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Brood of a New Age

68.

Brooklyn and Goliath had wanted to do a round of sparring before dinner. But in the training hall they met Katana and Nashville.

Nashville was doing a round of push-ups. A round? He looked like he was about to collapse. Sweat dripped from his wings and beak, and his breathless panting was interrupted only by the numbers he uttered through clenched teeth each time he rose.

"Two hundred and twelve...two hundred...anthirteen... Twohundredand four...teen..."

Smiling softly, Katana stood beside him with her arms crossed, looking up as the two males approached.

"What's this about?" asked Brooklyn, looking down at his son, who briefly sought his gaze...and then immediately looked away and continued with the push-ups after his mother kindly reminded him that if he miscounted he would have to start over.

"The hatchling sneaked out of the castle behind our backs," his mate said in a serious tone. For a few moments Brooklyn could say nothing. If it hadn't been for Nashville's unchanging strained counting, you could have heard a dropped pin hit the floor in the hall. The Second in Command had a dozen thoughts and a dozen possible responses racing through his head, all more or less commensurate with the seriousness of the situation. At the same time, he sensed that any angry, accusatory, punitive response would likely have led to a confrontation that would have ensured that Nashville became even more distant from Brooklyn and the rest of the clan. He struggled for composure even as a dark swirl of fear and anger whirled inside him. That was probably why his mate and son had missed dinner last night, with Katana contacting over the castle's internal intercom that they were welcome to dine without them. They weren't even petrified on the battlements. That sort of thing happened sometimes. Someone forgot the time while reading. Or while watching television. Or while chatting via computer. Or in Grace's case, while praying. It happened even to him when he was lost in his musings again. He looked down at his son on the ground, who was no longer making eye contact, and not just because of his push-ups, took a deep breath and spoke over the counting.

"You're punishing him?"

Katana smiled.

"Steeling the body goes hand in hand with steeling the mind and character. But to a gajin's eyes it might look like punishment," she said a little precociously but with that twinkle in her eyes that Brooklyn knew as well as the tip of his own beak and that assured him that this burden had been lifted from him.

He twisted one corner of his mouth into a beaked off-point grin and saw Goliath smirking beside him as well.

"What's the rest of the program?" asked Brooklyn - just out of interest.

"I thought we'd stop at five hundred and switch to bokken training after that. And tomorrow night before breakfast, one thousand rounds around the castle, since he feels so much like gliding. That's as far as I've thought but I can think of more. Nashville's week is going to be very long and meditative."

"Then we won't bother you any further," Goliath said, squeezing Katana's shoulder in encouragement.

Brooklyn kissed his wise warrior and turned away again. He didn't want to be angry and basically he wasn't because he knew that Nashville would be thoroughly punished/trained by her for his transgression and for putting himself in danger. Still, a quiet voice in the back of his mind nagged that his son was too accepting of the program that had been imposed on him. Besides, Goliath (who was still clan leader and would hopefully remain so for a long time to come) had shown remarkably little temper towards the fact that the most vulnerable clan member had put himself in danger. As if there was more to the matter than a trip to town behind the clan's back. Something he would not be able to fathom without causing further tension. So he left it at that for now and left the training hall with Goliath to take up their own hand-to-hand combat practice on the battlements.

.


Not twenty minutes later, the two males were at their own training sessions. Even Angela, Hudson and Lexington had joined them to watch. Brooklyn- though now older than Goliath actually had more combat experience than his clan leader. Where he had shown signs of becoming a good strategist in his youth, before his Timedancer adventures, and was imaginative, fast and agile, Goliath still surpassed him in strength and was more skilled in sheer one-on-one combat. Thus they were very different but equal opponents. They both didn't give one hundred percent because they respected each other too much - but they didn't really go easy on each other either. Brooklyn always ended up with as many bruises and aches as Goliath. For both of them it was good to be able to let off some steam and switch off their thoughts for a few minutes.

Until Owen came to the battlements and looked around. The two males paused and all the Gargoyles eyed Xanatos majordomo.

"Is there a problem?" asked Goliath.

"Not at all. I'm just looking for Mister De Santis."

"He was in the kitchen with Broadway cleaning up," commented Lexington, sitting cross-legged on a patch of grass. "But Grace is in Central Park with Coldstone and Coldfire with the beasts. Before sunrise, he'll be expecting her here."

"As usual," Hudson muttered with a sidelong glance at Lexington, who pretended the stare wouldn't tell him he was about to lose the race for the beautiful female by a landslide to a human.

"I see," Owen said, glancing at his watch. Soon his employer would request his services, and he probably dismissed the idea of interacting with the human detective himself before that. "I'll just take the piece of jewelry he recently picked out with Detective Maza to his room."

"Jewelry?" asked Angela with interest where Goliath's face lost all expression.

Owen's equally unmoved face was indistinct and disinterested at the same time.

"I was at that store yesterday afternoon anyway on behalf of Mrs. Xanatos and took the liberty of picking up the piece, since I saw the pick-up slip lying in Mister De Santis' room. Since he sleeps during the day, I thought he would appreciate it."

"May I see it?" asked Angela - the only one not yet with a questioning or petrified expression on her face.

"With all due respect- I think that's between the two detectives." Owen said, his bland gaze darting briefly over Goliath, then he turned with a soldier's stiff posture and marched off with the small bag bearing the Tiffany logo. He didn't seem to notice that the small pick-up slip dropped out of his hand. Lexington jumped up and plucked the small piece of paper out of the air before it could be carried away by the wind. He lost his innocent smile as his huge eyes scanned the piece of paper. Angela bent down and her now finally startled gaze went to Goliath who, like Brooklyn, had approached. But Hudson was the next to grab the note and hold it up to his healthy eye. "Engaga - engagement ring," he read, still a little uncertainly. Then without faltering and with a big question mark on his forehead. "Engagement ring with engraving? What by the bowels of Cawdor, what does that mean?"

All four gargoyles looked at their leader, blood dripping from his hands because he was digging his own claws into his palms. A barely perceptible rumble from the depths of his throat made his subordinate clansmen back away.

"Goliath-", Brooklyn began insistently and wanted to touch him, but by then Goliath was already turning and heading through the courtyard. And his walking turned into rushing. His wings snapped open and made him look twice as big as he really was. Everything came back to Goliath in those seconds, which stretched into infinity through his tunnel vision. His doubts when he had first noticed his feelings for Elisa. Feelings and subsequent doubts for months. His urge to be decent towards her and not to reveal to her through gestures of affection how he really felt, in order not to chain her to himself and not to endanger their friendship. His deep emotional wound when, unnoticed by her, he had seen her and Jason Canmore kissing and the awareness of how right, how perfect they looked together. His knowledge that a part of Elisa could never be fully his Elisa because she was human and he was not. The shame that he would not be able to give her a normal safe life, a house with a garden fence, no children, which so far could not be erased even by her assurances that she loved him and did not need all this. As these feelings flooded over him, leaving gray brackish water of anger. Not at Elisa because he would never blame her if she longed for what he would never be able to give her. But at LUCA DE SANTIS.

And this very man was just coming through the door through which he had just wanted to rush. This human being, whom he had wanted to take into the ranks of his clan with his wards! Gargoyle wards, who were certainly killers and represented a diffuse danger, just as he probably had dirt on him and now turned out to be a very real danger - to his relationship.

De Santis backed away when he saw the four hundred pound plus colossus rushing towards him, but by no means did Goliath want to get past him. Not wounded and disillusioned as he had been with Canmore, but furious with rage, Goliath grabbed the human by the front of his T-shirt and, roaring, threw him in a high arc across the castle courtyard. And he would have come up head first and broken his skull along with his neck if Hudson and Brooklyn hadn't caught him. Goliath whirled around and charged again at De Santis. Brooklyn and Hudson wanted to carry the unwieldy detective away from Goliath, to jump off the battlements with him if necessary, but their leader - despite his size, despite his bulk - was faster. He grabbed De Santis by the neck and lifted the croaking, kicking human. Brooklyn, Lexington, even Angela suddenly clung to him, even Hudson tried to loosen the grip of his paw around the human's neck. All shouted appeasements and assurances that the obvious could not be true, but their voices were only background hum that was no match for his roar.

"How dare you, human! How dare you lie to all of us AND steal my Elisa! I will never accept a fraud and criminal like you as her partner! You fake, pathetic snake!"

The human's eyes rolled back in their sockets. One twitch of his mighty fingers and his neck would snap like a twig, Goliath knew. Suddenly Elisa's shouting peeled out of the thunder storm of his emotions. No - her screaming. She screamed his name. But not in fear. Not a cry for him to save her.

"Goliath! STOP! Let him go! You're killing him!"

He was growling. This wasn't real. He had to stop this human. Before he stole his Elisa. His mate. His angel ... of light. He had once lost an angel to the eternal darkness. He would not leave Elisa to the darkness and corruption by this false human. He had suspected that an verbal commitment ceremony wouldn't be enough. Not for a human partner. How could he have expected Elisa to realize that this was as binding for gargoyles as a human marriage including a marriage contract? He had been too sure of her.

"Elisa, do something!" shouted Brooklyn, whom he felt as a red shadow slamming down on his wrist to loosen his grip. He would reprimand his Second later for trying to prevent him from saving Elisa.

"Lass, if he kills him he will never forgive himself!" shouted Hudson from far away. He understood the words but the meaning of the whole sentence did not dawn on him. He would put the puzzle together when he man lay dead at his feet.

Suddenly something pushed in front of the white veil of his burning rage and robbed him of his view of the dying Imposter. Soft warm lips pressed on his and all at once he was clouded by Elisa's scent. The scent of a cornfield just before harvest, soaked with the sun of the day and pure life.

His hand opened as his Elisa pressed her forehead against his brow bone. He did not hear the body fall to the ground but wrapped his arms around his mate and caressed her face, pressing his nose into her hair, licking over her lips that were and would always be his. He breathed her essence deep inside him, he, a drowning man who finally got his breath back.

"Elisa," he crooned blissfully.

The woman of his second life detached herself from him and the worried, unhappy look on her face made him let her go. And now he heard the other jumbled voices again, and heard the air-gasping sound of a man truly deprived of breath. He looked down at Luca De Santis, who lay chalk-white on the ground, surrounded by his clansmen. Crystal clear and just as sharp, Goliath realized what he had just done.

"Goliath. What was that all about?" asked Elisa, sliding down him. The mighty gargoyle, who had almost killed out of unfounded hatred (a liar, to be sure, a competitor in the courtship of Elisa, but an unarmed human nonetheless), ran his hands through his mane erratically as if trying to coax out reasonable-sounding arguments. But all that came out was illogical babble.

"I, I was so upset and ... The pick-up slip. And both of you."

"What both of us? Luca and me?"

"Yes! Both of you - together - Tiffany`s. And the ring."

"Oh damn," Elisa groaned, looking back and forth between the other gargoyles crouching and standing next to Luca, forming a barrier against Goliath and the human, eyeing their leader but also her warily. Then an embarrassed inhibited laugh escaped from her cherry mouth.

"Oh, no. Oh, Goliath. My heroic, stupid big guy." She grinned and began to explain herself, giving each confused looking gargoyle her most charming smile one by one to assure them that she had no intention of hooking up with the Italian. This situation had been so dramatic and threatening - but she had to giggle about it. Which was probably a sign of incipient madness and jadedness that just crept in when you spent your free time with gargoyles, fey of all kinds, time travel, magical missions, and so on.

"Luca and I, we went to Tiffany's. But I was only there for ... psychological support. The ring he had made wasn't for me."

"Then who was it for, Lass?" asked Hudson suspiciously. He knew Goliath and Elisa were following a previously rarely successful, burdensome path. But it was not his place to tamper in adult relationships, and especially not in that of his clan leader. Suddenly Lexington started laughing, too. And then Angela. Heck, even Brooklyn opened his beak and let his sonorous rare laugh resound through the castle courtyard.

"Grace!" exclaimed Lexington, and Angela was by now as flushed with the thought of young love (like hers to Broadway) as Luca de Santis was pale.

"Oh, come on! Grace?" repeated Hudson, and his gaze, as wide as Goliath's, which had embarrassment for his outburst written all over its face, looked down at the man. Another one of those! he thought. Why did they even have a rookery in the first place?

"You, of all Gargoyles, shouldn't laugh at that, Laddie," he grumbled, and Lex patted his hand in consolation.

"I'm happy for any couple, regardless of gender or race," Lexington said with a laugh, grinning broadly as he watched Brooklyn help Luca to his feet and pat him on the back.

"That's wonderful, Luca! We're glad. You're so well matched," the Second said, and Brooklyn actually meant it. Since it had become clear that Dante and Grace saw each other only as siblings, he had never speculated on a new egg for the clan anyway, as Hudson had done, who was now turning away with a grumpy face. The human was still so carried away that in response to Brooklyn's praise he nodded and laboriously croaked soft words. "'Don't ... say anything ... to Grace. I ... I'm not ready yet."

"We would never tell her anything. Our lips are sealed," Angela and Lex promised, as did Elisa and Brooklyn, even Hudson confirmed.

Luca's rasping doubled Goliath's guilt.

"Luca. Mister de Santis. I deeply regret this. I lost myself for a moment. "

He motioned to the Italian, but the latter backed away from him. Goliath lowered his hands in disheartenment.

Again and again, incidents happened with the Italians that cast a bad light on his clan and especially on him as clan leader. It was one thing to break a few ribs in an attempt to save a fellow being's life (which one had endangered oneself). But to almost strangle a human being out of rage! He had done a terrible sin. Because he hadn't had his temper under control again. He had thought he was beyond that. He had remained focused and calm throughout the entire period of his arrest, imprisonment and trial. But when it came to his Elisa, that was something else entirely.

"I'm so sorry. It will never happen again," he said dejectedly, knowing his words sounded ridiculous considering what he had done. The Italian detective nodded wordlessly at his apology, his hand all the while at his throat, on whose skin dark strangulation marks from Goliath's fingers were already showing.

Lexington handed him the pick-up slip lost by Owen and Luca grabbed it. His hand trembled with shock, his gaze on the paper first irritated, then confused. He probably wondered how the gargoyles had come into its possession. Probably he assumed they had purloined it.

"Owen picked up the ring and brought it to your room." Brooklyn explained diplomatically as if he had just thought exactly the same thing as Goliath. The human nodded and looked over the battlements with anxious awareness.

"Soon ... the sun will rise. I can't face Eva like this. Tell her... tell her I'm sick. I'm going to my room."

"We must tell her about the incident," Goliath insisted. He would not sweep his sins under the rug but the Italian whirled around and looked at him with sternness even though Goliath had just strangled him almost to death.

"No!" Luca said firmly and even this one louder word made him contort his face in pain. More quietly he continued.

"Grace will try to confront you for this. And it wouldn't stop at talking. Too much has already happened for that. I don't want a conflict. Any violence will make Grace feel guilty later."

"You don't have to worry about me making Grace-."

"It's not YOU I'm worried about," Luca hissed. "Respect my handling of this ... accident," he croaked the word as if the letters were cast from poison.

"I-I'm going to ... go to my room." With stiff back, as dignified as his condition and stature allowed, he pushed past the gargoyles. Lexington followed him bouncing on all fours, trying to smooth waves.

"I'll accompany you to your room. Luca. And before sunrise, someone will bring you some ice for your throat," they could still hear Lex saying, who could be caring sometimes even towards hurt humans (even more so now that he knew Hudson would stop trying to set him up with the red female).

"Oh, jalapeƱo," Goliath murmured, rubbing his brow arch with his fingers as if to comfort himself.

Elisa took a deep breath after Luca was gone. Then she turned to her knight of the night, who looked as dejected as a child who had knocked over mother's vase.

"Why did you choke him, Goliath? Because of the ring?"

"Yes- I was... "Goliath shook his head in dismay. Everyone looked at him, expecting an explanation for his outburst. He was not one who couldn't admit to his family, for the life of him, when he had made a mistake. He often had trouble accepting new developments and making his peace with them. But when he was ready, it did not shame him to admit his wrongdoings. A clan leader didn't have to be perfect (also something Brooklyn had to learn despite his age). A clan leader was allowed to make mistakes, draw wrong conclusions and acknowledge them, just as he had to allow his clan members to make mistakes and get over them. That was clan, that was family. And so he had no reason not to admit the following. "I was furious with jealousy. The thought ... that you might choose him."

Brooklyn shook his head with a smile and put a hand on his arm encouragingly. "Not even humans buy engagement rings when they've only known each other for two weeks. Not the normal ones, at least."

"Aye, even I know that," muttered Hudson with a grin, who was the very last to realize that the ring couldn't have been for Elisa. He only didn't realize it because a part of him didn't want to realize it.

"I don't know what came over me," Goliath admitted.

The corner of his mouth lifted an inch as Angela sighed and brushed her knuckles across his brow - wonderfully role reversed - like the understanding, loving person she had been raised to be on Avalon.

"Oh, father, only people who don't know love wouldn't understand."

But it was hardest to face his beloved when Elisa now took his hand. Her fingers in his looked too tiny and fragile.

"You were unsure of my love?"

"No! I ... don't know what I was thinking. It just hurt, and I ... feared losing you. But ... you looked so right together." Her gaze dropped to her hands, which were in his. She saw what he meant. But her words as she looked up, smiling, nearly knocked him over where much stronger enemies had not.

"Strange. I was thinking the exact same thing about you and Grace," she admitted.

Goliath stared at her uncomprehendingly before finding hoarse words. "About me and-."

"She's beautiful. And passionate. And strong. And a gargoyle," Elisa said, and her words hurt. Because with them she admitted thinking she wasn't enough in any of those regards."

"How could I want her? She's not you!" Goliath exclaimed, visibly repulsed. When Elisa, accompanied by the background music of sighs and soft laughter from the others, opened her gorgeous mouth with its pearly white teeth and her laughter rang out over everything and everyone, childishly joyful yet seductively teasing, Goliath grew warm all around. No, even hot. Especially between his wings. In order to push back this feeling and not let Elisa Maza's laughter alone - the only and eternal wife of his second life - turn him into a purple puddle of love and humility, he also began to laugh hesitantly. His beloved fell into his arms and he caught her - his huge paws now no perversion to her physique but perfect for purposes like this. He lifted her to his mouth and their kiss managed to extinguish previously nagging insecurities and feelings of inferiority on both sides. As so often ravished by Elisa's brisk taking possession of his heart and mouth, the most powerful gargoyle in North America forgot to breathe and only having to gasp for air interrupted their kiss. Elisa laughed at that - feather-light continuing to cling to his neck, his arms wrapped under her thighs to support her.

"My big guy, you could have broken his neck," she said then, smiling furthermore.

"Yes," he confessed. Why deny it? It was a fact.

"For me."

"Yes."

"That's terrible. Your love for me can be frightening." She tugged at his earlobe but her tone was anything but reproving, her gaze full of love.

"My Elisa," he gasped.

"My Big Guy. We were both pretty stupid, weren't we?" she asked teasingly and he nodded.

"Foolish. We were foolish. We should reflect on that."

"We need to talk more. Say what we want and how we feel," she whispered.

"I want something," Goliath said softly. Elisa's gaze into his eyes didn't dart for a moment to the others at her back, who perhaps had the decency not to follow their display of mutual expressions of affection too closely. Or they were following it spellbound- who cared? Should they.

"Tell me what you want, Goliath."

"I want to miss the sunrise," he muttered.

Elisa grinned. "Coincidence. So do I."

He swung her into another position so that she was in his arms, opened his wings and, without a word of farewell, jumped over the battlements to glide to the room he had taken possession of weeks ago, after much hesitation and insistence from Xanatos, even if there wasn't much in it except for a bed in which Elisa sometimes slept for a few hours when she couldn't make it back to her apartment because of exhaustion. It was obvious that both of them would not talk much to each other for the last hour of the night but would put their energy into completely different expressions of faith.

The remaining three gargoyles walked away, smirking and silent, happy for their clan leader couple. Only Angela raised a claw to her chin thoughtfully at one point.

"What is it, Las?" inquired Hudson.

"Did Luca call Grace Eva earlier?" she asked, confused.

.


.

"That was really platitudinous with Owen," Fox gave her statement after her husband turned off the television in their bedroom, from which every surveillance camera in the building could be accessed.

"Owen is flat as a person, after all. Too much subtlety would just look like me."

Her husband gave her his one billion dollar trademark smirk and let her hand him a section of the Times that was still warm from printing. That was how he liked to spend his first hour. In bed with the most beautiful woman in America, leaning against the soft headboards, reading his first newspaper articles, and spying on his housemates as they dealt with dramas he had partly (or entirely) orchestrated himself - but all for their own good. Both billionaires had wanted to push the happiness of their favorite interracial couple in the castle for weeks, and the fact that the opportunity had now presented itself to do so while simultaneously driving a new wedge between the Italians and their own gargoyles was all the better.

"Summer is almost over, I had speculated on an official commitment ceremony or wedding in the summer and it's almost over now," Fox murmured thoughtfully.

"You'll still steal the bride's thunder in an autumn dress, dearest. That's why you so rarely get invited to weddings," David joked (though that was probably part of the truth of why Fox had so few female friends).

"And our other worksite?" asked Fox without looking up from the newspaper section with the international news, bringing the topic to a more serious level.

Xanatos glanced at the stack of documents Owen had organized for him yesterday. Immigration documents with temporary residence status, registration documents, even old school reports from Italy. And on top of the pile, the credit card that his clean team had confiscated from the cab driver. He dropped his piece of newspaper on his lap, picked up the card for the tenth time since it was in his possession and looked at it. But the name on it didn't change. It was a different name from the one on the certificates or even on the registration papers. The card of the girl Nashville had gone through that terror with yesterday.

He felt Fox lovingly stroke through his hair and welcomed the touch.

"So ... if it weren't for the beak ... you'd think Nashville took after you, darling."

"Because of his falling out with his father?" asked David innocently though he knew what she was insinuating.

"Falling in love with the bad girl from the wrong family - sound familiar?"

He lifted up the documents his research team had gotten him.

"She's eight - how bad can she be now?"

Fox grinned and said a little sarcastically. "Are you trying to convince yourself or me? She made sure he landed in the middle of Times Square. The Times even gets upset on the second day about the city's lax use of chemicals, which cause people's fears to express themselves as gargoyle hallucinations."

"But nothing about a real gargoyle being on the scene. Then our game of intrigue is working after all. I just wonder ... if we can keep this going."

"Oh, David. You must be fond of Nashville if you're in danger of sounding like Petros."

"Brrr - a horror. We don't talk about our fathers. Or mothers, I thought." He kissed her hand and she tickled his goatee.

"I really wish I could be more than the man who eavesdrops with cameras and listening devices," he admitted in a rare burst of honesty. That was their deal. Honesty - at times vulnerability - but only among themselves, only when they felt absolutely safe. No pathetic vows of love, no public exposure of how much they really meant to each other. Showing weakness to the other - and not only tolerating but appreciating small snippets of weakness in each other - that was their form of absolute love, infinitely rarer and therefore more valuable than diamonds or gold.

"You and I won't be there for a long time," Fox admitted, then continued more lightly. "Besides, you're fantastic as a behind-the-scenes man who creates trouble or gets it out of the way. A puppeteer who now pulls strings sometimes for a good cause. The trust of the clan comes naturally over the years. With the cameras, at least with what's going on in the generally accessible castle areas, we have comprehensive, entertaining insight."

"Yes, it's better than any soap," David confirmed, tossing the card back on his nightstand. He would have Owen shred it. The Dracons should just have a new one made for their mafia princess. He and Fox would keep a close eye on how that turned out, and whether they would have to rescue the hatchling they both understood by now to be their unofficial nephew again, or whether they would leave that to the main non-human family.

"Then we wait for the things to come," said the billionaire and opened the stock exchange section of the newspaper with a sigh.


I still had to finish the affair with the ring. And at the same time I used it to highlight Goliath and Elisa a bit.

As you said Allegratree - Elisa is either perfect or horny in the fanfictions. Horny- yes, I can go along with that because I want every character in my stories to be able to express their desires and sexuality at some point- that's why it's fiction. But for me, Elisa isn't perfect-no one is (although Sonny is threatening to become a Mary Sue - there I have to watch out). I gain satisfaction from psychologically illuminating pretty much every character eventually (depending on what stage of development they're at). And especially underneath supposed strength and perfection lurk insecurities, minor and major traumas, and nagging doubts about whatever subject matter. Elisa and Goliath are no exception at this early stage of their relationship. Okay - I had to strangle Luca a little for that - but at least the two are now sure of their mutual feelings even in the face of competitors. That was a small price to pay after all. (devilish grin)

Thanks for reading, Q.T.