I'm not dead. Just finished master's degree. I think from now on if I disappear for months I will add a short summary to refresh your memory. Makes my life and yours much easier.

Previously on Sunrise, Sunset

For the first time totally unplanned, Hawke and Fenris take off to Orlais during the night. Hawke gets a little too comfortable and accidentally lets it slip that she had seen some of Fenris' past in her dreams. She desperately swears incognizance to how this came to be. Fenris is stunned and mortified, and not all too prepared to think about the past he'd lost. However, to her surprise, they come to a heart-to-heart where he tells her he had always expected some kind of trouble with her, but he is not going anywhere. With his affection and commitment out in the open, it is high time she showed him what he's committing to.

In a paradoxical pocket-Fade where she is the host and he is the gate, Fenris finds himself in a whole different kind of Fade, where vividness and detail become his worst enemy. He's so busy adjusting to the realm, he doesn't even find it odd that there are jungle mammals chilling out in the Ferelden winter scenery. Once there, he is led into a series of memories that might make him re-evaluate his opinions—

For starters, she and Carver are good friends, while with Malcolm, whom she's always kept on pedestal, she clashes in almost every way. She leaves home on bad terms with her father, and, at her own risk, enlists in the Ferelden army. Andrei Dvorak, her childhood friend and future lover, seems to have followed her ever since. With a sure promotion coming her way, she finds out she is pregnant and loses hope for the future she'd wanted.

She and Andrei come back to Lothering to announce they're with child and Carver's earned himself a job. Despite being his proverbial godfather, Malcolm's not all too impressed with Andrei. Not far from it, Hawke seems to dodge his proposals like arrows. It doesn't help that he wants to go back to the army, while she dreads being a lonely workless little wife. On top of all the crap, Andrei's brother is fading from his illness, Malcolm keeps forgetting things, and there are demons living in her brain.

Literally.

Apparently she has a unique sucking ability, which shouldn't be dismissed so quickly if you're a man with a practical mind.

In the intermission of Hawke's terrible memories, Fenris meets Murmur, a hard-working Sloth Demon, Ravina, half Desire, half fish (therefore half not his type), Bucky, a politically correct demon of Terror (and Water), Belleth, Proud King of a multiple personality disorder, Surgat, who may as well be a rock, and Ygdad of the Deep Roads, who is most definitely a rock, and a cannibal at that.

Then there's Crowley, Pride Demon and former President of the Dalish-inhabited Brecilian Forests. He finds everything amusing, has no apparent problem with being caught by the Demon Police, and seems to be in the wrong world because he sounds like an Argonian from Elder Scrolls.

"—for your… throne?"

While Belleth hissed at Murmur's mockery, Fenris brushed over Hawke. It wasn't a very friendly brush.

Maybe it was time to leave.

He stopped, his head vaguely moving to the side with respect. "I need a minute."

"Don't go too far away. I'm not exactly in charge here," she said.

Something about manuals. He decided not to say anything and went forth.

In the distance, she watched him go down the faint lining of a river. It appeared to broaden towards the horizon instead of narrowing down.

I'm not gonna watch over him like a damned mother, she told herself. Time to catch up. Any new games they play to pass the time? Murmur lose again and have to wear a dashing negligee? Crowley remember anything on this 'Eluvian' Meryl showed her? Bucky tried to possess a puddle again? Excitement was always lacking in the prison, and she wasn't sure when that became a bad thing.

As for Fenris, he did need a minute. He wouldn't say it, but he felt very sick, and alone, and overly aware of himself. It was mighty ironic how heaps of new knowledge about another person's life made you learn twice as much about yourself.

There was a swarm of luminous wisps, which distracted him, floating aimlessly like tiny fireflies suspended in the air.

He lowered his gaze. Anyway…

He had a special and dangerous weakness when it came to children. He could be so apathetic, he could complain and hate people of all races and creeds, mages, Templars, chantry sisters, abominations, Antivan assassins, viscounts, senechals, guardsmen, fish, sheep, rocks, potatoes, chairs… But he could not hold any malice or apathy towards a child. And he could not, really absolutely could not bear the thought of children suffering. The day Danarius set fire to numerous families of slaves, when he heard the screams of children burning to death, while he was ordered to stand there and watch—. He was never again the same man after that. Something in him like a vicious cancer grabbed his heart, turned it inside out and ate it. Indeed, even that bitch noticed. Hadriana, ever the expert psychoanalyst, was never late to notice anything and spiritedly announced his depression over the death of some girl or other who died in the fire. Weeks followed of inane mockery, and the only thing he found solace in was that he no longer had a heart to take her words to.

Yet this was far from over. Made aware of his humanity, the horror lay in being ordered to kill a child, instead of merely watching. And surely enough the day did come. In fact, the order came unplanned, during a visit, with a subtle gesture from Danarius of cupping the top of his wine glass. He'd poured cranberry juice for the children not a half hour before this. And so he found himself unresponsive, and his neck chained to the fireplace behind him, tearing at his skin, yanking him away. And the female magister who'd been hosting the dinner party was more inviting and more human than any magister he'd seen. In fact, she was the only one who not only spoke to a slave, namely himself, but offered him wine. And not the crappy kind they served slaves now and again on a national holiday; the same old delicious wine they were all drinking. Maker knew how, but this was exactly what saved him. He pretended to be drunk, as slaves were not used to 'real' wine, and half-tripped on himself and started to speak without being spoken to. He remembered her and the children laughing joyfully at him like it was yesterday. At the end of the evening he even had a moniker: "Silly Snowball."

And while Danarius hadn't so much as cursed once on the way back, Fenris fired a million curses at himself because he was certain his master saw through him. But this was folly, absolute folly, what he dared do no matter how it looked like. He dared to act upon individual feeling, put opinions in front of his orders, he dared to deceive and think up a defence, he dared to think!

As soon as the door closed behind him, Danarius sunk in his armchair and doubly more so into his own thoughts. As he couldn't go unless dismissed, Fenris stood motionless for perhaps a quarter of an hour, swaying and half-tripping still to protect his lie.

However, Danarius did not start with an accusation nor with punishment.

"Since I have you in a state in which you are, shall we say, staggering at a more comfortable distance from individuality," he said, twining his fingers like a passive-aggressive parent, "I'm curious that you should tell me, Fenris," he continued with that manipulatively inviting voice he often had, "do you like women or men?"

He'd have stared at him blankly, trying to figure out what the right answer was, as a slave always does, but as he was, in Danarius' words, 'staggering at a more comfortable distance from individuality', he said: "Women, Sir."

"Dashing works of nature, aren't they?" he said with an eager grin, his entwined fingers pointing outwards as if he had a hidden dagger waiting to be verbalised. "Gracious, yet unforgiving; loyal, yet serpentine; beautiful, yet infuriating; empathetic, yet ruthless, awfully ruthless creatures indeed."

Fenris pretended to consider what he said.

"Well, aren't they?" the master pressed in a semi-kind tone.

"I… believe so," he said.

A hoarse chuckle followed, his master's eyes full with glee. "You don't even know, do you?" he chortled. "You haven't a bloody clue!"

No, I haven't a bloody clue, he thought acidly. As if he had permission to speak to other people.

"No, I suppose I don't. I have no idea."

The occasional encounter on the hallway with a female apprentice or slave was not exactly a fountain of insight. The apprentices kept silent, as did he, unless it was really necessary. The slaves were not at all different. In fact, both seemed absolutely terrified of him. The only difference was that if he'd ever speak a word to a slave, they would bow and expect him to give them orders. He was 'above them'. He needn't have markings or wear fancy armour to indicate that. Male slaves had their heads shaved. He had a full set of hair which meant he was 'important'. Of course, this permission was less about importance and more about the fact that white hair on a young person unsettles people, and therefore added to his appearance which was meant to inspire fear. And so his self-consciousness was acute and disquieting, which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone.

Unbecomingly though it might have been, he envied them; people who took their position for granted; people who moved through the estate as a fish through the water—so utterly at home as to be unaware of themselves.

"And how should you!" the master exclaimed almost victoriously. "You are a soldier. Why, you are not the kind to appreciate nuances of personality and personhood… Indeed, of course not, that would make one weak in the face of his duty. And you're not becoming weak on me, are you, Fenris?" he said, tilting his chin down on the hand it rested on. If he had glasses, he would've peered over them.

Not one muscle moved on his face. Finding oneself a slave, one had to behave as prudently as possible, yielding externally to forces capable of destroying him oftentimes before he was even aware. This does not prevent one from taking pleasure in one's observations, since what one beholds is indeed unprecedented. A slave is subjected like no one else to such a pressure, to have to writhe and wriggle so to adapt himself to forms constructed according to the books but obviously not to his size. All his intellectual and emotional capacities were put to the test.

Of course, his position was not as terrible as others'. Sitting on top of the great wall between castes, he saw both sides: the perspective of life in the eyes of a slave (serve, eat, sleep, die), and in the eyes of a magister (order, lie, blood magic, advance; optionally, become immortal).

Tevinter did so well because the slaves had one principle: 'Always give one hundred percent'. There was an unwritten addendum: 'Including blood.'

The masters did so well because they had one principle: 'The ends justify the means.' They would kill for a Peace Award.

What was Fenris's principle?

He stopped in his tracks. Now is not the time… I came out here to take a break, not crowd my mind with more bad memories…

And as he walked the dark rocky path, the sinister river gallivanting in splashes beside him, old sounds came back to him, faint tunes of feeling, of places he'd seen on the run, as a "free man", and before he really made any conscious recall, his feet were walking down the ancient and uneven flagstones leading to St. Galatea's Chapel somewhere along the northern border of the Free Marches. The sinister river was too no longer, but instead the bright and sprightly Minanter River where he spent a great deal of time fishing and hating every second of it.

It wasn't the first chantry he'd intentionally seen; St. Galatea's was merely one in which he'd spent an unusually long time walking about. For the dark, moss-riddled, dilapidated stonewalls, for its lush and enormous garden full of roses and trumpet flower vines and morning glory, for its near roofless sanctuary, but mostly and evidently for the fact that it was abandoned.

Yes, he'd taken his time in the ancient ruins. He liked the little bit that was left of the painted ceiling, and the keen and vibrant strained-glass windows bursting with colour and light. He felt calm in the quality of gloom inside it, the semidarkness and the faint pastoral glimmer in the windows, and he'd lit a candle as he always had in a place like this, though for whom or what he couldn't have said. Maybe he whispered, "For my family." But it wasn't a prayer. He didn't believe in prayer any more than he believed he had a family to pray for.

He went there not out of devotion. That was gone forever. Perhaps he simply wanted the blueprint of the paths he'd travelled. Maybe he just wanted to walk the sacred ground, walk through places of pilgrimage and faith because he didn't have any. Because the people who normally walked this very path to the chapel were different than he. After all, people created these stunning places because they had vision, love of beauty, hopes and dreams.

What was certain, however, is that he enjoyed looking out at the world from under the arches. Round arches had always filled him with a sense of peace. He'd stare at the chunks of brick wall scattered here and there, as if they had meaning for him, some meaning, something to do with his own wretched wreck of a life.

Perhaps he felt that for a few moments, in the dark intimacy of an abandoned place of worship, in the great hulking shell of a ruined church, where only the walls and the flowers may retain some cryptic memory of what it once was, he too could abandon himself, detached from all things ugly and evil, and sweetly alone.

Or maybe he wanted monuments, and memories, and maps of meaning.

And why not? He was a man shaken by an earthquake, a man paralysed by dissonance. He knew that much. He thought about that all the time, though he tried to detach it from any continuity. Once upon a time not long ago, he tried to accept what seemed his fate. But if you don't believe in fate, well, that is not easy.

On his second visit, he'd been talking to the Maker in the roofless chapel, and telling Him how much he hated Him that He didn't exist. It didn't matter to him that He may exist. He knew he'd lived with an educated notion that a Maker had acted in history more than once, and as a slave he may have believed it with a numb enthusiasm, filling his mind with narrative so that it wouldn't be empty and turn in on itself. But that hardly made any difference for him now. Just random facts about many an age and many a famous personage, while the only concrete indication of unearthly agency upon the theatre of life were demons and unwilling spirits.

On his third and last visit, he came after he'd almost died to Constantine and the hunters. In the flicker of the red light, he told Him what a monster he was, a soldier without a war, a slayer without a cause, a romantic without a heart. As if He cared.

Once he was done, he lit the candle. "To the Nothingness" that had become his life. And then his voice broke. "Here's a candle… for me."

And yet not even he could escape the hazard of his own humanity. Indeed, even he let himself fall for the glow of faith as he attended the Chant in some nameless village. Not for the words necessarily, but for the unfailing liveliness of the place, for the mothers and fathers and children all around him, who even in a state of worship could exchange a few joyful laughs. Maybe it was that, or something else, but whatever the case, he enjoyed it. He didn't care whether those moments inspired something literal or mystical. Those people were lovely, and gleaming, and it comforted him to see them, even when he was steaming with hate. It comforted him that other people around him were worshipping, and he was somewhere sacred, or somewhere where people came to be with the sacred. He didn't know. He pushed any self-accusations out of his mind and just looked at what was right before him. And when the moment was over, a grain of faith would still reveal itself, that life was precious and he would not depart from it with hate and despair.

As if out of nowhere, his mind went to Hawke.

And there it was again… now. That little glow. That little painstakingly idiotic weakness in front of feeling that a man like him instinctually reacted with need for doublethink. Yet… he parted from it for a moment and received this—she parting with hers for a moment. Revealing things she'd never say or couldn't begin to think how to say.

He shouldn't be alone, dwelling on ancient nonsense. Or maybe she should be here with him, and see what he sees. Although if he really thought about it, she probably wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this. Besides, now was not about him. He should go back. But first, he had to do something. He walked towards the candle-stand, as if a wind had pushed him, and—

A wisp came out of nowhere. It floated around his head, making sounds as it bounced from his shoulder to the other. Around him, the countryside was gone, and he was once more in the greenish purple dullness of the Fade.

"Go away," he said acridly.

The wisp responded with some friendly sounds. It couldn't speak, of course, but if it could, it would have roughly translated to: "Beepity-boppy-bloop."

"Argh, what do you want?" he said angrily. It wasn't like he summoned it. And wisps didn't just 'take interest'.

The wisp beepity-boppy-blooped.

He must have gone mad, because that made sense to him. "You want to show me something?"

The wisp made a happy pirouette in the air and took off.

He followed it through the fireflies and the fog. Its light helped him see the river forming an indistinct loop. There were huge water lilies floating around, much bigger than ordinary ones. Their edges were pink with tiny sharp spines growing out of them.

Raindrops began to hit the water and his own eyelashes. He tilted his head so the rain would hit the side of his neck. Then his eye caught something peculiar.

There was a huge tree nearby. He made his way towards it.

… It was very dark and wet here. The tree had a curious shape, its trunk like one gigantic cylinder of roots encased in a spiral of beautiful magenta flowers. There was but one ray of light here, and through it he could see the tiny rain and a myriad of dark blue butterflies with a pink spot on each wing occasionally flying around the tree.

He touched the bark, leaned on it, and looked up. Indeed, the tree was so huge Fenris could not even see its canopy through the mass of fog. The tree looked like a strangling latticework of roots branching far away on top of the soil. At the base of it there was attached a big red plant whose leaves were arranged in the shape of a rosette.

The red leaves were channelling water, and the tree suffered from the lack of light in the dense forest. He knew this and he looked down into the rosette, as if looking for something, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Woomph—He flinched away. Tiny blue frogs with black spots and big eyes came out of it. They were poisonous snipers, he said to himself. But he was just as scared of them as they were of him, and they quickly vanished.

He was about to laugh. The swarm of blue-pink butterflies danced aimlessly over the river.

He looked at them and quickly realised—it was as if a hush had fallen over the world. For the first time he heard the tree crickets singing, the deep churning song rising all around him which made even the shadows seem alive. And there came another sound he had forgotten completely, the shrill cry of macaws. As he listened, a voice in his head lingered: Doma mea. (My home)

Meanwhile

"Ehrm, perhapz he should not have met so many of Us at once, Mistress. Although now dat I tink about it, you should be grateful he hasn't met all of us yet," Crowley said in an attempt to comfort Hawke. "Likke, how do yoo say, eeze him into dee mess."

"Believe me, I tried." She sighed. "Maybe it was a mistake."

"Or maybe it was the right thing to do and you knew it was the right time to do it," Ravina offered.

She scoffed. "Careful, Desire, you're starting to sound like Purpose."

Ravina's hiss echoed with distaste. "Desire is the only purpose."

"I'm sure plenty of the Fade's residents would disagree," she said. She rested her chin on her hand with a sort of devilish smirk. "Hey, you wanna know something fun?"

"Go on?" said Crowley.

"I read this fascinating document in the Circle library once," she said with spiky tone shrouded in honey. "Pseudomonarchy of Spirits by Anonymous. Of course, the cover said 'Flower Therapy with Oracle Cards'. It wasn't even in the restricted section. The dust in that book could have killed an elephant. Very clever, indeed; not even mages believe in that hogwash."

A silky laugh came, and Murmur's orb shaped itself into an amused crescent moon. "Pseudomonarchy," he said. "Spectacular title."

"It said that the tale of the Maker's first children is far from fantasy, no matter if the Maker exists or not. Anonymous claims that the Veil was a grave mistake of its creator, or at least an imperfect job. There was also this list of most common spirits and demons, and then twice as long a list of new names, types of spirits I'd never heard about before, like Patience, or Command, or Remorse. It started to become obvious this Anonymous was a Dreamer." The demons gathered closer, or at least closest that the cages would permit them, and listened with fascination. "According to them, the separation between Spirit and Living Soul made Spirit lose its natural integrity and soon many found themselves overwhelmed by this, this—" She paused and raised her palms. "You know what? Long story short— it is very possible that some of you were 'virtuous' spirits once, you just wouldn't remember it."

"WHAT?!" Crowley screamed in both horror and disappointment.

"Preposterous," Belleth articulated in a chorus.

Murmur calmly looked down upon himself. "Huh."

"Can demons commit suicide?" Crowley asked.

"You're welcome to try," Hawke laughed.

Crowley pressed his lips. "Hm. Maybe Belleth should go first."

"You may die with me, anyway," she said with a shrug. "After all, you're in my head."

The demons looked at each other.

"Well… shit," Crowley said.

"And what did you think happens when you die?" she said.

The demons stood silent.

"We… cease to exizt?" Crowley offered.

Hawke chuckled. "So spirits are atheists. Well I'll be damned."

"I prefer skeptic, me personally."

"I don't think I'm an atheist, I simply don't give the subject much thought," Murmur said. "All the different pantheons and denominations, all the questions, all the loops and anomalies and half-answers that open up double the amount of questions…" He wobbled his head in a lazy way. "Such a—huh-hush—waste."

"I thought wasting time was your essence," Hawke said.

"Incorrect," Murmur said softly. "People wasting time was my essence. It would be a waste for me to waste time."

She squinted.

A rocky sound came from behind. "I believe," Ygdad said, the demon from the Deep Roads.

"Really?" she said, but it didn't sound like a question.

Ygdad nodded respectfully and looked at his fist as it opened. "How can I not believe in the one whose very hand produced my exile?"

"But how do you know it was the Maker? Maybe it was just a powerful spirit."

Ygdad glanced towards the horizon. "No spirit can banish a being from here."

"Maybe you weren't in the Fade. Maybe you were just somewhere in the Deep Roads where the Veil was thin."

He gave this a thought for a second, tilting his head. "Perhaps it was so. I was but a child. Nothing and everything seemed real."

"So join the dark side," she said.

Ygdad's indifferent eye-orb peered back at her.

"On no account. I still believe he exists."

Crowley's voice came to intervene with a surprisingly unironic voice: "If you die, be a deer and tell dee Maker on behalf of all of Us dat he can suck our craggy cocks."

Hawke slowly turned her head towards him. "Anger… much?"

"Anger is the least of what I entertain right now."

"Wow, uhm, I didn't mean to anger you, I just wanted to annoy you a little."

The demon crossed his arms. "Pff-teh. Who cares if we were some other type of speerit bee-for? Argh, I remember dees one long ago. I would sit with my legions and watch eet tumble around and bend over backwardz trying to get elves to fall in love with each other. Eet tried so hard to get deese two to mate, even though one of them was betrothed to another. It didn't stop even when dey were married to other people. When it succeeded, dee couple had to run away from their clan, and they took dee children with them. But they were arrowed down by sentinels, and dee spirit, in a fit of desperation, possessed dee girl to save them. They all died, of course."

A general silence followed.

"Well, that was… why would you tell me this?" she said.

"Because eet is quite clear dat we cannot choose shit," Crowley said angrily. "If I was made to be a mere spectator of my own natural demise, dee least he could do is make me without awareness." His tone grew acid. "Yet I had consciousness even before I fell to this little backwards prison."

She barely had time to say anything. Crowley's arms came around the bars, his nostrils poking out.

"By a roll of dice, I could have been a living being. Mmm… Could have had been a nice little farmer'z boy. Taken up a craft, make my own little wooden figurinez. Could have gotten a nice girl to bring home to my mother. Could have had some three, four rascalz and have my own personal band. Could have gotten one of 'em spectaclez to squint through as I read my children's letters telling me how the weather is bearing on their lands and if they're expecting twinz. Could have grown old looking out my window at the tomatoes and bell peppers growing in my garden as I drink a cup of rose tea with my old lady. Could have…" He scoffed. "Could have died knowing I lived."

Fenris looked at the reflection of the butterflies in the water, distorted and flat, and before he knew it, his heart stopped. He saw wings, larger wings, firing in the sky at incredible speeds.

He peered up cautiously through his hair, and there they were—people, with wings. He saw them flying here and there, in streaks of irresistible brilliance, and some as great as comets. Now and then he caught their likeness—that of elves and humans and even grey oxmen. He felt his eyes double in size, and his body reducing to a mere mushroom as he stared. A feeling of wonder surrounded and enfolded him as if it were a vivid, palpable thing.

He made a fire, and as he sat down next to it, he stared at the men flying with red contraptions for wings in an endless galactic night. He was utterly fascinated, and wildly excited, more so than he'd ever been.

And soon enough, he felt like something was missing. He couldn't say who or what, but there was this deep, nebulous feeling that something was missing from this exact moment. He thought of the glass city, which surely he would not be able to see in these savage parts of land. But he would see it soon enough.

He thought these things, just thought away without really thinking at all.

The whole world waited beyond these jungles, he thought without thinking. He closed his eyes and made himself a mere receiver, and as he did, he could hear over the miles and millions of dense footsteps, he could hear the sharp accents of amplified voices, he could hear the thick pounding music of war horns and great mammals, and the strident cheeps and chitters of youngsters and a thousand different birds.

But the best thing, truly the one thing that went to his heart—the sound of rustling leaves and the flutter of wings through wet branches.

It went to his ears and remained there, precious and bracing, flooding his senses, indeed so much so that he felt the wind made by the wings as if they were right behind him.

"Yoo-a-goo-boye?"

He flinched and opened his eyes.

"Step up," said a magnificent red and blue macaw which just happened to be chilling on his shoulder. "[cheep], [cheep]. Prepare the catapults!"

He felt a brush on his other shoulder, and as he veered to it, a grey parrot with a red and black tail was tilting its head at him.

He froze, unable really to think of anything appropriate to do in this current situation. But the feeling of something missing was no longer.

"Hi?" he said.

"Hi sweetheart," the grey one said.

Oh… kay.

"[wheeee], [chirp]. Avanna. How do you do," the red macaw said.

Avanna, huh? Perhaps these belonged to a native… of the… Fade; he felt stupid.

"Avanna. What is your name?" he asked.

"Avanna. [whistle]. My name is Elvis."

He bit his lip. "And yours?" he said to the grey one.

It didn't reply. Of course it didn't. "Hello. What is your name?"

"Hi sweetheart," it said again and fluttered its wings. "My name Fumo."

There was a smaller one next to his feet. This one was dark green with red and yellow and blue streaks. "Avanna," he said.

It didn't reply.

"Hello?"

"Hehwo," it said in a tiny voice, and started poking his knee repeatedly with its beak. The red one flew off to a branch.

"What is your name?"

"My nayms Lemuhn [Lemon]," it said, tilting its head, then went back to poking his knee.

"Who on earth gave you such unfortunate names?"

"Le—"

"[chip], [chip]. Bombs away," the red one's voice interrupted. Then it dropped one.

Fenris broke into laughter.

There was a heavy silence in the prison.

"Crowley, I…" Hawke didn't seem to find her words. "I didn't know you felt… could feel this way."

He hissed dispassionately. "Eh, it happenz." He looked down. "You tink teengz to pass dee time."

She sighed inside her head, conflicted with thoughts. Most of them were still in their denial phase. Murmur and Surgat had been a surprising example of indifference. But Crowley had been here since she was seven.

"Right…" she mumbled. "Even so, 'tis very frustrating that you would have no memories of before. Maybe one of you will soon become a virtuous spirit again and regain your memories and you could tell me about all the puppies and kitten orphanages you built. Wouldn't that make for the best academic paper of the century? Ha, I'd be rich!"

"I teenk he needs that more than We, Mistress," Crowley said in a kind tone with a lot of subtext.

Although a little unhappy with Crowley breaking her fantasies, and with a dismissive gesture, she said: "Pfft, he's well enough. He may look poor, but don't be deceived. He just stashes his money and never spends it on anything."

"Not that, Mistress… dee other teeng,"

"[wee-wee-wee-weem] Gonna rain soon." Elvis flung his wings repeatedly. "[pew-pew-pew] Prepare the catapults!"

"There are no catapults," Fenris said gratuitously.

Elvis started plucking under his wing. "Shame," he thought he heard him say.

She didn't want to look at him.

Crowley remained in his cage, but his mental reflection came towards her, and got down on one knee.

"If not for peace of mind, then at least for his protection," he said. "Surely I must not remind you dat to know your enemy and to know yourself means not to fear dee result of a hundred battles. He knows his enemy…" he said and left it there for effect. "And before you make a sarcastic remark, I know I sound like Wisdom and I do not give a crap."

Hawke stared up at him, her head just below his flaring nostrils. "Yep, rich like mad."

He was confounded, utterly confounded. Though strangely relaxed. He dropped down and lay there, staring into space. The night seemed to breathe with a soft lovely rhythm, the fragrance of the dark purple lilies just barely touching the moist cool air. He couldn't even remember what he was doing before.

After what seemed like twenty minutes of Lemon incessantly poking his beak into his knee, it hopped on top of his ankles… and carried on.

"You are some strange little bird," Fenris said.

The parrot bit his toe.

"Fenhedis!" he said.

"Fasta vass!" Lemon added as if he sneezed it.

Fenris scowled. "Vishante kaffas!" he retorted.

"Suge pula!" the parrot said and ballooned up. (Suck my dick)

"Valla orbo," he retorted. (Original meaning lost, but roughly translates to: I will blind you with my spunk).

"Ma da'felasil!" Elvis shouted in Elven and raised his wings. "[wha-wha-wha-whee] Suck it." (You little moron)

"An ma dirtha?" he said curtly. (What did you say?)

Elvis flapped his wings. "Mar lanalin [pew-pew-pew] alasnatha," the parrot said. (Your mother is a lizard)

Fenris sat up angrily.

"Go fuck yourself."

Crowley gave a husky laugh. "Oh, come on, humour me," he said in an amicable tone.

She didn't seem to be very generous with humour. "Crowley, I won't—"

"You do not want to, but maybe he doez?" he interrupted.

"I—". She went back to studying the ground, presumably to calm herself. She put a knee over the other, and placed her hand on top. "Even if he does, this is not the right time for it."

"Well, you should have thought of that before you used his mind as a gate. We're just as much in your head as we are in hiz, Mistress. Surely you know this."

"It doesn't work like that, Crowley."

"No?" he said. "Then why do I catch glimpses of his thoughts? Why do I seem to feel what he feels? I shouldn't be able to do that if he was a mere tag-along, should I? After all, I am but a humble captive."

She broke her composed lady-like posture.

"YOU keep your mouth shut about that!"

"Ahahahah, so you admit dat you were wrong?"

"Sure."

"Mhm," Crowley said with suspicion. "I know Mistress is no imbecile. I teenk she was much aware of the possibility, and took her chances because somewhere deep down Mistress teenks she is able to help him."

Soon enough, he heard the sound of the Assara-khaletan heralding the end of the day, and one by one, the winged people left the sky to its clouds.

A strange feeling of amusement came over him as he lay down. As a child, he had always thought they were real wings, like they were cut out from a giant bird and stitched into their backs.

… And then his heart froze. He felt like he was falling, with pins and needles all around his head.

He rose to his feet, a little too quickly. He swayed back and held onto his head.

As a child? How did he know these things?

And why did he feel no fear looking at them?

Was I … on their side?

He felt all of it melt its way out of his brain. Away from his brain. Where are the parrots? No. Where is the strangling tree? Where is the rainforest?

REMEMBER, DAMN IT.

His blood raced with a realization. The wisp. Follow the wisp.

She didn't reply. Crowley studied her for a moment. She saw this and moved her head so she wouldn't look at him.

"I see," he said, studying her. "He should only be made aware, but he should be dee one to choose." He gave a nod. "I understand."

"I didn't even thi—"

"He wants to be him," said a voice.

Everyone stopped their chatter and looked at Bucky. He was caught in a trance.

"What…" She threw a rock at him.

Bucky didn't answer. She kicked his cage. "Wake up! Who wants to be who?" But he was merely swaying in the bizarre trance.

Crowley and Hawke exchanged looks.

"Like hell am I letting you out for this."

"Aww, come on! Have I not proven my loyalty en— And she's gone. Great. That's great."

In the now general silence, Crowley looked at Bucky. His eyes seemed rolled up inside his head. "So… I suppose we should keep an eye on Prophet Bukovac over there."

"Or… we play Wicked Dread until she's back," Murmur offered.

"Now that sounds more like something we would do."

The demons gathered their mental projections round in a circle. Amid the bickering and banter, Bucky's faint trance-riddled voice wasn't heard:

"Maker forgive me, why did I let him die?"