DC: 8Decisions to live, decisions to diePart1

by Hardwing

Decisions have to be made, decisions about life and death when Reynard face the last phase of his disease. Meanwhile Hudson has to recognize that his recent wound as his age demand their tribute which may be higher than he is willing to pay.

I just want to thank the creators of DARK AGES for creating such a great background and Storyseeker for correcting my fics and helping me with great ideas and for the characters of his ficverse.

8.Decisions to live, decisions to die(Part1)

Hudson stared at his Angel of the sea, at first unbelieving for a moment, then in growing shock.

Unbelievably, he straightened up, staring at the place where his right leg should be, just to see a stump... a pitiful stump.

"No..." He groaned, falling back on the bed.

"Moore said he had no choice." Deborah explained. "It would have killed you if he had waited."

"Then he should have let me die..." The elder gargoyle replied, closing his eyes where tears were threatening to emit.

"Sometimes, when a member of the clan had lost his mate..." He began, "…or got a wound he couldn't live with… he decided to fly into the sun."

Angela stared on him.

"You mean they committed suicide?" She asked unbelieving. "And the clan allowed this?"

"It was a different time back then, Angela." Broadway tried to explain. "But Hudson has his mate... He wouldn't leave her now."

6.Betrayal

He was in the doorway when the pain began.

It was as if someone had stabbed his heart with a sharp dagger and the pain seemed to spread all over his body, making him sink down on the ground, just leaning on the wall.

No, Hudson thought, hearing in the distance how his mate rebuked the hatchlings. By the dragon, no!

Sitting on the ground, clutching his chest and taking deep breaths, the old gargoyle closed his eyes.

7.Training

17.08.98; 17:13; Castle Wyvern:

Xanatos sat in his business chair and leaned back. He saw how the PC shut down and relaxed, as business was over for today.

At least as long as nothing else happens, he thought while standing up.

As ordered, Owen held the common business deals from him now most of the time, but some decisions were too important, so he had to come to him.

"Daddy, I want to play!" The voice of his son demanded, and when he looked down beside his chair, he saw Alex standing beside him, looking on him with light green eyes.

And there was the reason for this.

"How could I deny something to a Xanatos?" Xanatos asked, taking his son up and tickling him under his shoulders.

"Daddy, no!" Alex complained giggling.

His father had mercy and stopped slowly, smiling on his son. This was, for him, much more important than any business deal.

Slowly, he studied his son and his smiling became less happy. His son was two years old now, or barely as he had just celebrated his last birthday some days ago... but biologically he seemed four, maybe even five.

They had noticed this shortly after the defeat of the Quarrymen, when Alex started to need new clothes on a weekly basis, but blamed the growing push which children, especially babies, had sometimes.

When they finally had come to abandon this explanation, they had asked Owen, or rather the Fay in the wooden servant, who told them that this would be a side-effect of Alex's mixed heritage of human and Fay, which came through.

Fox had been worried about this and had asked Owen why it had not happened with her, but Owen had just replied that either it had happened and her mother Anastasia had blocked it, in order to give her a normal childhood, or that it didn't occur since her Fay heritage was weaker than Alex's.

Owen had denied their request to bring the growing rate onto a normal human level, as for one thing, he didn't believe it was possible for him and even if it had been, it would violate the competences given to him by Oberon to guide Alexander when he influenced his natural development.

This sudden discovering of the Fay lord's law had annoyed Fox, to say at least, and firing him was the most harmless thing she threatened him with, but Owen stayed cool as usual.

In the end, he had calmed the parents down by saying that the growing rate would maybe slow down later, maybe already at the puberty, and that they could tell the public that their son had a seldom variety of metabolic disorder,

Still not being happy with this, Xanatos had asked Owen for other ways from stopping his son's growth. The only suggestion he received was to contact Oberon or Lady Titania in this.

Bribing a doctor for his diagnosis had been much easier than even Xanatos had believed.

Other fathers just say that they could see their children growing, he thought, regretting every minute he couldn't't spend with his son.

"Dad?" His son asked, looking on him questioningly.

David Xanatos smiled shortly, hiding his worries in front of his son.

"It is nothing, son," he lied, "just the business."

Alex looked on his father a bit worried, but then he shrugged his small shoulders.

"Play?" He asked.

David Xanatos nodded.

"Yes, let us go in your room." He explained, standing up and placing his son on the floor.

"Mum too?" Alex asked with wide eyes.

Xanatos sighed.

"You know she has her lessons with your Uncle Puck." He replied.

Alex's face darkened a bit, as he knew that his mom did that a lot, ever since he had been captured, especially since last week when one 'bad' gargoyle that Uncle Puck had told him about, had arrived. He disliked it since she didn't have much time for him... even though he understood that his lessons with his uncle were such fun.

The child's face lit up when he got an idea.

"Shall we play planes?" He asked eagerly.

Xanatos looked on his son, just to see his feet rising from the floor.

"What did I and your mom tell you about this?" Xanatos asked, and Alex bowed his head.

"Just with uncle Puck…" Alex began, but was stopped when he began to sink rapidly, just to be stopped by his father's strong arms. "But I want to be as fast as the gargoyles…"

"Seemingly you have to practice this still a bit." Xanatos noticed, trying not to sound too hard. "But only with your uncle, and best not too far away from ground."

His son grinned mischievously, as a reply.

"Come on, let's go play." Xanatos told his son with a laugh, setting him down.

Alex nodded and went off into the direction of his room.

Xanatos went after his son, smiling, in moments like this he could nearly believe everything was okay in the world, even his worry about his son's growing rate became smaller since he knew that somehow this had slowed down.

Maybe he likes this age and has decided to stay so a bit longer, Xanatos thought but rejected this thought at once. No, he can't... or can he?

At least he had a reason to do so, since there were now many other children in the castle. Well, the ones closest to him were about four biological years older than Alex, and all of them obviously had wings, but they were good companions for the first time of the night until Alex's bedtime.

Beep

Unfortunately, other things did matter, as the ringing of his cell phone in his breast pocket proofed. Xanatos was tensed and thought to simply shut it off, especially on the look his son gave him, but something told him to take it up instead.

"Yes?" He asked.

Alex looked on his father angrily, but this anger floated away when David Xanatos' face became a hard mask and Alex sensed something disturbing.

"Dad, what is it?" The child asked.

21.08.98; 18:33; The Cyberbiotics Airship:

Fox hurried alongside her husband, down the large corridors of the air-fortress, respectfully studied by some guards. As if they were some machines that had originally been constructed for this Reynard's daughter paid them no mind, and she went straight to her father's room where Mr. Vogel had told her he was in.

"Father, I have heard..." Fox began, but was stopped when she saw Anastasia Reynard standing beside her ex-husband, who sat in his mechanic wheelchair, a mask for oxygen on his face.

"Jeanine, good of you to have come." Halcyon Reynard greeted his daughter, ignoring his son in law.

"What is she doing here?" Fox asked her father angrily, glaring at her mother.

"I just came from Avalon to visit Reynard." Anastasia told her daughter.

"And I should believe you?" Fox nearly screamed, so Reynard himself forced to intervene.

"Jeanine! Please, not now." Reynard told his daughter. "She came to see me, like you did."

Anastasia looked in her daughter's eyes, trying to get a point she could appeal to, but she couldn't't. Sighing, she looked to her ex-husband.

"I better go now..." She explained to Reynard and turned to her daughter. "We might see each other again." She explained and went of with the grace that Fox knew very well of her.

Fox's face stayed angry.

"Don't threaten me." She warned, but her mother had already left through the door.

When her mother had gone out of the room, Anastasia's daughter turned around to her father and tried to go over it.

"Father, we came as fast as possible." She told him, going to his mechanic wheelchair and touching his old hand softly.

Indeed, she was so shocked by what she saw, since she hadn´t studied him exactly for the first time in ages. His cheeks were hollow, his whole face was even haggard and all in all, he seemed just half as strong as he had been when she had seen him the last time.

Reynard smiled, as he would have liked to speak with his daughter about her mother, but since his son in law was in the room, he decided to speak with her later about this.

"Jeanine, I'm so happy to see you." He greeted, by touching her hand softly with his free hand. "But you didn't't have to hurry, this old man still has some time left."

Fox gave him a soft smile.

"Maybe this is a bit longer than you actually think." She told him and on the questioning look of her father, she looked to her husband who nodded. "We have a way of how you could prolong your life. We can clone your body, and with the help of Puck, we can transfer your soul into the new body. Your new body would still tend to the old problems, but it was already tested by the gargoyles and… "

"No!" Reynard replied with a remarkably strong voice for a person who was actually marked by death, but his daughter seemingly did not want to hear.

"We just need your allowance and a bit of your DNA, Owen says..." She continued.

"Jeanine." The voice of the old man wasn't just strong, but hard, showing his still strong will, a will that had built up his empire.

Reynard looked on his daughter with sad eyes, and then he turned to his son in law.

"Xanatos, might you please..." He asked his once opponent.

Xanatos threw a look to his wife and then nodded, going out of the door.

"Father, you can't possible refuse." Fox began, now going a bit away from him. "If it's because you don't trust David, I..."

"No, it is nothing to do with your husband." The old man said.

"What then?" Fox Xanatos demanded to know.

"Jeanine, I have already gone this way, and it nearly cost me my soul." Reynard explained. "I won't do it again."

"Father, this isn't like Prague." She assured him, since her father had told her already of this incident. "This is..."

"Cheating death," Reynard replied, "betraying life of its price for all it gave me..." He smiled, "including you."

Fox felt an anger rise in her heart.

"Father, you can't think of giving up!" She screamed on him. "Alex wants his grandfather and I want... I need you."

"Jenny..." Reynard said to her, using his old pet name and navigating his hover-wheelchair to his daughter so that he could place a hand on her shoulder. "A father doesn't't survive his children, and I have had a wonderful life. I don't want to throw away everything I believe in, just to gain a few more years."

"You and your damned principles, father?" Fox asked and she could feel how tears swelled from her eyes. "They always stood between us and now they're gonna take you away from me."

The last words went over to sobs.

She was Fox, the fearless mercenary and ex-show-star, the wife of the richest man in the world and his best sparring-partner, and yet in this moment, she was just a daughter and Reynard knew this, as he saw his little girl crying, and extended his arms.

Fox fell in his embrace and held him firmly, like he did, despite his weakness.

"My beloved daughter." He whispered, "I'll always be with you."

21.08.98; 19:01; The Cyberbiotics Airship:

Fox stepped out of her father's room to call her husband in, and to get a bit of fresh air.

This isn't like me, she thought, wiping away the last tears, but what else can I do?

But it wasn't her husband who waited on her before the door.

"I thought you were gone." Fox told her mother and her voice made clear that she wished she had done so.

Anastasia leaned on the wall and sighed.

"I had hoped you would have understood." She told her daughter sadly.

"Understand what!" Fox screamed on her. "That you believed my son would be better growing up on Avalon with some Fay, instead of with his parents!"

"No," the Fay-queen replied, shaking her head. "I explained to you my reasons back then... I never wanted to part you and your son."

Fox clenched her fists, angry at her mother's coolness and arrogance.

"Why should I believe you?" She asked her icily. "You lied to me my whole life."

"I never lied about what I feel for you, daughter." Anastasia replied. "And if I could have revealed who I truly am to you earlier, I would have done so, but my husband's law binds even me."

Fox crossed her arms, showing that she wasn't interested in Fay-laws.

"So you decided to set your husband against us just to see how things would regulate itself." She noticed. "Should I congratulate you for this?"

"No, but try to understand how I feel." Anastasia tried to explain, her usually mild tone now touched by a sound of urgency. "Seeing you growing up without any touch to your heritage, was hard. Letting the same happen to Alex was more than I could bear."

"His heritage is what I and David give him." Fox replied angrily. "Not what some fairies think is good for him."

"I'm sorry that you see this so," her mother said, "but maybe we…"

"No." Fox replied, turning around "There is no we, Titania."

With this, she went down the corridor, leaving the queen of the fairies alone.

21.08.98; 20:17; Castle Wyvern:

With a roar, accompanied by many others, Goliath awoke from his recently not peaceful slumber, looking down on his clan, which freed itself from the stone-skin left of their daily metamorphosis.

"Goliath?" An emotionless voice behind him said, and when Goliath turned around, he saw Owen standing there.

"Owen?" He greeted back.

"I'm here to inform you that the health of Mr. Reynard has rapidly decreased today," the servant explained in his usual moderate tone. "Mr. Xanatos and his family have already gone to see him."

"How bad is it?" Goliath asked, remembering how he had seen his friend last time and how he had been shocked that he seemed even more... decaying.

"He had been brought to the hospital, but he has recovered again and is on his ship, but nobody knows how long for." Owen explained. "But the doctors don't give him long anymore, a week, maybe more."

Goliath closed his eyes and growled slightly. Reynard was old maybe, but it always hurt to loose a friend.

"Goliath?" A questioning voice asked from the stairs leading up to the tower, and when Goliath looked to them, he saw his second coming up, followed by Hudson on his crutches, and Deborah.

"What is it?" Brooklyn asked worried. "Has Lucifia..."

He didn't need to continue, since Goliath shook his head.

"No, it is about Halcyon Reynard. His medical situation has become worse and he was in hospital today," he told the gathered group.

The gargoyles looked on their leader worried, as besides the fact that Reynard was a personal friend of Goliath, he was even so a big supporter for PIT and tried to convince the public for a peaceful co-existence with the gargoyles, with many public outings, something he had never been a fan of even before his sickness had marked him.

"I will visit him." Goliath explained. "Brooklyn, you are in command."

Brooklyn nodded.

"Leader, let me go with you." Hudson said to Goliath, ignoring Deborah's surprised glance. "I would like to thank him for everything he did for us. Besides which, no gargoyle should go alone... like it is your order."

The leader gave his mentor an earnest look.

"It is rather far to the airship," he noted. "Do you think you're rested enough?"

"Aye, lad." Hudson replied. "If I rest anymore, I would turn to stone, besides I'm weary of gliding circles around the castle."

Goliath seemed to study his old friend for a second, and then nodded.

"Well then, let's go." He replied, jumping on his perch and from this into the air.

Hudson turned to his mate who had studied him.

"I will be back soon." He explained.

Deborah nodded. She wasn't totally happy with this, considering what Dr. Moore had said about the danger of overstraining, but her mate hadn't shown any signs of this.

"I know." She answered, fighting the urge to suggest going with him, since she knew this would offend him.

Hudson gave his mate a smile, slightly stroking her hair, which made her smile even so. He then turned around to depart.

Leaning his crutches on the battlement, Hudson climbed, somewhat used now to having just three limbs, on the perch, jumping into the air, following his leader.

21.08.98; 20:49; Cyberbiotics Air Fortress2:

Goliath and his Mentor had glided a minute in front of the airship before it opened its hangar doors. Landing in it, the leader of the Manhattan clan had to grab behind to pull Hudson in, whose strength had left him at that moment.

"You should have told me." Goliath told Hudson, who had sunk to his knee, holding himself with both arms, his voice full of worry. "We could have taken a break some minutes ago."

The elder gargoyle shook his head.

"Nay, lad, it was just the last turbulence." He explained, breathing heavily.

Before Goliath could reply, the door to the hangar opened and Preston Vogel walked through it, catching his attention.

"I suppose you have learned of Mr. Reynard's current state?" Mr. Vogel asked the two, paying short attention to the elder gargoyle he had seen before, now suffering a lost limb.

"We have." Goliath answered, "How is he now?"

"Better than twelve hours ago." Vogel explained. "But he is still rather weak and the doctors say he needs rest, so please keep it short."

Goliath nodded, having thought such already and looked down to Hudson who breathed practically normal already.

After a short nod of his mentor, both followed the human through the hangar doors, passing two guards whom held watch there and passing two more who just patrolled through the corridor.

They looked at the guests, but didn't't seem very surprised, surely thanks to one of Reynard's instructions, or maybe since they had been on board from one of Goliath's earlier visits, maybe even the first one on such an airship.

What they were surprised to see was a gargoyle having lost a limb, now using his three remaining to come forth.

Hudson noticed by passing them how they stared at him, and tried to pretend that he didn't't care what they did. Even though this way of coming forth granted him some independence from his crutches, he did prefer them since they gave him more dignity than walking on his three legs.

Sure, some clan members like Lexington preferred to walk on four of their limbs, but Hudson always had preferred to stand upright, using his hand-claws if he had to be fast or if he climbed, but not this way, making this more uncomfortable since he was forced to do it.

Reaching the door that Goliath knew lead to Reynard's cabin on this ship, Vogel stopped, knocking on it. When the door opened automatically, he gave the gargoyles a gesture to let them enter first.

Goliath saw Reynard lying on a bed, his awkward thin body lying under a blanket, an I.V. driven in the vein of his right arm, connecting him with a plastic bottle of unknown content.

Goliath took a deep breath, seeing the haggard face, having lost half of its content and for a moment he believed his friend to be dead already.

This fear proved to be wrong when Reynard opened his eyes and recognized the gargoyle with unbroken intelligence.

"I'm sorry," he said, moving his body to the higher part of the bed with seemingly effort. "I fell asleep."

"There is no reason for this." Goliath explained coming closer, Hudson on his tail while Vogel stayed behind at the door.

"A host always should be polite." Reynard noticed, coughing. "No matter how he feels."

In this moment, Hudson came forth behind Goliath, making the old man look surprised on him.

"I see I'm not the only one who has problems with his body." He noticed dryly.

"Aye." Hudson explained, touching his stump with his free left claw. "A loss given me in a recent battle."

"A heavy loss indeed." Reynard noted. "Yet it is good to see that you don't let yourself get held up by this."

The old warrior nodded, accepting this praise by a man who as Hudson knew had had even more problems with this in his life.

"Mr. Vogel, please leave us alone." Reynard told his most trusted employee "I'll call you when needed."

His employee nodded, even though seemingly reluctantly, and left the room.

"If you came to pay me a last visit, you come too early." Reynard noticed. "The doctors said I still had a week."

Goliath nodded.

"Besides to visit a friend, we came to thank you in our names and that of the clan for all you did for us." He said, kneeling in front of his friend and shaking his head. "You truly proved to be a friend for us in the time we needed it the most."

"I did what a honest man had to do." Reynard explained. "Besides your fight isn't won, it may never be."

Goliath nodded, as he knew all too well.

"So the Xanatos' have gone already?" Hudson asked.

"My daughter and her husband left an hour ago." Reynard said. "They will come tomorrow so that I can see Alexander again, maybe for the last time."

A moment of silence followed, in which Hudson held a stone face while Goliath's darkened.

"They have told you about ways to prolong your life?" He finally asked, even when he knew the answer very well.

"Yes and I denied it, as you surely know." Reynard explained, his face becoming darker. "I made my peace with my life, with my ex-wife, Jeanine, and even with her husband."

He coughed again, heavier this time.

"There is just one thing I still worry about." Reynard noticed. "But there is nothing I can do about this."

"Maybe we can help." Goliath offered, seeing the slight pain in his friend's eyes.

"Barely. It is about my company…" he began, "my lifework."

Reynard coughed again, dry this time and he reached to the glass standing on the table beside him.

Goliath took the glass first, seeing it was empty, and filled it with water from the bottle beside it, and gave the filled glass to his friend.

"Thank you." Reynard said after drinking some gulps and putting the glass back on the table. "I needed that."

Goliath nodded. He knew Reynard was mostly giving a play to fake how bad he truly felt and giving his mentor a short look, he knew this knew even so.

"What is about your company?" Goliath asked, he never was interested in such sort of human business and sometimes asked himself how the humans could be, but his friend laid it to the heart and so it was his duty to at least know what was going on.

"I have another firm policy than most of the other big companies." Reynard explained. "One that I was always proud of. Holidays for my employees, standard wages even in the poor countries, no children work, trying to hold my production in the USA."

"This is honorable." Hudson noticed.

"It is my codex." Reynard agreed. "A codex that most of the other companies in this league see as outlived and as a handicap, even some of the big shareholders of my company."

His face became darker.

"Until now I could always win over them." He explained. "But now the profit has decreased. Not much, but since I'm dying, they're losing their faith and more and more sell their stocks to another big company, who promises to 'restructure' the company, maybe even dividing the single parts of it and selling them for the profit."

"Xanatos." Goliath growled.

He couldn't't believe that Xanatos could do this to his own wife's father, but then again something in him believed it very much.

"No." Reynard explained. "Through the incident four years ago, he gained some of my stocks, but since two years ago, he buys no more. Seemingly my son in law gave up to overtake my company… at least while I'm still alive. It is another, younger company which recently fought its way to the top."

Goliath stopped, if it wasn't Xanatos then who could…? It hit him!

He looked over to Hudson who seemingly had the same idea written on his face.

"Which?" He asked.

Reynard told him.

21.08.98; 21:03; Castle Wyvern, Outside:

Demona landed on the castle with some large folded papers in her claw. She threw a look to two males, a rookery brother of hers who had once made clear that he had wished to be called Javin by her, and one brother of the generation above.

They returned an angry glare, which neither surprised nor moved the immortal and she held the look until they both went off into the castle.

She looked to one of Brooklyn's rookery brothers when she heard the rest of group land behind her.

"Oh, get off!" Lana said when she landed third and let Shade jump from her arms.

Since her grandmother and the two gargoyles gliding with them had to have their claws free, just in the case to defend them, her mother already carried Gem and Jarred was too small, her grandmother had given her the order to carry the families' watch-beast.

To train your muscles.' she had said, which hadn't thrilled Lana very much, especially since she already had more than enough training in her eyes.

"Now I smell like dog." She noticed unhappily, smelling on her arm.

As if she had understood this, Shade smelled on Lana, sniffing assessing.

Demona ignored this and took a look in the sky where Jarred greeted Connor and Eve by playing 'catch me' in the air.

"You." She said to the male gargoyle seemingly loitering around. "Where is Goliath?"

The young warrior slowly took somewhat of posture, remembering the lessons this one had helped to teach him.

"He and the elder have gone out." He explained to his former second. "I don't know when they will come back."

Demona's face showed what she thought of this.

"I'm guessing at least your brother is here." She guessed.

"The second is in the computer room." Brooklyn's brother explained. "Near the old treasury."

Demona nodded and turned to Darlene who had set Gem on the ground, letting her crawl around her.

"I will meet you with the doctor." Demona told her daughter. "I'll just hand him the plans."

Darlene nodded. Tonight the doctor would say what he had learned so far about her pregnancy, something she burned to know, as her mother did...

"I'll wait for you." She replied.

Demona nodded and went off through the door, barely passing it when three hatchlings landed.

"Where is she going?" Eve asked; jumping off the perch followed by the other.

"Mother is going to deliver some plans to the second." Darlene explained.

Somewhat regretful, Eve looked to the door where Demona had vanished while absently ruffling Shade who had decided to stay.

"But she will stay for the meal." Darlene noted, reading the unhappy expression in her mother's rookery child's face.

Eve nodded, somewhat smiling now.

Meanwhile, Demona walked through the floors, sunken in her own thoughts, not really noticing whom she passed and how they looked at her.

Thus she had passed half of a floor when she noticed someone standing in her way. It was her old drillmaster, the one with the lame left.

In her face, Demona noticed an expression of firmness and anger and the eyes looked at her in sheer hate.

The immortal tried to ignore her elder and walked around her, but she held her arm to the wall and stopped her.

"Ye don't really think you can walk around her so easily after what you've done." She noticed, "Do you, lass?"

"I thought your leader made it clear we had to work together." Demona replied cynically.

Steps behind her made the immortal look around, seeing Javin and their older brother closing the way back.

"Our leader has mercy with ye, Demona. We do not," the old drillmaster noted. "And we don't wish ye to walk around here, as if ye had any right to do it.."

"Oh really, old one?" Demona asked, placing the roll on the ground while taking one step further to her rookery mother until they stood eye to eye. "And what do you want to do against this."

The last word was accomplished by a slight snarl that the old warrior took up louder while letting her eyes shine blood red. Demona, unknowingly doing the same, tensed her muscles and prepared to strike, guessing that some scratches on the stomach would stop the old one so that she could pay attention to her brothers.

"What is this?" A well-known voice stopped her.

A look about her old drillmaster's shoulder made her see Deborah, straight behind her.

Seeing her old teacher, Demona sunk her claw, unseen to her and the old one, but not unseen to the teacher.

"We're just clearing thoughts." She noted, again looking in her old drillmaster's eyes.

The drillmaster returned the look, ready to answer any challenge, when Deborah laid a claw on her shoulder, determinedly pulling her aside.

"Then clear the others," she told them, looking angrily on Demona while doing this.

"If not for our leader's order, think of what the hatchlings may think seeing you fighting here." She continued, now looking to the others.

Demona's brothers looked away, seeing in Deborah's angry eyes, Javin first, then the older one. The drillmaster didn't't avoid her eyes, but the look in them made clear that she wouldn't't dispute it.

Growing tired of this; the immortal took the scrolls up from the floor and passed both the older females.

Deborah gave the surroundings a last glare, and then she followed her former pupil.

"You bring nothing, but trouble." She said, closing up to the immortal.

"I didn't't start it." Demona noted irritated, stopping in this moment and facing her former teacher.

"No?" Deborah asked, "I saw you ready to make the first strike."

"As you taught us." The immortal replied pert, quoting her, "always deliver the first strike if possible."

Deborah snarled on this, her eyes flaming up, not caring that the two gargoyles that passed looked worried on her.

"For fighting against an enemy." She snarled "Not against the own clan."

"Then remember." Demona noticed icily while leaning on the wall. "This is not my clan."

Seeing this hit, the immortal handed her the rolled up scrolls.

"What is this?" Deborah wanted to know while unfolding them.

"These are plans of the castle." She explained, "I marked the secrets doors on them."

"Secret doors?" Deborah asked, looking up surprised. "Xanatos had dismantled the whole castle and built it up again, how can there be secret doors?"

Demona gave her a slight grin.

"By magic, the Archmage's magic." She explained, enjoying the growing anger on the other gargoyle's face. "You can only pass them if you know the code."

Deborah calmed her anger, knowing it would lead to what she just had prevented and studied the maps, recognizing that they indeed led through all the important corridors and some unimportant ones.

"When did he show you this?" She asked angrily. "And why haven't you said a word about this to your clan?"

Demona just shrugged her shoulders.

"He never told me anything about this. I just learned it later when I accidentally saw him using one of them, and learned how to use it," she explained. "Do I really need to explain why I didn't't tell the clan about this?"

Deborah didn't't answer this, but looked back on the map, searching and finding one door leading from the courtyard outside to now blank air.

"You know, he surely has used one of these in the night he poisoned Prince Malcolm." She noticed icily. "Not to speak of what he could have done to one of us during the day."

A look in her former pupil's eyes showed that she knew very well.

"He could have done anything to us even in some distance to the castle if he wanted," the immortal explained. "He was a sorcerer after all."

Deborah knew that Demona at least partly fled from the question, but she didn't bother to ask further, she knew the answer well enough.

"So the clan lost an ally, but it didn't matter since you kept your little secret?" She noticed sarcastically.

Demona snarled on this, stepping one step closer to her old teacher, her lips over the beginnings of her fangs and her eyes burning red.

A second later, her eyes were normal again, showing her own surprise over her reaction.

"Give yourself some use and take this to your second, old one." She ordered her icily. "I have to go to my daughter."

With this, she turned around the floor, walking away, not caring whom of the little crowd who had gathered to watch went out of the way.

21.08.98; 21:07; Castle Wyvern, the great hall:

Lana reluctantly entered the great hall, teeming with gargoyles of all ages and sexes.

Somewhat uninterested, Lana noticed Shade who had trotted away from her, smelling some other gargbeasts.

Behind her, Darlene with Gem in her arms turned to the bunch of hatchlings consisting of Jarred, Connor, Eve and Duncan who were just hatching plans to use the time before the training began.

"Hey, would you do me a big favor?" she asked them.

Four faces looked up from the talk.

"What?" Jarred asked, not really wanting to loose time with his friends.

"Could you take care of Gem while I'm with Doctor Moore?" Darlene asked, taking the softest tone in her voice while looking to all four hatchlings. "I would ask an elder, but… she needs some time outside to play around."

Eve shortly looked to Connor, then to Duncan and Jarred.

"Sure." Eve replied, when she discovered no great resistance for this.

Darlene smiled on this, handing Gem over to Connor who took the toddler somewhat surprised.

Still smiling, Darlene turned back to her oldest daughter, seeing how she starred on some males who in return starred on her with somewhat hungry eyes.

"Lana, be nice." Darlene told her, having no problem to see the thoughts behind her daughter's eyes.

"If they just wouldn't always linger on me." Lana complained, forcing herself to smile.

"Don't worry about them." Darlene said. "While I'm with the doctor, you'll have your training, so they will hardly see you."

Lana groaned, being reminded about the single thing she liked less than being stalked by those horny gargoyles.

21.08.98; 21:09; Castle Wyvern, the great hall:

Thee hatchlings looked on the toddler in one of their one's arms.

"What shall we do with her?" Duncan asked, looking questioningly on Gem.

"Good question." Eve replied, first looking on the hatchling curiously, maybe even a bit anxiously.

Finally she took herself a chance, and tickled Gem under her chin. The toddler laughed and grabbed after her claws, studying them with earnest, which made Eve smile even more.

"Sorry about this." Jarred began. "Mom always makes me and Lana watch over her when she can't find a babysitter."

"No problem." Connor explained, shifting Gem in his arms so that she looked to him. "Besides, it's good not to be the youngest ones anymore."

"The rookery mothers barely let us look after our younger siblings." Eve said, looking with a giggle at how Gem grabbed Connor's beak and made him smile. "The old one says we are too young to help them."

"Well last time you helped to bathe them." Duncan reminded her. "Oh, and change them."

By the memory of this, Duncan turned up his nose, as did Eve but with a grin, which made both of them laugh, after they looked on each other.

Gem began to wriggle in Connor's arms, making him set her down on the floor.

"What does she want?" Connor asked.

"She probably just wants to crawl around." Jarred explained, looking at how his sister orientated on the ground and then crawled rather fast to the gates. "Let's follow her."

21.08.98; 21:11; Castle Wyvern, the great hall:

Lana looked at her mother walking into one door, and then quickly overlooked the room, nowhere finding the shape of her reverenced teacher.

Slowly, she walked to a group of elders standing near her.

"Do you know where the teacher is?" Lana asked them.

"Deborah just walked to the rookery." an elder replied friendly.

"No." Lana stopped him, slightly distressed. "I mean my teacher."

The elders looked to each other and then back to Lana.

"No, lass." a female elder explained. "Not since a while."

Lana sighed and turned around, continuing to look over the room in search for the elder.

I can't believe that I'm searching for her. She thought. Maybe I should go outside and hide somewhere.

"Hey," a voice below her called.

Lana looked down, and saw that it was one of the males, having looked at her when she entered.

He was a rather short one, not as large as the clan's second, yet definitely larger than Lexington. His skin was smoke-black, and what Lana noticed first was his short beak, now showing a wide smile… and his eager shining eyes.

"Searching for someone?" he asked.

"Well…" she began, not really eager in speaking with him.

"I could help you." Tom said, making Lana look to him. "I usually know where the members of the clan are, and if not, then I can find them in no time."

"Me too." the smaller gargoyle said, jumping to his brother's side to stay in her view. "Nothing happens in this clan without me finding out about it."

The other two, now surrounding her, claimed the same for themselves and Lana played with the idea of sending them packing, but then the idea of having the four searching the castle instead of waylaying her seemed too tempting.

"I'm looking for the teacher," she explained.

"Well I saw Deborah by…" the one with the crested head and dark-blonde hair began.

"I don't mean that one!" Lana nearly shouted on him, feeling her patience dwindle on this night for this clan with its lack of names. "I mean the old haggard female with a face as if she just ate lemons, and a walk like captain Ahab after Moby Dick got his leg."

The crested one wanted to answer, but then his eyes fell on something behind Lana's shoulders and he stayed silent, as did the other males looking in this direction.

Something in Lana froze and she didn't have to look around to know who was standing behind her, having heard her last sentence.

Lana finally turned around, and judging from the look in the elder's face, she was right with her assumption.

"I…" she began, but her teacher cut her off.

"I'm not interested in this right now," she explained icily, waving her claw as to underline this. "Follow me."

With this, the teacher turned around, walking out of the hall, and Lana threw a last look on the males behind her, guessing that maybe it would have been better to spend the night with them than with the angered teacher.

The look of sympathy the males gave let her know that they had too once endured the teacher's training, but before anyone could say something, Lana turned away hastily, following the teacher who already had left the hall, not wanting to anger her further.

"So you finally stopped flirting and decided to follow." the teacher remarked when Lana reached her, after crossing half the courtyard, wondering how fast this gargess could be even with her lame left.

"I didn't…" Lana began irritated, crossing a group of hatchlings, including her brother and little sister.

"I might be haggard, but I'm not blind nor deaf." the teacher interrupted her when reaching the stairs. "The way you court with four at the same time isn't good for the clan."

"I don't court with them, they court with me!" Lana shouted angrily.

The teacher shook this off with a gesture.

"If you really wanted them to stop doing this, you could." she replied, having reached the top of the wall. "Stand firm."

"You naturally know everything about holding males off." Lana muttered to herself, just to quickly take the position she had learned from the elder in the lesson before, trying to avoid the elder's face.

The elder looked on her in rage and shortly played with the idea to drag this misbehaving female to the rookery by her tail… then again there were better ways.

"Tonight it is time for you to learn how far it is with your constitution," the teacher explained. "The constitution decides if you can fight a battle to the end, or sink down, being delivered to your enemy's mercy."

Lana nodded, even when she wasn't so interested in the lecture. She had had some training while she had been a cheerleader… too long ago.

"So, for the beginning I planned fifteen glides around the castle." the drillmaster explained, crossing her arms. "But since I saw and heard that you have a lot of energy tonight, it is twenty."

"But…" Lana began, complaining against this injustice.

"Twenty-five," the drill master explained, "and I warn you not to test me, young one."

Lana had her mouth opened to form another protest, but she made it shut.

Who does she think she is? She thought, just to remember her mother's voice to make no trouble.

Frustrated, Lana climbed on the perches.

"Oh, and I want you to pass this place each time and not to stroll, else I won't count the rounds you go." the elder added.

Lana growled, and then jumped from the perch into the night before her teacher could give her five more rounds.

21.08.98; 21:17; Castle Wyvern, medical station:

Demona walked to Darlene, sitting beside her daughter, not really looking for the doctor or caring to answer his greeting.

Usually Darlene would mind such behavior of her mother, even when she was used to it, but not now.

"Please tell me, what's happening to me and the fetus?" She asked worriedly, suddenly feeling stronger to face it, due to her mother's presence.

"Well, since I don't know the exact structure of your gargoyle biochemical processes, not to speak of the consequence of a gargoyle human hybrid growing in you, my prognosis isn't really exact." He began. "But what I can say is that for now there is no direct danger for you."

"No direct?" Demona asked, sensing the uneasiness in the human's voice and such forgetting her anger on her former teacher for a moment.

"There is a rising of some hormones and waste products in your blood." He explained, "On the long term it may pose a danger to your whole system."

"May?" Darlene asked unsure.

Moore shook his head.

"I don't know it exactly." He admitted. "It may be just a temporary effect, or your stone sleep can stop it from rising further, but I want you to take regularly tests by me."

"And the fetus?" Darlene asked, expressing all her mind had been occupied with during the last nights.

Moore took a look on the files lying on his desk.

"It has begun to grow and this in a speed, which isn't normal, based on human pregnancies." The doctor explained."It is mostly gargoyle as far as I can say, but there are small human signs by its inner organs."

"How fast is the pregnancy?" Darlene asked, remembering her last ones and somehow enjoying the thought of letting this one be faster.

"I can't say this exactly." Moore said. "Three months maybe, but this is just a guess and it includes that you won't miscarry..." He coughed, "which is something I can't exclude since a gargoyle body is not made to be pregnant."

Darlene tried to digest this, a super-fast pregnancy with great risks…

"What about abortion?" Demona asked the doctor, pulling Darlene from her thoughts.

Moore was going to answer when Darlene practically jumped out of her chair, holding mindlessly a claw before her stomach as if to protect it while starring at her mother.

"NO!" She exclaimed, less angry than shocked over her mother's suggestion.

"Darlene." Demona tried, speaking unusually calm. "He said the pregnancy might kill you and it even might not have a soul…"

"NO!" Darlene repeated this time more angry than shocked. "I will not abort… him or her. I will not murder my child!"

The immortal looked at her daughter, seeing the stubbornness the humans said her race was gifted with, combined with some of her own anger.

A longer silence went between them two, which Moore broke through seconds later.

"I hadn't wanted to start with that topic, at least not now." He said. "But given the problematic nature of your pregnancy, the risk for you as the chance that your child might not be viable, you should consider abortion as an option."

Darlene looked down on the doctor, as if he had understood nothing.

"Suggest another." She said, looking to her mother. "Transfer the soul or change me into a form in which I can deliver the child."

Demona just shook her head.

"The stress of changing your body would risk it." She explained. "And transferring a soul from your stomach into a new body is something I don't think I or anyone can do."

Darlene stared at both her mother and the doctor.

"Please don't make yourself worry too much about this now." Moore said, as if it wasn't too late for this, looking up to this patient, who slowly sat down again. "Neither I nor Xanatos' scientists know how the biochemical processes of your body will work out in the end."

"I will call Sevarius." Demona explained as matter of fact, looking to her daughter. "He is a bastard, but he is the one who knows most about our bodies."

"Xanatos already did." Moore noticed, making both gargess' looking back on him while he tried to banish his own disgust of this man in his thoughts. "He is at a congress somewhere in Africa, but he can check you when he is back if you wish."

"I do." Darlene answered without a doubt in her mind, despite all the things she had heard of this man.

"Is this all you have?" Demona asked frustrated.

"Besides the advise that your daughter shall come here for a check at least every second day?" Moore replied with a sight shrug. "Yes."

"Thank you." Darlene thanked, standing up and practically fleeing from the table.

"Darlene!" Her mother called, racing after her.

Darlene stopped near the entrance of the medical station.

"How could you even think of abortion?" She asked her mother furiously.

"Your life is in danger." Demona replied, yelling herself without even noticing it through her own anger.

"And so you think I would end that of my child because of this?" Darlene said angrily about hearing her mother speak of cold-blooded murder.

"You don't know if it lives, neither if it ever will." Her mother answered, her tone becoming calmer by this. "But you know that you have three other healthy hatchlings who need you."

Darlene starred at her mother, her anger suddenly vanishing. Indeed, until now she hadn't thought of them, but their brother or sister growing in her.

Well, it wasn't until now that she had come to love what was growing in her.

The thought of what would her children have to go through, if they lost their last parent brought a sharp pain in her heart and tears in her eyes.

Darlene looked up to her mother, searching something like comfort in her eyes, but found nothing but cutting eyes, which seemed to study every part of her face and soul.

"This is not fair." She told her mother, a bit of anger in her voice.

"No?" Demona asked in a cool, cutting voice. "Is it fair for Jarred, Lana and Gem to loose their mother?"

Darlene looked away, tears again threatening to emit from her eyes, but held back by pure will mixed with anger.

She studied Dr. Moore for a moment, seemingly busy with studying some files in a closet and very much trying not to eavesdrop the conversation.

Was it true? Should she abort the embryo, which maybe was never supposed to live, to spare her children the possibility of new pain?

She thought what would happen if she died. But guessed she couldn't even imagine what Jarred would go through if she died, not to speak of Lana whose only link to her human past would vanish with her and Gem... Her youngest would probably forget her when she grew up, maybe becoming a child of the clan.

Somehow this pained her most.

Darlene looked back to her mother who still stared at her in this distant look, which made her painfully miss the closeness she once shared with her, a closeness that had showed just some times since she had come back.

Could she trust her mother to raise her children?

Darlene felt her heart scream a painful no, at least not without the clan. Seeing the green in her mother's eyes, she knew there was just one answer.

"No." She answered her mother in a strong voice. "I will not abort since Dr. Moore said it isn't acute. If this changes… I will think about it, but not sooner."

Demona looked in her daughter's eyes, let some seconds pass and finally nodded.

"It's your choice, Darlene, and I will have to accept it. But please…" she swallowed, not changing her tone in any way. "I don't want to lose you."

Darlene feared for a moment that she would spill tears again, but then she stopped it by wiping her face with her claws, cleaning it this way.

"You won't," Darlene promised. "I promise."

Demona's face showed a scowl for a moment, and then she nodded.

"Come," she said walking to the door before Darlene could say more. "I guess my and your sister are waiting on us already."

With this, she opened the door and by turning around she noticed Angela and Desdemona standing on the opposite wall, looking all too interested in each other.

"Guess you're right." Darlene noticed with a slight smile.

21.08.98; 22:08; Castle Wyvern, Highest Tower, Hudson's perch:

Goliath was the first to land on the perch, instantly turning around to see his mentor landing on the perch right next to him on all his threes.

"It's alright, leader." Hudson said through deep breaths, feeling the eyes of his leaders lasting on him. "I just need time."

The clan leader still looked, feeling confirmed in his decision that they had rested for ten minutes during the half of their way back.

"I will see if she is here." Goliath told him.

Hudson sighed and jumped of the perch, landing on his left leg while holding himself on the perch with his claws.

"Go then," the mentor noticed, taking definitely fewer breathes then a second before. "I'll just rest a bit."

Goliath nodded, feeling tempted to ask his mentor if he really felt well, but rejected this since for sure it would just offend him and he had to admit that Hudson looked good so far.

Turning his mind to the current matter, the leader left his old friend, walking down the stairs of the tower.

21.08.98; 22:11; Castle Wyvern, main hall:

Darlene sat on one of the banks being pulled to the walls of the room since it was not needed outside the meal times.

Left from her, stood her mother, her arms crossed, her green eyes somewhat distant. Before her stood Desdemona, her arms busy helping her to pronounce what she talked of and to the right of her stood Fuchsia, her claws by her hips and somehow trying to not look at Demona while following her sister's words.

Not far away from them, in the middle of the room, Jarred, Eve and Connor had gathered by Gem, helping the toddler to play with a rubber ball.

"…so my mate jumped down in the alley, catching the thief who was so scared, he started peeing on the wall." Desdemona explained, barely holding herself from giggling.

Darlene and Fuchsia joined her in this, just Demona found this rather uninteresting, thinking that a gargoyle should have something better to do than going after human criminals.

Deciding it wasn't worth the trouble to say anything, Demona let her eyes wander through the room. Not far from her, Gem had thrown her ball to Eve, who caught it with her tail, playfully throwing it over Gem's head to Jarred, who tried to catch it with his own tail, but failed.

Some other hatchlings stood in groups, in other parts of the room; slowly gathering for their training lessons they had to face before the main meal.

There were other groups of gargoyles of different ages spread over the room, suddenly joined by Brooklyn and Deborah, both walking in from one of the many floors leading away from it.

Both the former and the current second searched through the room with their eyes until they discovered Demona, learning that she was looking at them already.

"… or sister?" The voice of her sister clearly directed on her made the immortal concentrate back on the other females.

Demona's surprised look showed Desdemona that her sister seemingly had done it like their clever sister, being with her mind anywhere but in the present.

"I said back in Wyvern we had a nice place to go if we and our mates wanted to go out together." She noticed, somehow amused by her sister's absent look.

Demona nodded.

"The bay." She replied, slowly remembering.

It was a bay running deep into the cliffs of the Scottish shore, forming relative soft sand and great air turbulences, making it a place as good as any to rest together, to sky dance. Near the old location of castle Wyvern, but not too far, it had been the ideal place for the couples of the clan to take time for each other, or to spend time with other couples.

For some time, Demona and her mate had spent time there, together with her sister and her mate, naturally before Goliath had become leader of the clan, making it impossible for him to take time for themselves.

"What about it?" The immortal asked.

"Well, I just told your daughter about this." Desdemona explained. "Maybe we could do this again."

"Besides the fact that we are not all mated," Demona stated, "I hardly would consider bathing in the sea here."

"Neither do I." Darlene assured. "But what about watching a movie, or going to a picnic, something like this you always did with father?"

Demona wasn't thrilled about this to say the least and a look in Fuchsia's face showed that she wasn't the only one. Luckily a voice spared her to answer this.

"We have to talk." A hard voice said on her back.

The immortal turned around to look on the speaker, even though she didn't have to, to know with whom she spoke. It was his voice, his scent that she would recognize out of a thousand.

"Alone." Goliath concluded, taking a short look on the hatchlings.

Demona followed the clan leader's eyes and saw three pairs of very interested small eyes looking on them

"What is it?" She asked, very well imaging that it was about one of her daughters.

"Cyberbiotics." Goliath explained, making a step in the direction of the floor.

Demona didn't move.

"I have nothing to talk with you about this." She noted.

"You have." Goliath explained, barely hiding a growl from his voice "Reynard is a friend of the clan and mine."

"Not mine." Demona said, again crossing her arms.

Goliath glared at his former mate, taking all of his will not to scream at her, not in front of the clan, especially the hatchlings.

"What's up?" His second asked, coming to his side, along with Deborah and some others who were very interested in this conversation.

"She is trying to steal Reynard's company." Goliath explained, not taking his eyes from his former mate.

"What?" Brooklyn asked totally surprised while looking back and forth from Goliath to Demona.

Darlene suddenly recognized what her mother had worked on in the last nights.

"I didn't't steal anything." Demona snarled on her ex-mate. "It is business, Goliath, something you understand nothing of."

"I understand that you are trying to buy the companies stock from smaller owners." Goliath replied, having listened to Reynard's words very well "Stock he would never have had to sell if it weren't for the loss of his original airship and important information of his company, years ago."

Darlene winced.

Demona didn't wince, as she wasn't interested in the angry glances that Goliath's explanations brought her from the surrounding gargoyles.

"And?" She asked with a sarcastic grin. "Am I at fault when he wasn't able to even form a competent defense against us?"

A moment of silence followed in which most of the listeners were overwhelmed by their former second's lack of shame.

"Yeah." Brooklyn finally broke the silence, remembering how he and his brothers had been chased through the Cyberbiotics tower. "Speak for yourself."

"I do." Demona noticed, looking to her younger brother "Cause it isn't any of your business."

"It is." Goliath insisted.

"Oh come on, Goliath." Demona groaned, slowly loosing her nerves with her former mate.

"He is old and sick." She explained. "Most time he spends resting and not doing what his position orders him to do. He should have retired from his business years ago, but he refused because he couldn't accept his uselessness."

The immortal laughed by the thought of this.

"Besides, he refused to acclimate with the new time, the new methods and clues, he simply became slow and immobile." Demona said, giving her former mate a dark smile. "He just stands in the way and since he couldn't't accept this, he now pays the price."

21.08.98; 22:19; Castle Wyvern, the leader's tower:

Agamemnon and his mate had just returned to the castle, having made a little glide over Manhattan, now gliding arm in arm.

"This has been nice." His mate stated, happily purring.

"Aye." Agamemnon agreed, "I always said the young ones…."

He didn't't even have a chance to begin with when his mated pulled his arm, showing on something below them, lying near the perch of the second.

"There, what is this?" She asked, wondering herself.

The senses of the elder gargoyles became tensed at once, they remembered all to well what had happened last time the clan hadn't been watchful.

"By the dragon." Agamemnon exclaimed, surprisingly speechless when he saw who lay there, hearing his mate gasp beside him.

Without a second of delay, he dove down, landing on the perch and jumping from it to his rookery brother's side.

"Brother?" Agamemnon screamed. "Brother, can you hear me?"

"What has he done?" His mate asked him, landing on the perch herself and starring down on the seemingly unconscious Hudson.

"I don't know." Agamemnon noticed, seeing his brother's body trembling more than if he had fever. "We have to bring him to Dr. Moore."

With this he grabbed his brother's shoulder, pulling him up, seeing his mate doing the same on Hudson's other side.

Holding the old warrior on both sides, the mates took him down the tower, bringing him to the medical station as fast as possible.

21.08.98; 22:23; Castle Wyvern, main hall:

"And now he is dying." Demona noted.

"This is why he cares for what happens with his life-work." Goliath replied, finding it harder and harder not to growl angrily.

"Oh, I will take care of it." His former mate replied. "Once I checked it, sold the useless parts and made the rest more efficient, ready to integrate it in my company, it will work better than ever before."

Goliath knew very well that this meant the smashing of Cyberbiotics and somehow he didn't't want to know how Demona planned to raise the efficiency in the rest.

He threw a look around, seeing most of the clan look angry on his sister, most of all Deborah, who seemed close to leaping on her former pupil. A look on the hatchlings that seemingly hadn't understood everything they talked of, but yet were very interested, allowed him to make his decision to let this continue, just in a smaller circle.

Before he could say however, a warrior ran into the hall, coming from one of the floors.

"The elder has collapsed." He said, directed to his leader. "They've brought him to the medical station."

Over a dozen gargoyles in this clan fitted to this description, but what would have made a human think about it for at least for a second, was as good as every name for the clan.

While the rest of the gathered still took breaths for the gasp, Deborah already raced through the crowd.

21.08.98; 22:26; Castle Wyvern, infirmary:

"Where did you find him?" Moore asked, feeling his trembling patient's pulse by touching his neck.

"By his perch." Agamemnon said while starring down on his unconscious rookery brother. "He must have just returned."

"Returned?" The doctor repeated, looking up and first looking to the older gargoyle, and then to his mate.

"He and the leader were visiting a friend of the clan," the female said.

"Ah." Moore noticed, not wasting a second and going to a special cupboard. "I'm guessing your friend doesn't live anywhere near?"

Agamemnon and his mate exchanged a startled look, asking themselves what this meant.

"Aye." The elder male replied. "Outside Manhattan."

Moore grumbled something not understandable, even for the sensitive ears of a gargoyles, and filled a syringe with a fluid of an ampoule… he thought about it a second and took a half more.

With a determined face, he turned around and went back to his still trembling patient, laying the needle on Hudson's left arm's vein and injecting the content.

"What is that?" Agamemnon asked, skeptical of any medicine.

"A sedative." Moore explained, using the word before realizing that most of the clan had no idea of what this meant. "A medicine, which normally makes people sleepy… but in this dose it should just calm his body down, especially his muscles."

Agamemnon wanted to ask more, but guessed it wouldn't be of much use, so he just stared down at his brother. Indeed, already after some seconds the trembling stopped and the old warrior started to breath normally again.

This was when they heard the doors to the station being pushed open and the sound of foot claws barely touching the ground.

Deborah raced in, not paying attention to the other persons standing in the room, but focusing her attention to her mate lying on the bed.

"My mate?" Deborah asked, her face barely being able to show more worry while she held his shoulders with her arms.

Hudson groaned, beginning to move a certain sign that he woke up.

"What happened?" His mate asked the doctor.

"This is the effect of extreme exhaustion." Dr. Moore explained. "Something I warned you of before if you remember."

"How dangerous is it?" Deborah asked, looking up from her mate who slowly woke up.

"At the moment, not much. He probably would have been well without my help." with these words he looked up, seeing the leader entering, luckily alone this time even when Moore had no doubt that half the clan waited outside the station. "But if he doesn't take it softer in the future, one day he might get a heart attack or worse…"

Deborah's face didn't just turn more worried than before, but even gray, as did that of the other three gargoyles in the room.

"I will speak with him." Goliath said, his eyes resting on his old friend.

"So?" Moore replied cynically looking to the clan leader. "Maybe you should just stop taking him on a marathon glide."

Goliath gave him a slight growl, despite all what happened, the doctor wasn't the only one who was frustrated.

"By the dragon, what hit me?" Hudson groaned, slowly waking up while holding his aching head.

"The price for your little tour." Moore explained, grabbing one of his patient's arms and checking his pulse "Any pain?"

"Nearly every muscle." Hudson admitted, taking his mate's claw.

"Good." Moore replied without much pity, letting one of his fingers swing back and forth before the gargoyle's eyes, checking how the healthy one followed it. "Maybe this will teach you something for the future."

"What happened?" Hudson asked, even when he dully remembered the beginning of the pain.

"You overstressed your body. And so it protested." Moore explained, giving the old gargoyles an earnest look. "Congratulations. Next time you might get a heart attack."

Hudson again put a claw to his head, fighting the upcoming pain.

"Last time it hurt less." He noticed more muttering to himself.

"LAST TIME!" Moore, Deborah and Goliath asked at the same time.

Hudson nodded, knowing it was said.

"Aye, I felt a pain in my heart a week ago, but not nearly as painful as this one." He explained to the unbelieving audience. "It stopped nearly at once."

"And you didn't't come to me because?" Moore asked.

"It was nothing." Hudson defended himself angrily. "Besides, doctor, the stone-sleep…"

"Oh god, the stone sleep." Dr. Moore exclaimed, raising his arms to the ceiling as if he wanted to thank the lord for a message. "Some of you get a 100.000. Volt electric shock, but after a day its surely over. One gets a vital organ pinned through, hey let the sun fix it… Don't leave this bed or I swear I'll go to Xanatos and quit here in a minute."

The last words came out more sharp and more angrily than Moore had actually intended to, but he didn't regret them a second, even when the older gargoyle looked angrily on him.

"I understand ye, lad." Hudson replied in a heavy Scottish accent, having erected himself from the bed, his leg hanging over the edge to get his body back to work "But change your tone."

"Do you really understand me?" Moore asked, softening his tone but not his messages, now going to the end of the bed. "Then listen, I would have made a young gargoyle with your sort of amputation spent double the time for rest than you did, despite your all-healing stone sleep. And you are no young gargoyle anymore."

Dr. Moore held eye contact with his patient, ignoring all the other gargoyles around him for a moment and concentrating on the eyes in the stubborn gargoyle's head.

"You are old and if you want to fight in any battles in the future, or just to protect anyone, you have to hold yourself back now." He took a deep breath. "At least for the next week, while your body is still unstable."

The whole room seemed to take breath for a moment, trying to get along with what had just been said.

"I need a drink." Dr. Moore stated.

All gargoyles looked after the human when he left the room, all except Deborah whose eyes lasted on her mate.

Goliath was the first to look back to Hudson who, in return, looked on his leader and then to the others in the room, as if he looked for a further attack to come.

And it came.

"How could you do something so stupid?" Deborah asked furiously, her eyes turning red while she jumped up pointing with one claw accusingly on her mate.

"My love, I know." Hudson tried to calm her down, tried to touch her arm, but she refused. "I…"

"Your last stubbornness has cost you your leg." His mate noted. "What will it cost you the next time?"

"I just tried to get fit again... To be a warrior again." Hudson shouted, becoming angrier by himself. "For you!"

"No, for nothing but your own pride." Deborah shouted back angrily. "And you sooner get yourself killed than becoming fit this way."

Hudson jumped up, standing on his one leg while propping on the bed with his right claw.

"Don't tell me about my pride." He accused his mate, facing her with white burning eyes. "You sooner let yourself bleed to death than retire from the fight back then. Did you really think the clan wouldn't have won without you?"

Deborah had to choke for a moment, feeling as her mate had just hit her with his fist in her stomach, her eyes turning back to normal.

"This wasn't me, but a forgery of sorcery!" Deborah snarled, still angry but not as furious as she had been, too deeply shocked to be so "And even if I would have done so, do you really want to die now? Do you really want to throw away what we have!"

Hudson's eyes returned to normal and he stared into that of his mate, his voice was clear as the night when he spoke.

"But we don't have what we had." he noticed. "Maybe it is better to die than to live like this."

These words made his rookery siblings in the room gasp in shock while Goliath's stoic mouth emitted a sigh.

"Brother, how can say this?" Agamemnon began, walking to him and laying a claw on his brother's shoulder. "A gargoyle who has his clan and his mate shouldn't even think of this."

His brother didn't listen, but stared at his mate, who returned his look for two seconds until turning away, racing out of the station.

Hudson wanted to follow, but forgot the missing leg and had fallen if not for Agamemnon.

"Stay here, brother, she'll come back." he told his brother calmly, catching him before he could fall. "Mates always do, and you need rest."

Hudson didn't resist when his brother sat him back on the bed and even lay down, breathing heavily when Goliath stepped closer.

"You will stay on the station for tonight." the leader ordered, his tone making clear that he wouldn't discuss on this. "And you will follow Doctor Moore's orders from now on."

"Aye." his mentor replied softly, even when Goliath saw that the older gargoyle's eyes just stared in the air.

Goliath looked on his old friend a moment longer. He knew that there had to be more things to be said, but then again he didn't want to make this night for Hudson more stressful.

"We better leave now." he suggested to Agamemnon and his mate.

The mates knew their leader hadn't just made a suggestion and nodded to him, giving their absent brother a last look full of worry before following their leader outside.

21.08.98; 22:29; Castle Wyvern, bathing room:

The fresh water had helped to cool her down a bit, not to speak of that it had relaxed her tortured muscles. During some of the time she had been gliding, she had found it to be a little fun, even though she would never tell this to anyone, but now her wings seemed to be a single pain.

Twenty-five long, painful rounds around the castle, including some short rounds for being too slow, and Lana was ready to let herself fall a long, long way on the streets below her, just to not feel the wings anymore.

After she had climbed on the perch, working hard to take breath, her teacher told her that she had seen hatchlings glide faster and better. The teacher had told Lana to come to her, to do some lessons in self-defense.

These lessons had brought further pain to her body, making her believe that jumping on her enemy's sword wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Groaning slightly, Lana set herself against the wall beside the doors to the elevator, and pushed the button. Her legs wouldn't allow her to go down the stairs anymore.

"Hi…" an unsure male voice greeted her.

Surprised, Lana looked to the source of the voice, finding the clan's second standing next to her.

"Hi." Lana replied less enthusiastic, not having the nerve for another horny male around her right now.

And this was what she could see in the male's eyes, lust of the same sort she had seen often in the guy's eyes back in the floors of her old school.

Then, much to her surprise, Brooklyn seemed to struggle with himself, forcing his eyes away from her, and back to the door. He erected himself and hustled, making Lana guess that he would straighten his shirt, if he had one.

Slowly, she remembered that, except for their first meeting, this gargoyle hadn't tried to court her.

Maybe he already has a girlfriend. Lana guessed, seeing how Brooklyn entered the now opened elevator.

"Are you coming?" the clan's second asked her, somewhat unsure.

Lana waited a second, and then stepped in.

Once inside, she turned around and looked to the closing doors.

Feeling the elevator moving, Lana took a look over her shoulder, meeting Brooklyn's eyes that had seemingly been looking on her from behind, and then made them both look on the elevator-doors instead.

A second later, the elevator shuddered, making both passengers stumble a bit.

"What now?" Lana asked, holding herself on one of the elevator's support, when the elevator had stopped right then.

"Xanatos has just built in a new security system for the elevators." Brooklyn explained, holding on the elevator himself. "Guess he should have paid them more."

"Hello?" a male voice called them. "Is someone in there?"

Brooklyn recognized the voice as that of the castle's security chief for Xanatos' human security employees, and walked to the elevator-controls, pressing the talk button.

"Yeah." the clan's second explained. "Two actually."

"We'll try to get you out of there as fast as possible." The voice said, and a tone showed that the communication was ended.

Brooklyn looked to Lana, shrugging his shoulders and said with a slight and even so false smile.

"Don't worry, they won't need long." Brooklyn explained.

"Yeah." Lana replied, finding it rather odd that she indeed wasn't worried, despite being trapped in the elevator on the top of the highest building of the world.

Maybe it was because her teacher had left her too exhausted to actually feel worried, or maybe she just believed this gargoyle, either way she didn't know.

So they stayed still for some seconds, both trying not to look on one another, and Brooklyn fighting the temptation to whistle.

"So you are the clan's second." Lana noticed, feeling the silence becoming embarrassing.

"Yeah." Brooklyn explained with a pride smile.

Lana looked on Brooklyn, waiting for more, but except his smile, nothing came. She looked back to the floor.

Brooklyn wanted to kick himself for not being able to say more, but somehow he just didn't find the topic, not to speak of the words that would be right to address her. Would a gargoyle-turned human be interested in a clan's second's duties?

The duty! Brooklyn remembered, and began to once again look around the elevator.

Lana saw, surprised, at how the gargoyle studied the elevator before walking up to the doors.

"Err… what are you doing?" she asked Brooklyn, who tried to dig his claws in the slit between the two doors.

"Trying to get out of here." the clan's second explained, digging his claws in the split. "If we are between the levels, I'll have to climb up the shaft."

Lana looked at him, as if he had gone crazy.

"Wouldn't it be better to just wait here until they free us, instead of risking a crash?" she asked, trying to solve the situation.

"Technically, yes." Brooklyn explained, without looking around, starring on the slightly enlarging slit between his claws. "But I have to overview the training of the hatchlings tonight, and the elders wouldn't like it if I were late."

"They can hardly blame you for being trapped in here." Lana noted, looking surprised on Brooklyn's back where his muscles were strained, taking on an effort to enlarge the slit.

"You have no idea." Brooklyn noticed sarcastically, under great pressure.

Exhausted and frustrated by the slow extension of the slit, Brooklyn turned around.

Looking in Lana's face, he learned that she really had no idea.

"Well…" Brooklyn began, asking himself how openly he could speak with Lana about something the whole clan knew about. "Some in the clan don't think I'm a good second, and I don't want to give them any further arguments."

Seeing the surprised look in Lana's face, he sighed and turned around, once again trying to enlarge the slit.

A second later, he discovered a second pair of claws being put between the slit.

"You're not the only one who wants to get out of here." Lana commented, smiling.

Brooklyn smiled too, but didn't say one word since he was using all his strength on the doors.

For two seconds, nothing moved. Then, with a single violent movement, the doors slit open, making both gargoyles fall out of them.

Lana landed softly on Brooklyn, while the clan's second turned around during the fall, and landed hard on his back and wings.

When both opened their eyes again, they found themselves still lying on each other. Brooklyn smiled, embarrassed like Lana was. The male found it rather nice to smell her scent, and to feel the touch of her hair on his skin.

No one made a move to change their current positions, and Brooklyn would have stayed this way until sunrise if not a hustle lead their attention back to the world around them.

To the right of them, they discovered a bunch of gargoyles, including Lexington, having gathered around a human engineer standing aside the castle's security chief.

As if she had been bitten, Lana jumped up.

"I have to look for mom," she stated more to the group standing there, than to the still lying Brooklyn, and left quickly.

While watching after her, Brooklyn slowly rose.

"Well, seemingly the elevator-problem wasn't such a problem after all." Lexington noticed, smiling knowingly.

Looking to the elders standing next to his rookery brother, Brooklyn noticed their disapproving looks and couldn't really agree.

Yet when looked to the floor where Lana had left, he couldn't help but remember her lovely scent.

21.08.98; 22:41; Castle Wyvern, floor before the infirmary:

The bunch of gargoyles waiting before the door had dwindled when Moore had come out and had told them that Hudson wasn't in great danger and needed just rest for tonight, but some still stayed there, waiting for news of their leader.

The remaining group still waited in silence when Deborah stormed out of the station, not paying much attention on who stood in her way.

Not that this surprised the surrounding gargoyles very much, as they all had heard the conversation between her and her mate and even when they hadn't been able to hear words through the door, the tone of their voice booming through the door had spoken for itself.

"He's fine." an elder male noticed, seeing his rookery sister vanish behind the corner. "Else he wouldn't't be able to make her so angry."

As if to agree with this, Demona rose from the wall.

"Mother?" Darlene asked surprised, having come here together with her mother and sisters.

"There is nothing I could do here." the immortal noticed. "I'll take a walk."

"I'll stay here." Darlene replied, being somewhat more worried about the state of the elder gargoyle.

A look to her sisters confirmed Demona that they chose to stay here too and made her nod to them while she turned around to walk down the floor.

"As if she would help him if she could." she heard someone whisper from behind, "As often as she has tried to kill him."

Demona didn't care when she did walk around the corner, as she didn't care about what could have been said if the doors to the infirmary hadn't been opened in this moment or what Lana said while she passed her.

What she cared about was that she wasn't interested in a further argument with Goliath in the moment.

Slowly, she wandered through the castle, sunken in her own thoughts until, after a minute or so she heard a high pitched wailing which brought her back to the present.

By looking around she realized that she had walked to the doors of the rookery, now hearing sound even through the thick doors, which proofed that the hatchlings were in there and very much awake.

Following an instinct, Demona went to the gate and opened it.

The room light was dark in human eyes, yet not for Demona, or any other gargoyle who naturally spend many of their time in sometimes completely dark rookeries for the first years of their lives.

Walking in and closing the door behind her, the immortal checked the room while her eyes adjusted to the changed light.

Eleven rookery mothers were there, taking a look on the hatchlings, humming a song or talking among themselves. All of them turned their head towards the rogue gargoyle, but most surprisingly Demona noticed just three making a scowl by the sight.

"What do you want here?" a female asked suspiciously.

Turning her head on her, it didn't surprise Demona that it was the yellow-skinned, white haired elder, which already had been a kind of leader amongst the rookery mothers after the last rookery had hatched.

"I look after my children." Demona replied, controlling her voice to not let her mood show through it.

"This is not your clan anymore." the rookery mother explained, pointing at the immortal. "So neither are these your children."

Demona gave the old one an angry snarl, her eyes being a spot of fire in the darkness of the rookery.

"Don't dare trying to hold me away from them." she snarled, barely holding herself from grabbing the old one's throat.

Both eyes met some seconds in a struggle of will, which ended when another rookery mother laid her claw on the elder one's shoulder.

"No one refuses you this, Demona." she said in a calming tone. "As long as you don't disturb the peace here."

The immortal forced her to calm down, receiving a bit of strength by the look on the elder's face.

"I don't wish to." she explained, looking in the face of the younger rookery mother.

The rookery mother nodded, taking her claw from the elder's shoulder and going back to the others.

The elder gave Demona a last angry look before going to the back part of the rookery.

Demona gave her one last look before she turned to the center of the rookery, walked to it and knelt down to watch the three hatchlings who were laying there, happy just to be in this world.

She knew that she was being watched by more than half of the other females in the rookery, as she knew that the younger rookery mother, who had been a member of her former clan, had just gone between them to not disturb the hatchlings.

In this moment the immortal didn't care.

Demona eyes wandered through the rookery, searching and finding seven healthy and seemingly happy hatchlings, for sure protected and cared for as much as a hatchling could wish for.

Her eyes returned to the hatchlings lying in front of her on straw. It was a male with pale green skin and without hair, playing with the ball being placed before his face. By a move of his arms he managed to push the ball away, making it softly roll away from his limited reach.

The hatchling followed the course of the ball first in wonder, then in fear to lose his favorite toy with growing horror.

Demona followed this with a feeling of motherly pride and gently pushed the ball back to her son, who renewed his acquaintance with it by biting on it.

She caught herself smiling when she suddenly heard the sound of wailing becoming quickly louder in front of her.

Looking up, she discovered Jaheira wailing in the arms of one of Demona's sisters. Demona rose, taking a step in her direction when she froze, asking herself what she was doing here.

Jaheira meanwhile increased the volume of her protest, letting her mothers to speculate what the infant wanted.

"Guess she is hungry." Aerie, who held her, said, as she softly rocked her rookery daughter to calm her down, but without much success.

"Shouldn't't we wait until the clan gathers to the meal?" one from the original Moray clan asked, holding another female hatchling in her arms, trying not to become upset by the crying, "They have to get used to the regular times."

"Oh, but this is far too soon." another rookery mother, already somewhat older and more experienced noticed, rocking a male hatchling. "Just give her enough so that she doesn't cry anymore, the rest she can get with the rest of the clan."

"Right." the elder one with the white hair agreed, having her top already lowered by one side. "Give me the little one."

The rookery mother holding Jaheira suppressed a sigh, knowing this was much more an order than a suggestion. But not wanting any more stress in the rookery than they already had with her rogue sister.

While lifting the still wailing and protesting Jaheira from her breast, Aerie noticed that her rogue sister had already left the rookery silent and seemingly unnoticed by the others.

Good, she thought, why can't she just leave us this way forever?

So in thought, Aerie held the hatchling in front of her to reach Jaheira to the elder, until she noticed that the others were just starring on the hatchling that was fussing in her grip.

The hatchling's eyes burned red while looking on the elder.

"Hey, what is this!" she asked the hatchling.

Jaheira answered by continuing to wail.

"Aaaargh!" Aerie exclaimed, feeling pain in her claw.

Without hesitation, the rookery mother in lead took the hatchling from her, rocking her softly while purring.

The other rookery mother meanwhile looked on her bleeding claw, having a scratch on the back of it by Jaheira's tiny, but still sharp claws. Sure it was just a scratch, but suddenly she wished that their children had soft claws like human babies, not to speak of sharp teeth at least while they were breastfed.

"Show me it." one of her sisters… named Arnadela demanded, pulling the claw nearer to her to look on it.

"It is just a scratch." she said, taking the claw back and holding the wound with the unwounded one.

"Better wash it out." an elder rookery mother suggested, looking worried on her child.

"Why did the little one do this?" the sister asked, looking to Jaheira lying much calmer in the leading rookery mother's arm. "Have you ever seen this before by a hatchling?"

"Aye." an elder one explained. "When you and your siblings were still in the rookery there were sometimes such tantrums… but never when you were so young."

All eyes went on Jaheira even these whose owners tried hard not to let the wailing spread in the rookery. The hatchling now seemed pretty exhausted, her now again normal eyes lasting tearful on the leading rookery mother's bare breast.

"It must be the stress and the hunger." the elder one said, guiding Jaheira to her breast. "But I think I can help her."

Indeed Jaheira sucked at once, very hungry, on her rookery mother's breast, former trouble seemingly instantly forgotten.

21.08.98; 23:23; Castle Wyvern, Outside the large tower:

Demona walked out on one of the castle's roof finding herself remarkably alone on it and finding it good.

"Males are idiots," a female's voice said from above her. "They are hatchlings, always have been and always will."

Much to her surprise, Demona discovered Deborah standing on the edge of the castle one level above her and instinctively stepped back in the shadows from her former teacher's eyes, which were starring in the night.

"Don't take this too seriously." the voice, which Demona recognized as that of Agamemnon's mate continued. "He didn't mean it."

"He did." Deborah stated, not looking to her sister behind her, but out in the night. "By the dragon, this named, stubborn old OX did it!"

By the word ox, Deborah slashed with her claw through the wall, leaving deep marks.

"He said he wanted to die." she repeated, turning around to look on her sister and pointing with one claw on her.

"Sister…" Agamemnon's mate began, but Deborah didn't let her continue, for sure even didn't listen.

"Oh and he is on the best way to it if he continues this way." Deborah snarled. "Not taking a rest, gliding until he breaks down…. He could have had a heart-attack and doesn't bother himself to tell anyone of this."

There were some seconds of silence while Deborah looked up to the stars… if there had been stars to look at, as at night the humans had made the sky as bright as the day.

"What if he dies?" she added much more softly, looking on her rookery sister with tears in her eyes. "What if he dies and leaves me alone…?"

Deborah closed her eyes, rubbing her nose.

"I wished the young one would never have brought me here," she said into the night to anyone who could hear her.

Most to her surprise her rookery sibling grabbed her by the arms, starring in her face.

"Don't say this nonsense… not you too!" she ordered her now younger rookery sister angrily. "In time your mate will stop acting like a hatchling and until then the leader will see that he doesn't hurt himself any more. But stop talking this way!"

Agamemnon's mate couldn't see in her sister's eyes if she had truly understood, but thus nodded and so she gave her arms free.

Deborah turned around, starring out in the night for one moment.

"I'll take a glide." she said without looking back to her sister and jumped on the perch.

Her sister wanted to say something more, but stayed silent when Deborah jumped into the night, sometimes it was better to say too few than too much… that she had learned by her mate.

A level under Agamemnon's mate, Demona walked out of the shadows, looking after her former teacher's form until she vanished in the night, and then walking over to the range of the battlements, by herself.

There she leaned on a perch, starring at the courtyard below her where Brooklyn was instructing the hatchlings, having jumped in for Deborah.

Thoughts went through her mind while she mustered the night, thoughts of what had been, could be and shouldn't be and by all these thoughts she felt pain driving through her heart.

"Mother?" a female voice called her from behind after a time she hadn't cared to take notice.

Demona turned around, looking to Darlene.

"I just needed some air," she said.

Darlene nodded, even when her mother's eyes seemed far too distant for her.

"The clan is gathering for a meal," she explained.

"I have to go." Demona explained, looking back to the courtyard.

"What!" Darlene asked her mother unbelieving. "Why?"

"Because I have to." the immortal explained, sounding irritated while starring in the night.

"Mother, the clan will surely want to hear more than…" Darlene began, irritated by herself of this irrational and impolite act of her mother.

Demona turned around to her daughter in a sudden violent motion.

"Then tell them I have business to attend!" she yelled to her daughter, her eyes glowing shortly red.

Darlene looked rather shocked by this sudden outburst, while her mother just gave her one look in the eyes and then turned back to the perches, jumping on them and then into the night, leaving her perplexed and more than just a bit angry daughter behind.

Down in the courtyard, the hatchlings were training some attack-and-defend styles against each other under the watchful eyes of the second.

They were fighting with a wood-cup, with an iron head, as a weapon and a heavy iron-shield as defense, unreeling ways of attacks having been taught again and again by their teacher.

One in particularly wished that the trials to become an adult were behind them already so that they could train with real weapons instead of these rather harmless things.

It wasn't just the idea of handling a dangerous weapon, but Eve liked the weight of a real sword or a morning star in her claw when they were following the teacher's examples about the various stiles with them.

Just in these moment she was fighting against her rookery brother Duncan and winning, even when the elders said this training wasn't supposed to be about this.

But what did the elders know anywhere…

Duncan was a good fighter, Eve knew this from various mock-fights they had fought already, but she had won most of them… barely, as she would win this.

Duncan accidentally opened his defense too far for a second when missing his sister's cup by his own.

Eve grinned, seeing the opportunity to disarm his brother with a fast and strong hit, but she got distracted when noticing a figure gliding away in the distance.

Startled, she noticed it was Demona, seemingly leaving the castle.

She was still starring after her rookery mother, surely not longer than a second, when something hit her shield so hard that she lost her balance, falling painfully on her back accompanied by the shattering sound when her shield hit the ground, letting the one who hadn't seen her defeat hear it.

Humiliated, she slowly stood up.

"What happened, kiddo?" A voice called her from her back.

"I didn't think he would hit so hard." Eve explained.

Even when the second's voice wasn't as hard as their teacher's, or even as their rookery mother, Eve didn't want to admit it before him.

A look in Brooklyn's slightly amused, rather soft eyes let her hope that maybe she would come through with it…

"And you were distracted, sister." Duncan helped her.

Eve gave her dear brother an angry glare, as she knew he wanted to triumph over her, but telling it to an elder was as low as… as breaking a code.

"I know." Brooklyn explained, giving Duncan a short look before returning to his little sister. "Staring in the sky when fighting a foe on earth? Deadly I would say!"

"Yes, second." Eve said, refusing the instinct to smile by these soft words.

Brooklyn's eyes lasted a moment longer on her, trying an earnest look on his face, then his beak began to show a grin.

"Okay then." he said, speaking louder and overlooking the crowd of hatchlings. "That's it, Kiddos. Bring your weapons to the weapon chamber and then take your meal. You earned it."

Some cheering came from the pupils, while others were just heading to the doors leading in to the castle, straight to their next meal.

Overlooking the crowd of hatchlings… his pupils this time, made Brooklyn smile in pride.

This smile lasted until he noticed a small group of elders standing by the parapet of the wall one level above, Kronos was amongst them and all were looking at him while speaking among themselves, no one looked happy.

For one moment Brooklyn played with the thought to climb up to them and confront them, but then his stomach made him decide for another and more useful way, leading right to the great hall.

Meanwhile, a floor near the weapon chamber:

"Why did you do this!" An angry voice screamed.

Duncan, who just spoke with an unnamed rookery brother who was of the former Wyvern clan and such was 4 years younger, turned around. There he saw his rookery sister run to him with red burning eyes, followed by Connor and Jarred who looked rather worried.

"Cause you lied." Duncan said, confronting his sister now standing in front of him. "I thought the second should know it."

"Come, brother." Connor noticed. "We don't squeal each other to the elders."

"He is just envious because he can't win against me and he knows it." Eve told them all, not letting her eyes off her brother while snarling her fangs.

Duncan's replied this with a snarl of his own.

"At least I don't let myself divert by a traitor…" he screamed on her.

Jarred and Connor who had went between them, looked rather shocked, as did the few rookery siblings who had gathered at the virtual edges to see what was happening…

They got something to see when Eve jumped on Duncan in the next second, emitting a rather great war cry while pushing her brother to the earth.

Duncan's unnamed rookery brother fell with him, as did Jarred and Connor while both tried to pull the two away from each other.

In a second, the five hatchlings had become a tangle of five bodies and much too many limps.

"What is this?" a voice asked.

Three of five faces turned to the elder who just made his way through the crowd of hatchlings around them.

"Up with you!" the same voice, but much more serious, ordered.

Three did so while Eve and Duncan glared at each other a moment longer before Duncan stepped off of her.

"What were you doing?" The elder asked and while Eve got on her fours, she noticed it was a rather large one with some resemblance to their leader save the gray beard.

Jarred was looking on the ceiling, Eve and Duncan glared at each other, just Connor and the unnamed hatchling stared straight ahead, as they had learned it by their teacher.

"Well?" the elder repeated, singling out each one with his eyes.

"I and my brother had an argument." Eve finally explained, taking her eyes from her brother and clenching her claws to fists.

"Bad enough." The elder noticed, fixating his look on these two of his rookery children. "But starting a fight is worse, we don't fight each other like dogs."

This made Eve and the unnamed one bow their heads and even the other ones looked guilty by these heavy words.

"In the rookery, all of you." the elder ordered after a second of silence. "Maybe a hour there will cool you down."

"But…" The unnamed hatchling began softly, suddenly realizing that he was in much trouble.

"Hey, this is unfair!" Jarred complained indignantly.

"You made trouble together so you can go to the rookery together." the elder replied unimpressed. "Now go!"

With this, he pointed into the direction of the floor leading to the rookery while the other hatchlings standing there made an alley as if not to come in the line of his claw.

Jarred looked one moment longer on the elder, thinking of that maybe he should call his mother in this, but since the other hatchlings already moved along the floor, Jarred followed them, his tail dragged with him.

21.08.98; 23:57; Castle Wyvern, Large Hall:

"You did what?" Darlene asked.

The elder gargoyle, standing by the leader's table, looked unimpressed.

"I ordered the five to the rookery to stay there for at least a hour." he reported again.

Darlene looked astounded to the gargoyle.

"This is the usual punishment for this behaviour." Desdemona sitting near her explained, trying to help her over this situation.

Darlene turned to her sister

"He is my son." she explained.

The elder looked to his leader and both exchanged looks, something that didn't go unnoticed to Darlene's eyes.

"Shall we take him out of the rookery?" Goliath suggested.

Darlene looked around her, seeing in the eyes around her and remembering how her mother had told her that it was very uncommon in a clan to treat a hatchling in such a special way.

"No." she sighed. "The rookery should cool him down, but…" her eyes returned to the elder. "Please, call me first before such a decision regarding him is made again."

The elder nodded, finding the child's behavior strange, but at least she was polite.

Darlene sighed again and looked to Goliath who returned silently talking to Elisa who gave her a short small smile.

Before she could somehow react to this, Lana's voice from the right side of the bank, having sat on this place before Thersities could come on this idea.

"Hey, mom." Lana began. "The teacher made me take two more rounds around the castle as punishment for being too slow, could you…"

"No." Darlene interrupted her, rocking Gem on her lap. "I think the teacher does a great job with you."

Lana grumbled and turned to her meal while her mother turned to her youngest daughter on her lap, noticing that the hatchling already had successfully grabbed after a baked potato and was now biting on it.

Smiling deeply, Darlene rubbed her youngest child's stomach, finding bliss in the thought of having one more of these little cherubs soon, not to speak of that she had thought of a napkin around Gem's neck.

A sound of something small falling to the ground followed by something like a sack of potatoes let Darlene turn around, seeing Shade half heartily chewing on the roasted thigh of a sheep.

The gargbeast seemingly preferred this place than the companionship of the other beasts since it was closer to her friend…

The thought on her mother made Darlene's good mood melt away.

"A time in the rookery is not so bad." Desdemona said beside her, misinterpreting her sister's face. "And it isn't long."

Darlene nodded, not wanting to go in to the topic she had in her mind.

"Did you ever got sent there?" she asked with sudden interest.

"I?" Desdemona asked surprised "No."

"My love." her mate noticed left from her "This is ouch…"

Desdemona exchanged a playful earnest look with Othello while pulling back her tail from his right leg.

Her mate caught her tail with his own while returning the look with a rare smile and suddenly both looked at each other with a deep, passionate love having held over death and a new life and never ceasing just a bit.

"Well I was never sent to the rookery." Thersities noticed, looking to Darlene from over the table.

"Cause the elders knew you would use this for a time out instead of work." Asrial noticed good heartily while elbowing her brother sitting beside her.

"Well at least I didn't spend a single night there." Thersities pointed out, giving his sister a grin, which made the clever sister let her fork fall down and laugh.

Darlene smiled, looking down on Gem, who in return looked up, chewing on her potato… no, she knew very well what Jarred would dislike most of being in the rookery.

22.08.98; 00:09; Castle Wyvern, Rookery:

"I'm hungry!" Jarred complained, standing by one wall of the rookery and looking around.

His four other unwilling companions didn't look happy either. While Connor stood by his side, Duncan and Eve sat in some distant to each other by the center of the rookery, glaring at each other, the unnamed hatchling sitting relative close to Duncan.

"I, too." Connor noticed, even when this wasn't his dominant feeling right now.

"I never was sent to the rookery before." the unnamed hatchling noticed, pulling his legs closer to his body, crabbing them with his claws and looking depressed.

"I was often." Duncan noticed, still glaring to his sister. "Thanks to her!"

"We always went together!" Eve replied angrily "Besides some of this ideas came from you!"

Connor and Jarred exchanged looks.

"Tonight we are here because of you!" Duncan accused her.

"Just because you lied about her." Eve shouted on her brother, jumping up.

"Whom?" Jarred asked, not really having caught this point.

"Demona." Eve explained, turning to Jarred. "He called her a traitor."

This made Darlene's son jump to Eve's side, glaring at Duncan.

"Grandma is no traitor!" he stated angrily, his white eyes making clear that he was going to fight for this point if needed.

"It is true." Duncan continued unimpressed of either the screams and the warnings "She admitted it!"

"Rhaaarghhh!" Jarred screamed, jumping on Duncan in practically imitating Eve who went with him to support him.

Duncan evaded the angry hatchling by jumping back and before Jarred could set after, Connor grabbed his shoulders.

"Let me go!" Jarred shouted, wriggling in Connor's grab, but unable to get loose from his better-trained friend.

"The elders will hear you!" the unnamed hatchling complained, trying to get away from the trouble as far as possible.

"Please!" Connor tried, telling this his friend in his grab as his two siblings. "I don't want to spend the entire night here."

Finally, he let Jarred go free, who now turned around to him.

"Do you believe him!" Darlene's son asked in a mix of anger and shock that someone he saw as a friend would believe such.

"She said she made mistakes." Connor replied in a calm voice, remembering the night he had met Demona again after a seemingly endless time, then he turned to Duncan who was continuously growing more irritated by his brother's words. "But she would never harm us!"

"We are still hatchlings, thanks to her!" Duncan growled on him. "In the eyes of the elders, we are not better than the one's just hatched out of the eggs."

"Maybe you are!" Eve noticed teasingly.

This definitely hit Duncan since he snarled angrily with his beak, marching forward to continue their fight from before, barely hold by Connor.

"You are no better than me!" Duncan shouted, giving up to jump on his sister. "Demona always favored you in training."

"You lie!" Eve screamed and Connor had hard work to stay between his sister and his brother.

"Prove it!" Duncan teased.

Eve just glared on her brother for suggesting this, as their leader had been hard to all of them.

"When the tests come I'll ram you in the ground!" she promised angrily.

Both angry glares met in the middle by Connor.

"Brother, sister, please!" Connor thus begged. "We are a rookery, we shouldn't fight like this."

Looking from one sibling to the other, Connor grew more and more concerned. True, both had always fought to best the other, small fights included, but their arguments had never been this way, so full of anger. In the end they had always stood together.

Somehow he felt something breaking between them right here.

With a growl, Duncan turned around, walking to the wall on the other side of the room and sitting down there, right beside the unnamed hatchling.

Connor looked to Eve who sat down a second later, then to Jarred, who still glared angrily on Duncan.

Suddenly the hour in the rookery seemed much longer for Connor.

22.08.98; 00:16; Castle Wyvern, Infirmary:

Hudson stared at wall of the room, the same he saw since an hour.

Dr. Moore had ordered him to rest, but even when his body wanted to, his mind couldn't.

All the time he felt like an idiot… an old idiot, who had just offended his mate in a way that it ashamed him now.

Then, after a time he heard the door to the station being opened, followed by claw steps tipping on the ground.

The old warrior didn't need to look to the door to know who was coming, yet when he did, he was surprised to find the traces of dried tears on her face.

"My love, I'm sorry." Hudson began, feeling miserably. "Ye were right, I nearly got myself killed and would have thrown away what we have…"

Deborah remained silent for a second, standing still at the entrance of the room.

"But it is changed even when we didn't want to admit it." she noticed, silently stepping closer. "The world we live in has changed, the clan and our role in it has changed, and we have changed."

Deborah sat aside from her mate on the chair, being silent some seconds before looking in his eyes.

"I glided around and tried to imagine what I would be without you." she began. "I couldn't stand the thought."

Deborah looked up on the ceiling, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I know it isn't the same anymore… we aren't whom we were 1000 years ago, but…" she choked, starring directly into her mate's eyes. "But my love for you hasn't changed and will never do… Please let us try to overcome what went between us, let us be mates again."

Hudson looked to Deborah, feeling tears coming up in his eyes as well and opened his arms to let his mate share his place on the bed.

Without a second of hesitation, his mate took the offer, embracing him strongly and Hudson wrapped his wings around her, enjoying the secure warmness of it.

22.08.98; 00:51; Castle Wyvern, Main Hall:

The last of the meal was eaten, and the gargoyles with kitchen duties were more or less eager to bring the dishes to the kitchen, to do the washing up.

Elisa looked on Goliath, seeing not the usual happiness that the clan leader always showed when he was together with his family, and she didn't need either to be his mate or a damn good cop to know what he thought.

"We could visit him now." Elisa commented. "Surely Moore won't kill us for this?"

Goliath looked on his mate at first in surprise, seemingly thrown out of his thoughts. He wanted to say something, but then he just nodded.

Silently, they both rose from their positions, and walked through the floors leading to the infirmary.

Elisa had been shocked when Goliath had told her about Hudson's attack, but even worse was what her mate had said when he had described the argument of his old friend with his mate, knowing that he couldn't say some things in front of the others.

Reaching the doors to the medical station, Elisa had to control herself not to rush in. Although, she had been able to stay calm in front of the clan, Hudson had become like a grandfather to her over the past few years, and the very thought of him having a heart attack brought her pain.

"He may still be asleep." Goliath noticed while laying a claw on the door.

Elisa nodded, following her mate in, more silent through years of training in the streets than a gargoyle ever could be.

Silently they walked through the entrance, cautiously so as to not wake Hudson of his much needed sleep.

When they found Hudson lying on the bed, Elisa had to close her mouth by what she saw. The old warrior wasn't alone…

On the bed, which to Elisa seemed too small for one gargoyle, Elisa could see two bodies, brown and aquamarine tangled so close together that she had problems to figure out where one began and the other ended, even the tails seemed to be tied in a knot.

Elisa changed a look with her mate, and they silently moved out, leaving the sleeping couple alone.

"Well," she began while Goliath closed the door behind her. "I guess they came over their argument."

Her mate nodded.

"I hope now they can start to heal the scars." Goliath stated, sighing relieved.

Elisa stayed silent a moment.

"How bad was it?" she finally asked.

Goliath stayed silent for a second. Even when the imminent trouble seemed over now, at least for the moment, he felt troubled by the idea of telling more people about Hudson's suggestion to end his life.

For some sort of luck, he hadn't had to start it.

"What are you doing here?" a voice asked, making both Elisa and Goliath look surprised to the closest corner of the corridor.

There was Dr. Moore, standing in his street clothes, which was an unusual sight for the couple, who were used to seeing him in his white medic clothes. Even more unusual were his eyes that looked more stressed and sleepless than ever, and his wry hair.

"I told you that he needs rest," he added, without waiting for an answer. He had unsuccessfully tried to get some sleep and just knew which patients killed his sleep.

"They're still asleep." Elisa noted, seeing her mate's good mood melt away.

"They?" Moore asked surprised.

"He is with his mate." Goliath explained, and when Moore tried to go through the doors, he stopped him. "And you will let them have the time for themselves."

"I think I made it clear that Hudson doesn't need more excitement." the doctor said angrily, looking unimpressed in the leader's eyes.

"There is no excitement." Elisa intervened, asking herself which sort of excitement Moore meant. "They sleep peacefully, and I think it is best to leave them like this."

The last words came out clearly as an order, and after Moore looked to both of the mates now standing in his way, he just shrugged his shoulders.

"Guess this isn't the worst therapy for the beginning." he noticed, "I will check him in half an hour."

"One hour." Elisa said, looking to the man. "To be sure."

Dr Moore suppressed a yawning.

"Okay," he gave in. "If you have any emergencies over the next hour, just shoot him."

With this, he turned around, walking down the floor where he came from.

"This guy is more than a bit sarcastic." Elisa noticed.

"Yes," Goliath agreed, "but he does a very good job in helping this clan."

Elisa looked on her mate while he looked after Moore, and smiled, practically seeing how the burden of fear about his old friend had been lifted from him, which she understood too, since she felt the same.

"What do you think the doctor meant when he said 'which sort of excitement' Deborah would bring Hudson?" Elisa asked Goliath, her voice becoming soft and playfully.

"Well…" Goliath began, not sensing the hint until he looked in his mate's brown eyes and felt the touch of her warm hand on his broad chest.

Both shared a look, which even so let their souls come together, and in a movement, which had become instinct, Goliath lowered his head to give his mate a kiss.

In the same way, Elisa came up and a second later both of them shared a kiss, with Goliath stroking her hair and tangling his tail around her left leg while wrapping his wings around her.

The kissed seemed to last an eternity for them, yet it was all too short when distant claw steps pulled them out of their world.

The mates looked in each other's eyes, and could see one idea flashing through both of them.

"Is one of the 'special rooms' free?" she asked him, seeing the lust in his eyes and knowing it was in hers, too.

"It better be." Goliath replied, still smiling, yet with a string of firmness in his voice and movement while he put his wings back in position.

He offered Elisa a claw and a second later they were on their way to one of those rooms, which had extra Do Not Disturb plackets, to be hanged outside, far from the hatchlings' activities.

They found the first room being free.

"Let see if it still has the soft rock CD in the player." Elisa suggested while putting the placket on the door.

"Well…" Goliath began, feeling a soft tinge on his skin while remembering the last time and looking on his mate.

"Leader!" A male's voice called him.

Elisa could see her mate fighting hard to suppress a growl while closing his eyes.

"What?" the large gargoyle asked, as controlled as he could while looking up to the owner of the voice, a male just about Hudson's generation.

"We have to speak about the second," he explained, giving Elisa a short disapproving look.

Goliath growled, both about the disturbance, and the look the elder had dared to give his mate.

"I am not interested in your complaints right now." Goliath told him, his eyes widened with anger.

The elder returned this look with an expression in his face, which said it all, and which seemed to anger Goliath further.

Firmly, Elisa laid her hand on her mate's arms. She didn't know much about the way that such a large clan was led, but she knew that getting angry wouldn't help her mate in this struggle of power that he had with parts of the clan.

Goliath felt the warm touch of his mate's arms, and relaxed with a sigh.

"What is it?" he asked, eying the older gargoyle skeptically.

"His ways of training the hatchlings are much too soft." the elder noticed. "He should reprimand them when they make mistakes, not make jokes about this."

Goliath shook his head.

"The ways of teaching the youngsters have always changed from one generation to the other. I trust him in this, as should you." he explained, as calm as he could. "Anything else?"

The elder's face showed him how much he really trusted in his second.

"There is indeed something else." the elder continued. "Earlier today, I found him and the new lass, Lana, lying on the floor… on top of each other."

Goliath closed his eyes and suppressed a growl… How had his second got into that situation, after he had already spoken with him about it?

"I will see about this." Goliath told the elder. "Later."

With this, he turned around, walking into the room without looking back to the elder.

Elisa threw a last look on the elder's angry face, and then followed her mate, closing the door behind her.

"So, no new news about this?" she noticed.

Goliath shook his head, forcing himself to smile.

"Let's not talk about this right now." he told his mate, slowly leading her to the bed.

Elisa followed and they both sat on it.

Both looked on each other for a moment. Elisa was still in her street clothes, the inclusive jacket, and feeling this way, normal, not filled with the warm pleasure of lust promising deep pleasure if being followed.

Gently, nearly as cautious as on their first night when he was still full of fear that he might hurt her, Goliath let his tail wander up Elisa's leg.

Elisa returned this by gently pressing her hand on his chest, pushing him down on the bed while following him, and giving him a kiss. Still kissing each other, Goliath carefully worked on her jeans, but when she looked into his eyes, Elisa knew it was wrong.

"Goliath, stop." she whispered softly and her mate followed instantly.

She still looked in his eyes, and knew what had made her to stop, as he wasn't thinking just on her, and the lust having wavered in this… In both of their eyes, the passion was gone, being replaced by worries about his clan.

Elisa knew this, as she knew that she would always share her mate's heart with the rest of the clan. Goliath's caring for the ones near him, his sacrificing for his clan, was one of the things that made Goliath who he was… and why she loved him so much.

"What is it?" he asked, and Elisa could hear the worries in his tone.

"Goliath, you don't want to do this anymore, right?" she noticed. "I don't either, not anymore."

Goliath shook his head

"We wanted it a minute ago." he replied, but this was more a remark than a protest.

"Yes," she agreed, "but right now, you've got more important things to worry about."

"I'm sorry, my Elisa." Goliath said, and Elisa found that he actually looked ashamed.

"For being worried about th… our clan?" she asked, his smiling rising even so, and she sat down beside him. "Never mind, big guy. Your dedication to your clan is one of the reasons why I love you so much."

Goliath looked on his mate, and Elisa could still see worries in them, practically being able to read his thoughts, his crazy feeling of guilt for not having enough time for her.

Slowly, she touched his face.

"When we became mates, we knew it would be difficult…" Elisa noted. "There will be times when we will have more time together. I miss all the free time we used to have, but I won't let anyone bother us."

Goliath waited a second, and then he nodded.

"You are wise, my Elisa." he said.

His mate smiled and she pulled his face down, sharing another kiss while Goliath stroke through her hair.

For an all too short moment, they stayed still, until Elisa ended the kiss.

"What will you do with Brooklyn?" she asked.

Goliath closed his eyes.

"I don't know," he admitted. "He had promised me he would hold himself back with Lana."

"Talk with him." Elisa suggested, rising from the bed. "I bet the elder has exaggerated this."

Goliath nodded, rising from the bed. He guessed this, too.

"Well, I guess I could visit the little ones in the rookery." his mate said, giving him a smile. "And some of the hatchlings wanted to learn about police work. What about meeting afterwards, before the infirmary?"

Goliath returned the smile and nodded, finding it good to hear about the young ones being so open-minded.

Silently, they went to the door, entering the corridor.

When she had closed the door, Elisa turned around to her mate, giving him a short look, then jumped on him and pressed a kiss on his mouth.

"I love you, Big Guy." she whispered, and gave him the same look she had on the night the clan had regained the castle.

A moment later, she was back on the ground, walking silently on her way to the rookery.

Goliath looked after her, until she had walked around the corner, then he made himself on his own way.

22.08.98; 01:46; Castle Wyvern, computer room:

"Got ya!" Brooklyn triumphed; pushing the joystick forward, and so making his speeder on the monitor, drive even faster.

Even when this wasn't needed, he was the first and could see the goal ahead.

"Ha!" Lex replied, pushing the joystick forward and pushing a button of the keyboard at the same time.

Before Brooklyn could even groan, his brother's speeder rushed up from behind, pushing his own from the road, and reaching the goal while he just saw mud.

The big Lex wins line on the screen seemed to be just as big as his brother's grin.

"Two to one for me." his brother gloated good-heartedly.

"Yeah, you're the better pilot." Brooklyn admitted. "But I'm still the one here who can drive a motor cycle."

"And I can fly a helicopter." Lex replied, rising on his chair.

"You topped him," a female voice noticed, laying an orange claw on his shoulder. "Clearly."

Lexington's smile grew, as he looked to their rookery sister who stood behind both chairs, and watched her brothers arguing with a happy smile.

Brooklyn smiled too; relishing the time he spent with his brother, yet it was just a half true smile since he knew Bea's smile wholly belonged to Lexington.

"Rematch?" Lexington asked, looking back to his brother.

Brooklyn was just about to answer that he preferred a round of Quake…

"Brooklyn." a voice stopped him before the first tone.

Looking up, the second discovered his leader standing at the door to the computer room, having the serious look that Brooklyn knew all too well.

"Why don't you two play a round?" Brooklyn asked Bea and Lexington, while rising from his chair. "I'll be back soon."

"Clear." Lexington agreed, and Bea nodded.

Not really expecting the best, Brooklyn walked to Goliath, following him outside the door in the corridor.

"Let me guess." Brooklyn noticed sarcastically. "Lana?"

Goliath nodded.

"Goliath, I don't know what elder, or anyone else has told you, but it isn't true." Brooklyn assured.

"I was told some of the clan found you and Lana lying on the floor…" Goliath explained, crossing his arms. "…On top of each other."

His second winced.

"Well, at least it is just the half truth." he admitted.

Goliath's stoic face made Brooklyn feel the need even more to gulp, but he suppressed it.

Before he could defend himself further, a trio of hatchlings raced down the floor, paying no mind to the leader and his second, and rushed into the computer room.

"Me and Lana were in the elevator, when it had a malfunction and stopped." Brooklyn explained in newfound strength. "I had to hurry, to get to the training lesson with the hatchlings in time, so I tried to open the doors. Lana helped me when suddenly the doors opened and we fell out."

"Directly in front of the elders?" Goliath guessed.

Brooklyn nodded.

"I know how it had to look like, but I had no intention to explain this to the elders then." he explained.

For a moment, he played with the thought of asking Goliath to ask Lex about this, but if the leader wouldn't trust him, how could he then be his second.

"I will see to it that this misunderstanding won't grow." Goliath explained. "But the elder had another topic."

"What?" Brooklyn asked, even though he could imagine it.

"For some in the clan, your training style seems too lax." his leader said.

"Training style?" Brooklyn asked, at the same time bemused and angry by these words. "Goliath, I hardly have a dozen hours with them."

Goliath nodded.

"Yet, some dislike your training methods." he explained. "They believe you make the hatchlings see this as a sort of game."

"And you?" Brooklyn asked, looking in his leader's eyes.

"I don't agree with them." Goliath noticed. "But I have noticed that you are rather… soft to them."

Brooklyn shook his head, as he had known it.

"Okay, I don't make them take an extra exercise every time I notice a mistake." he admitted. "But for now, it is not needed."

"It is to show them that every mistake might be the last." Goliath replied, hiding a slight shock that his second really missed this understanding.

"Right, but we don't plan to send them into battle right now, do we?" Brooklyn noticed. "They don't have to face the trials for another year."

Goliath thought about it.

"You think some might fail," he noticed.

Brooklyn shook his beak.

"Well, some have problems." the second admitted. "But I guess they normally would go through the trials, too, even if they were tomorrow."

Brooklyn leaned on the wall behind him, hearing for a second the sound of hatchlings amusing themselves with the computers.

"But they're not tomorrow, but to a time we set earlier to make it the best for all the hatchlings." he continued. "So when we tell them that no rookery has ever failed the tests, we tell them about rookeries who do this in their time, not two years earlier… or later. And during all the time, the ones of Wyvern have to compile with that of Moray who are years ahead of them."

Goliath thought about it, as he had had similar thoughts too, but his second brought this to one point.

"You mean we may demoralize them by letting them train with each other?" he noticed.

"Yes." Brooklyn said, happy that his leader seemed to understand him.

Goliath remained silent a moment, then he nodded.

"I see your point," he explained. "And I will make this clear to the elders if they ask again, but think about this, even when we don't want them to be in battles anytime soon, they might get into trouble any time, and they have to be prepared. Especially with Lucifia still on the loose."

Brooklyn nodded, looking earnest at his leader, as he knew all too well how he and his two brothers had come into much trouble when they were younger.

"Speaking of which," Brooklyn began, "I have to gather them for their literature lesson."

Goliath nodded, and he knew he had work to do too.

Silently, he looked at how Brooklyn opened the door to the computer room.

"Okay, kiddos!" the red gargoyle shouted into the room. "Time for some literature."

Walking away, the leader shook his head. Despite all the voices in the clan saying otherwise, Brooklyn was indeed his best choice for this post.

22.08.98; 02:59; Castle Wyvern, schoolroom:

"And this is how I became police officer." Elisa explained to the class, its teacher and some gargoyles standing in the corners of the room, including Darlene with her two daughters, Lana standing right of her, and Gem asleep in her arms.

"So you had the same training we have?" A male, pale brown hatchling, with two small horns, which turned through his fair hair, and some spikes on his shoulders, asked.

"Yes," Elisa agreed, "with the exception of the study of the law."

"And the gliding training." A small pink female hatchling noticed, with a grin.

"Right." The detective admitted with a laugh, returning the smile.

Half the class laughed, and she could see even Brooklyn smiling on the wall, right in front of her.

"Have you locked up a lot of criminals?" a hatchling, which Elisa recognized as Demona's grandson, asked.

"Some." she admitted. "But police work isn't just about locking bad guys away, but to help people, and maintain the order."

"Like guards." a male hatchling from the backward chairs, noticed. "Back in Wyvern, they always protected the princess and us during the day."

"Yeah." another hatchling added, definitely unhappy. "And forbade us to enter her floor."

"Well, the police today is similar to the guards you knew." Elisa explained, recognizing that this wouldn't be such an easy talk, as she had hoped. "But foremost, I don't answer to any ruler, but the law."

And Chavez. Elisa added in mind.

"Do we have to learn the law, too?" a male hatchling, sitting right in front of her, asked.

The detective shook her head.

"No," she explained, having discussed this with her mate. "The law is made on the same principles that you would see as good."

"Whom do you have to obey more?" a female hatchling from the middle of the crowd, asked. "The leader or the law?"

Elisa could feel a slight hustle climb up her throw, but she managed to look cool while suppressing it.

Meanwhile, her sister prodded the female in the rips.

"She is clan." the sister explained "So she has to obey the leader."

Elisa hadn't to force herself to smile by these words of trust, yet she knew that some gargoyles in the corner did indeed not smile, since they found this question much more serious than the hatchlings, and the answer not so clear.

"Goliath respects the human law," she explained. "The clan has used methods outside of the law to protect the people of this city before. But now we try to work together with the police and justice of New York, to ensure that it is made legal."

Elisa hesitated and took a look on Darlene, who now leaned on the wall, left to her, with Lana by her side, and Gem sleeping in her arms.

"The problem is that the law does not protect gargoyles." she began, deciding to raise the topic before an elder did so afterwards. "But friends of the clan like PIT, or Mr. Xanatos and Reynard… friends of all gargoyles work on it so that the law will one day, in the near future, protect gargoyles, too. Until this day, the clan has to fight to make the world see that gargoyles have the same right to live here, as other people have."

"So you don't protect us?" a male hatchling, who was the same one who had asked the first question, asked.

Elisa bit her lip by the tone of slight disappointment in the hatchlings voice.

"We are clan so we protect each other. As a detective, like every police officer, I maintain the order in the city." she said. "So the police arrests people like the Quarrymen who threaten humans and gargoyles alike. When I'm on duty, I try to make the city safe, for you and for the humans outside."

There was silence for a moment in the crowd of hatchlings, when they remembered that this was pretty much the same their leader had told them.

"So, could I become a cop, too?" Eve asked, sitting in the middle between Connor and Jarred.

"Maybe one day." Elisa promised with a smile, happy that her words seemingly had found a ground.

Whispers emitted, while groups of hatchlings chatted about this possibility, and how cool it would be to wear a mark.

Behind her back, this was not taken so happily, even Darlene gave Eve a thoughtful look.

"Okay, kiddos!" Brooklyn announced, bringing the hatchlings to silence, with risen arms and a look over the crowd. "That's it for tonight. I hope you show Elisa some manners."

On this, some hatchlings applauded, while others stayed chatting amongst themselves, the topic slowly shifting from police work to video games.

Elisa gave the second in command, and literature teacher of this clan, an amused look, which he replied with a broad grin over his beak.

"A good lecture." someone praised.

Turning around, Elisa noticed Darlene by her side, with a sleeping Gem in her arms, and an unhappy Lana some feet back.

"Thanks." Elisa replied politely.

"I have to thank you for giving the hatchlings a perspective for a better future." Darlene said, slightly shaking her head. "Sometimes I really miss such."

Elisa's smile enlarged. Sometimes she couldn't believe how Darlene and Angela could be Demona's daughters.

"It is not me alone who do this," she noted.

"I know." Darlene said "But thank you, nevertheless."

"Hey, we're clan." Elisa explained with a big smile.

Darlene nodded, as they were indeed.

"Gem is sleepy?" Elisa asked, sagging a bit on her knee to take a better look at the hatchling in the Gargoyle's arms.

"She had much excitement tonight." Darlene said, not really being unhappy about this. "So I'll take her to bed a bit earlier tonight. Besides, my children have a magic lesson with their grandmother."

Elisa could see Lana groan behind Darlene's back, seemingly not so thrilled by this thought.

"Maybe we could talk another time?" Elisa suggested, looking at the five-clawed hatchling in Darlene's arms. She knew there could be a lot to talk about.

"I would like to." Darlene replied with a smile.

22.08.98; 03:23; Destine Manson, garden:

Darlene softly landed on the earth, trying her best to minimize the rustle, so as not to wake up Gem in her arms. Behind her, she could hear Jarred and Lana land, her oldest daughter with a rather great bump, since she had the additional weight of Shade.

Looking up, Darlene waved a goodbye to the males who had accompanied them to here, and were now making a last circle about them to be sure. They had been friendly, even when they had declined her invitation to come in, and take a rest with them. They said it was because they had to be back at the castle, but Darlene knew it was more likely that, like many of the rest of the clan, they didn't want to be under one roof with her mother, let alone her own house.

Sighing, Darlene opened the glass doors of the veranda, allowing Shade to slip in as the first one. Knowing the way, she slowly made it up the steps while Jarred and Lana made themselves some snacks, and something to drink.

In the room of her youngest, she changed Gem's diaper and carefully set the hatchling in her crib, not to wake her up. Having done so and after carefully closing the door, Darlene walked up to her mother's working room.

The door to the room was just ajar, but after opening it, Darlene had problems for a second to readjust to the changed light. When her eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see her mother standing at the window, and not very surprisingly with Shade by her side.

"Could you explain to me what you were thinking by this?" Darlene asked her mother angrily.

"What do you mean?" Demona asked.

When the immortal turned around to face her daughter, Darlene noticed the glass in her claw filled with a slightly brown liquid. A second later, Darlene's eyes discovered a bottle of whisky on her mother's working table, made of rather expensive wood, and it was all but empty.

"Planning on going to visit the clan at one moment, then decide not to bother the next." Darlene stated, ignoring the topic of alcohol for the moment.

"I didn't feel well." her mother explained, and took a further swallow of her glass.

"Oh, do you recently have influenza?" Darlene teased. "Cause I have never seen you sick, mother. Until recently you were very healthy, except when you don't want to be in the castle, then you suddenly don't feel good."

Demona turned away from her daughter, back to the window, starring at the world outside while the gargbeast by her feet, followed the talk between both females with some interest.

"Does someone in the clan did something that made you go away?" Darlene asked, having come some steps closer, nearly being able to touch her mother.

Demona's response was a dry laugh.

"Do you really think I would let myself be forced away by any of them?" she replied.

"Then why, mother?" Darlene nearly begged. "Help me to understand it."

Her mother once again turned around, looking into her daughter's eyes with her own, glancing in an unreadable green, and for a moment she believed the immortal wanted to say something.

But instead of saying a word, Demona lead the glass to her opened mound and drank the rest of the glass's content.

"I just didn't feel well," she simply stated, placing the glass on the windowsill. "And now it is time for Jarred and Lana's lessons."

With this, the immortal walked past her daughter, not looking her in the eyes on the way.

"You really missed something." Darlene said to her mother, when she had reached the door, Shade slowly following. "Elisa even held a lecture about police work to the hatchlings?"

Demona stopped at the door, even though she didn't turn around.

"So?" she asked, giving a half-snarl.

"Yes, and the hatchlings loved it." Darlene explained, in a happy tone. "Eve even asked if she could become a cop."

Her mother had been holding the door tightly, so tight that now Darlene could see making her some tiny scratches in it.

"It is not my business." Demona explained after a suppressed growl, and left the room.

Darlene suppressed a curse.

Her mother truly was more stubborn than an ox, and had a shell as hard as diamonds, but she wouldn't give up. She wouldn't let her mother ruin this chance of happiness for all of them, and she wouldn't stop trying to come through to her.

Sighing, Darlene took up the glass and walked to the table, playing with the thought of drinking a glass herself before remembering that this might be not a good idea in her current situation.

Thoughtful, she rubbed her stomach when she heard her daughter's voice coming from down the stairs.

"Forget your lesson, I'm going to my bed to sleep…" Lana explained, seemingly very tired since she had forgotten that contradicting her grandmother was not a good idea.

A slight snarl, followed by more as the half-hearted complaints continued, showed Darlene that she was right, and while shaking her head, she put the glass and the bottle back in the open cupboard.

22.08.98; 03:25; Castle Wyvern, before the infirmary:

Elisa stood by the wall when she heard the sound of steps coming closer, looking right she discovered her mate coming around the corner.

"I'm sorry, my Elisa." Goliath excused himself. "I was busy in answering letters by the government."

"No problem, Big Guy. I was late, too," she noticed with a smile. "The hatchlings were full of questions"

"This is good." Goliath said, and Elisa nodded.

"Doctor Moore is already in." she informed him and opened the door.

Silently, they entered the infirmary, listening to a talk.

"…. I would suggest you speak with Xanatos." the mates heard Moore end the sentence.

"About what?" Goliath asked while stepping in…

Deborah and Hudson who sat on the bed, and Moore who stood in front of them, looked to the pair.

A moment later, Deborah and Hudson exchanged a look before the old gargoyle turned his look to his leader.

"We spoke about getting a mechanical leg, lad." Hudson explained, totally surprising the newly arrived couple.

To be continued…