done this?" Amon asked Nagira, sounding like a high school teacher giving a lecture in lab. Robin and Finn were outright laughing then. "Thirdly, if one has ascertained positively that there is at least some kind of brain there to speak with, one must make certain that the skull encasing the brain isn't too thick and Neanderthal for anything to pass through."

Looking over at Amon with an eye roll, Nagira leaned back in his chair. "Alright, alright, comedian. I get your message loud and clear." He smirked, evilly. "You and Robin go right ahead and make eyes at each other all you want."

Another "meep" sound escaped from Robin, who suddenly became very interested in her wine glass again, despite the fact that she'd set it down for good just prior. Amon shook his head negatively.

"We weren't making eyes," he defended. "We were communicating telepathically. And I believe that Robin had told me that she'd wanted me to punch you in the face if you didn't knock it off."

Robin's lips came away from her glass almost immediately, her green eyes wide and looking at Amon, unmindful of the smile he was hiding behind his hand, or the snickering of Nagira and Finn. "I did not! I'm..." Suddenly and perhaps foolishly emboldened by a spark inside of her—possibly, a rational fragment of Robin's mind reasoned, a spark caused by wine comsumption—Robin looked at Amon with what could only be termed as a smirk. "...I ought to punch you in the face." Nagira let out a disbelieving, barking laugh, and Finn looked on with interest.

"The first drunken brawl of the evening," Finn said, amusedly, "is going to be between the Eve and her warden?"

Amon looked at Robin in mild shock for a moment, his eyes straying on her smirk, and then his eyes met hers, a discreet smile pulling at his lips. "You've mortally wounded my emotions, Robin. Punch me in the face? That's not very nice. And I don't think you could even reach my face to punch it."

She pressed on, goaded by some gleefully chanting little voice inside of her that had just discovered that it liked banter, and irked by his poking fun at her size. "I could reach it if I wanted to. I could do it right now, while you're sitting right in front of me. I can reach your face just perfectly right now."

"If you do it," Nagira said flatly, "I'll love you forever."

Finn snorted. "You're not a very good older brother, saying things like that."

"Meh," Nagira said, shrugging lackadaisically, refilling his glass. "Punk deserves it."

Amon narrowed his slate eyes, looking at Robin in ill-concealed amusement. "You think I'm scared of you?" he asked, and she narrowed her eyes at him then, the smirk still present. "I'm not afraid of taking a punch from just about everyone, most of all you," he finished.

Robin cocked her head at him. "You should be afraid of me."

"Always fear blondes," Finn added in the background, and Amon momentarily flicked his eyes to the American man in irritation, then turned his attention back to Robin.

The ex-Hunter regarded Robin thoughtfully, almost patronizingly. "And why should I be afraid of you, Robin?" he asked, patiently.

People in power don't like to have their power taken away from them, advice echoing in Robin's head. At some point, the little banter had evolved from her taunting Amon over having insinuated that she wanted Nagira punched to Robin wanting Amon to capitulate. "Because," she replied. He looked at her and then, perhaps most aggravatingly of all, he made a motion with his hand as if asking her to continue, that her existence and all her power wasn't a good enough reason to fear her.

"Because," she said, with a big, brilliant smile, "I am the alpha witch. And I'm the Eve." Her smile widened, even as Amon stared at her unflinchingly, but something in his eyes was moving. "And if I wanted to do something to you, I wouldn't have to resort to punching you in the face."

Nagira and Finn were oddly silent. Something in the air was tangibly different. Somehow it was apparent that the banter between Robin and Amon was becoming something larger. Amon, for his brave part, did not crumple, did not allow her to wound his pride so meaningfully in public. He didn't even register annoyance or disgruntlement, as he normally would have, nor did he chastise her.

Instead, startlingly, he leaned back in his chair, smiling faintly, unnaturally satisfied. "You're right. You wouldn't. And anyone who didn't fear you would be an idiot." He looked evenly at Robin's confused-triumphant face, and nodded. "I might not be scared now, but I'm approaching it."

Silence reigned between the foursome for the second, everyone quite unsure what to say. Nagira steepled his fingers under his chin and looked around at his small group. "So if you're not going to punch him in the face," he said, slowly, "please tell me that you're going to at least incinerate him or something, because I for one am damned tired of his smug little attitude."

.............

Shortly after two in the morning, the house began to empty; drunken witches and their unruly children, loud and flushed from spending an evening running around the house and playing outside on the large property were heading to cars, guided by others. The driveway was a large mess of cabs and cars with drivers holding doors open, and a slightly smaller mess of people making their way to their cars, fumbling for their keys.

Amon was watching them leave from the main hall, offering up small nods and handshakes to those who bid him goodnight and their support. Robin was out on the front step with Nagira and the man Finn, saying goodbyes as Trygve rushed around the property trying to convince those without drivers or taxis to stay for the evening if they were too inebriated to drive. Sigrún, having never recovered her good humours, had retired to bed hours beforehand, cradling Eirikur to her as if the child was a stuffed toy.

And speaking of inebriated, Amon was feeling decidedly good. Out on the impressive front step, he could hear Robin's unusually enthusiastic, soft voice ringing out as she hugged, kissed, bid goodbye to people who asked her for words of protection, who pressed small gifts into her hands and slipped them into the pockets of her coat.

"Oi." Amon looked down to see Genevieve standing before him, swilling something around in her mouth, hitching at her too-big, ragged trousers. She looked like a wandering hippie before him. "Take a picture, it lasts longer."

"I've got a photographic memory," Amon retorted, and Genevieve scoffed.

"Photographic memory me feckin' arse." She stuck out a mitten-clad hand to him, which he shook, finding her grip to be startlingly firm and assertive. "Look, mate, it was nice t' meet you. An' look..." The girl looked around, as if she was afraid of someone hearing. "...look, tell Eve I'm sorry fer bein' such a perfect sot t' her. I'm jes' not used t' someone tellin' me they're sorry fer me mum an' da. Normally they just blame it on th' Irish blood."

Amon nodded at her, withdrawing his hand. "I'll tell her. I don't think she's offended, though."

"An' lissen...Eve's from a convent, right? Used t' be a sister?" Genevieve went on, scratching at her pixie-ish haircut. Amon nodded affirmatively. "...Um, can ye ask'er t' pray fer me? And me mum and da? I know that sounds bloody foolish, but I...it seems like if God's goin' t' lissen t' anyone, it's goin' t' be her."

Amon nodded looking at the fidgeting kid in front of him. "Yeah. I'll tell her. I'm sure she will. You'd better get along—I'm sure it's far past old Paolo's bedtime."

Genevieve looked guilty. "Yeah...ol' bugger needs 'is sleep. He hasn't been well for a spell, after all." She waved at Amon quickly and headed for the door, where he heard her voice resume its normal bluster and bravado as she talked to the trio at the door. Amon's mind marveled at the differences between his Robin—his Robin, when the hell had his brain started calling her that?—and the girl Genevieve. Almost on cue, Robin came sashaying in the door, seeming too relaxed and fluid to be normal Robin. Amon reminded himself it was because she was rather drunk, and not just getting better at invading his defenses with every moment.

She was shrugging out of her peacoat with one of the maids' help; Helle, the one who barely spoke any English. The maid took the coat and hung it up on the rack near the large front door and then went outside, presumably to help the head of the house tend to rallying people to spend a soused night at the house. Robin sighed and looked over at Amon heavily, her eyes looking very tired. He put his hands on his hips and tried to ignore the way his body felt like rocking with an invisible current due to alcohol.

"Feel up to having our purported boxing death match right now?" he asked, and Robin shook her head tiredly.

"Maybe later," she sighed airily, heading for the stairs to ascend to the second floor. "I'll start it when you're unaware and unsuspecting." She yawned. "Y'know, like a sneak attack." Amon turned and followed her up the stairs, smiling—and trying damned hard to keep his impaired eyes from straying to Robin's behind as she climbed the stairs in a form-fitting skirt. He was mostly valiant and successful in his attempts.

"Does that mean that it's fair for me to sneak attack you too?" Amon asked as Robin sauntered down the second floor hallway, in a slightly uneven line. "I'll use my most devious attacks when you're least suspecting it."

Robin mumbled something and then shrugged. "Devious attacks?" she asked quizzically. "Are you going to knock me over the head or something?"

Amon pushed open the door to Robin's room for her, watching her shuffle in, her small hips doing most of the walking, crouching to try with some difficulty to remove her shoes. When she'd succeeded, she sat down on the carpet wearily, staring unfocusedly at the wall. "Poison my coffee? Push me down the stairs?"

Amon let out a small exhaled breath that somewhat resembled a chuckle. "No, it's much more devious than that. Pure evil." Robin looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a confused look, and then carefully got to her feet. Her half-lidded eyes regarded him curiously.

"Turn me into SOLOMON?" she asked. Amon shook his head, squinting at the ceiling in theatrical thought.

"Not quite that bad." Downstairs, far below, the sounds of a loud, drunken Nagira and a laughing Finn came in through the door. The heavy thud of the front door closing seemingly echoed through the house. "If I turned you into SOLOMON, I'd be out of a warden job, now wouldn't I?" His mind was producing the now-familiar warning bells and sirens, and once again he was now-familiarly ignoring them. Flirting again? His brain asked him, chortling with laughter. Wow. Just dig the pit deeper, Amon. Eventually you'll pop out the other side!

Robin nodded, acquiescently. "I guess so. It'd probably make your life easier."

Amon shrugged, hearing Nagira and Finn ascending the stairs, and an unfamiliar voice—perhaps one of the maids? He started moving towards her, hands in his pockets. "Who said I wanted my life to be easy?" he said, and she looked at him unsurely as he advanced. He was very, very drunk. His best choice of action would probably be to leave the room immediately and go to his own—why the hell was he in her room, anyway? "I don't recall ever saying anything about wishing my life was easy."

Robin looked up at him timidly as he drew near. "But...wouldn't it be better for you, Amon?" she asked, and he watched her rock back on her heels somewhat as she looked up at him, her balance thrown askew by having to look up and lose a horizon line.

"Not necessarily." They were staring at each other. Something seriously bad was about to happen, his mind screeched at him, if he didn't immediately desist in his actions. "There's nothing keeping me here, you know."

Robin's face fell, momentarily. "Nothing...keeping you here?"

"Except me wanting to be here." Okay. Stop. Now. Leave the room and quit being a fuck, Amon's brain bellowed only to be smothered by the part of his brain that was more engrossed in staring into Robin's big, green eyes. God, had he ever known anyone with eyes that green and that expressive?

"I wish it didn't have to be this way," Robin murmured suddenly, looking up at Amon helplessly. "I wish we were just like normal people, you know...like we were tonight. When we..." Robin trailed off, her words suddenly dying away. "...um. I. It felt good to laugh," she finished, almost guiltily.

The room was warmer than usual, and it was immediately attributed, by Amon's brain, to the alcohol in his system. Then he realized he'd somehow gotten close enough to Robin for them to almost be pressed right against each other, her head leaned almost all the way back to look up at him. His gut turned a somersault and ignored the way Robin's neck was arching, the way the lines of her body were curving. Nagira's voice was drawing closer, and Amon knew he had to do something—the worrying in his brain finally reaching him—but he couldn't bring himself to tear away from Robin, the way she looked, the closeness of her body.

It was then he realized, with part horror and part startled revelation, that if there hadn't been anyone coming up the stairs, anyone else in the house, he would have been kissing her already.

"You know what this situation could use?" Amon asked of Robin, lowly. She looked at him, in thrall, no words conveying her mental question of 'what'. Nagira and Finn's voices were drawing closer and closer still.

"Some pure evil," he said, just before dropping down and hooking his arms around Robin's legs, right near the back of her kneecaps. Standing, hoisting her insubstantial weight in his arms, he flipped her over his shoulder with little to no effort, hearing her rattled noise of utter shock from behind him. He cursed himself as his hand steadied her over his shoulder, high on the back of her thigh—dangerously close to places he had absolutely no business touching, but he pushed it to the back of his mind and turned, ignoring her astonished utterings.

Out the door to her bedroom he went, stopping in the hallway to face Nagira and Finn. Nagira regarded him as if he'd just seen the second coming of Christ, and Finn merely looked very confused. "I've caught a Robin," Amon said, opening the door to Nagira's room with his foot and entering, flicking on the light. Nagira was right behind him all of a sudden, as Finn somewhat hastily bid a goodbye from the doorway—Amon knew what he was thinking. The man assumed he was interrupting some sort of normal occurrence, Robin and Amon running around playing like little kids in love.

"Well, this is unusual," Nagira commented, even as Amon stood near his brother's bed with the squirming Robin over his shoulder, hand on her leg, feeling her kick, keeping her skirt in place. "What're you planning to do with this amazing thing you've caught, buddy?"

"Um. Let me go." Robin's voice came, meek, from behind Amon, and her squirming resumed anew. Amon shrugged, looking at Nagira.

"Not certain." Amon suddenly and unceremoniously hoisted Robin from back over his shoulder and tossed her down onto the bed—albeit gently, from a reasonable height. Robin bounced harmlessly and looked up at the two brothers looking at her as if she was an actual robin that had just been caught by cats.

"How about tickle her to death?" Nagira asked, a giant grin lighting his face. Robin was instantly and responsively terrified, scrambling but not having much success. Amon allowed a small smile to spread on his own face and he nodded.

"Tickling sounds fine to me," he affirmed.

Robin was no match for both brothers. Squeaking, she tried to scramble away, evade Nagira's hands as they caught her and wrestled with her—Robin put up a valiant fight, that was for sure—and turned her onto her back, gripping her wrists. She squirmed, alternating between fighting for escape and giggling, and Amon was next to her then, tickling her—had he ever tickled a girl, before?—mercilessly, eliciting small shrieks and uncontrollable, helpless laughter from her slim frame. Her ribcage danced beneath his fingers, her legs kicking, tears rolling from her eyes. After a substantial bout of tickling, Nagira nodded at Amon.

"Alright," he said, releasing her wrists, "let's let her up. I think she might explode." As soon as she was released, Robin's immediate response was to skittle away, breathing heavily, looking at Amon and Nagira in a decidedly betrayed manner.

"You do realize that this means war," Nagira said, looking to Amon, "as they would say in the American cartoons."

Robin, meeping all the way, began to retreat. Amon hopped up on the bed, eyeing her like she was a target. "We can call a truce, if you'd like."

Robin, watching both brothers warily, on the retreat, shook her head vehemently. "Never," she replied softly.

Amon grinned at her, advancing. Their eyes locked. There was something therapeutic about this whole escapade, something that was innately silly about playing like he was ten years old again, but somehow something so tension-relieving that it almost made him sigh out loud.

Nagira was shaking with laughter, watching the two sized each other up, making cautious movements as if one was a gazelle and the other a lion—and either one could have been either of the animals, despite the obvious positions of power. "The War of the Witches!" he cried, raising his hands into the air. "Tonight, one time only! Come one, come all—come see the War of the Witches!"

..........

AN: YO. The longest chapter evar. Heh.

Someone asked me a while back what all the chapter titles meant, and I explained to them that they were the names of song titles. Just random song titles, mind you—whatever happens to be in the CD player at the time. Now, keep in mind that I put certain CDs in the CD player when I start to write, depending on my mood, but the chapter names are randomly generated. Whee. So here's the list of songs and artists so far:

Ch. 1 – The Beginning – actually not a song title. Just an apt name for a first chapter.

Ch. 2 – Spark – Tori Amos

Ch. 3 – Young Liars – TV On The Radio

Ch 4. – Funny Time Of Year – Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man

Ch. 5 – The Sky Is Falling – Queens of The Stone Age

Ch. 6 – Waiting Room – Fugazi

Ch. 7 – The Argument – Fugazi

Ch. 8 – Temporary Like Achilles – Bob Dylan

Ch. 9 – Enjoy The Silence – originally by Depeche Mode, covered by Tori Amos

Ch. 10 – The Outsider – A Perfect Circle

Ch. 11 – The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – The Pogues

Ch. 12 – Cowboys – Portishead

Ch. 13 – The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol – Bob Dylan

Ch. 14 – Tiny Cities Made of Ashes – Modest Mouse

Ch. 15 – Bachelorette – Bjork

Ch. 16 – Erase/Rewind – The Cardigans

Ch. 17 – Summer – Mogwai

Yes. I own over two hundred CDs, but you'll discover that I often listen to the same things over and over again when writing. I'm kind of boring that way.

Coming up next—lots of bad things, and warfare. Yes, warfare. Wheee.

Love

meris