Wow... this took a long time. sorry bout that... I appear to have lost my inspiration, for some weeks. But worry not! I found it again. and here is my story! Yay!

"You were in love with her!" Victor exclaimed as he burst in to the stables.

"Hello to you too, Victor. Nice to see you so perceptive this… evening." It was indeed, the middle of the night. Victor stuck to his point.

"Emily… Bonejangles, you were in love with her weren't you? She… she broke your heart." Bonejangles laughed in resigned sadness.

"Ah Victor, it is a riddle enough to ask if a heart can break once it's stopped beating… let's not beg the question of whether it can break once it's rotted away entirely."

"So… it's true then?"

"Yes. I was in love with Emily."

"Wh-what happened? Did she know?"

Bonejangles laughed again, and then frowned bitterly. "It would have been hard to miss." He said.

"Then what, why did she…?"

"Victor, I traveled thousands of miles, and death was always inches from my heels. What were the odds that I would wind up dead the same town in which Emily was fated to die twenty years later? What were the odds that I would meet her there in death in that happy underworld, and fall in love with a girl I was never supposed to meet? What divine intelligence was at play?"

"I don't …"

"Emily was a hopeless romantic, Victor, but all that was apparently not enough."

"Did she feel the same way?"

"The answer to that question is obvious." There was silence. Victor suddenly understood why he had felt so guilty. Emily was waiting for her true love to fatefully propose marriage to her. She couldn't be with Bonejangles while she was waiting for 'the one.' It was because of Emily's ideal of romance that she had missed out on what could have been the greatest romance of her existence.

"Victor!"

"Victoria!" Victoria hurried into the stable wearing only her nightgown with a heavy shawl thrown about her shoulders. "Victoria! You're not wearing any shoes! You'll catch your death!"

"I was so worried about you. You went straight to bed and didn't say a word to me and - and just now you up and ran into the stables. Oh Victor! I don't want to be angry with you anymore, and I don't want you to be angry either! I can't stand this!" Victor smiled and picked Victoria up, bridal style.

"Victoria, your feet are getting all wet." He said as he set her daintily on the door of an unused horse pen, "I'm not angry with you. I never was. I love you." Victoria smiled as Victor began to wipe the mud from her bare feet with a discarded horse's blanket.

"Oh dear," she said, in realization "I think I might have woken Lucy up on my way down here, our rooms share a wall and I was awfully noisy." Victor stopped what he was doing and looked at her, wide eyed, "Oh, Victor, you were probably right about Lucy anyway, maybe Lucy has changed, but my past experiences with her are simply… coloring…" She trailed off, for Victor had taken a step away and was glaring at the ground. "Victor?" Bonejangles answered for him.

"You were right about your cousin."

"What?"

Bonejangles shook his head, "I can't stand a woman like that," he said angrily, she'll carry on with as many men as possible, and then when the most well-connected of them proposes, that's the one she'll accept, leaving the rest in the dust. Even now… that one's been around. I can tell."

"Oh… surely not?"

"She tried to kiss me!" Victor cried. Victoria gasped in surprise then her face darkened.

"She. What?" Just then, a sunny lilting voice cut across the darkness outside.

"Victoria? Is that you? What are you doing outside? You'll make yourself sick!" She entered through the large stable door, "Oh! Hello Victor," she smiled secretly, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come down." Victoria glared at her evilly, and just as she was about to leap upon her and scratch the pretty blue eyes from Lucy's delicate face, Bonejangles came to the rescue.

"Hello," he said pleasantly. Lucy snapped her head in his direction and screamed as Bonejangles laughed jovially.

"B-Be gone Satan!" She howled, holding the laughably tiny cross about her neck as though it were a weapon. Bonejangles rolled his eyes and leapt down from his perch, slowly approaching the terrified girl.

"P-please! Don't hurt me!" She cried as he approached. Bonejangles rolled his eye.

"You have nothin' to worry about, darlin'. I only drink the blood of virgins."

Lucy's eyes rolled up into her head, and before anyone could catch her, she fell face down into the muddy ground.

Long live Bonejangles/Emily!