Viator looked up from the line he was knotting, into the colorful swirls of the festival. Set as he was on the stoop of some currently unused kint, he had a great view of all the various interactions; there, a Crow and a Water were bartering over the price of a skirt so bawdy that even their whice's had to look away; yonder, a Tree and a Stone were debating the various pros and cons of Chrove's Erse versus Gingcott. Children of all tribes played, scuffles breaking out before re-converging into a happy cohesive whole.

Ent nothing like wicks, in all th'world. He smiled, making a, eight knot in the thin rope, then a bowline ha'curve. Never hurt making sure to keep the memory sharp. Twining the bit around his knuckles, he waited for Wendy to arrive. She always found him, in the crowds, no matter where he was hiding. She liked to come over and talk, be it about the old days or just chastisements. Lass's gotta tongue on her sharper n'most o my blades. He didn't mind it, but it was odd, people looking for him. He normally could fade away without notice; here, he was lucky to find a moment alone.

Stretching in the warm sun, he tossed his shaggy hair and enjoyed the feeling of the heat through his long sleeves and breeches. Loosening up, he grinned and unbuttoned his collar, revealing a smooth, pale neck. She'll be here any minute now. He had a feeling in his gut.

"I need to talk to you," came a voice from his left. It belonged to exactly who he expected. The short, blue haired passive whose hair had begun to grow out a little at the back looked a little more solemn than usual. Although she had come to talk to him, now she wasn't sure if she wanted to. After all, it was better to go on pretending than to lose him-- No not him, it's her. Alioe damn her, she can pretend but I can't.

Wendy's face was quite serious, as it always was whenever her thoughts wandered to Brunhold, Pascual, and what was ahead of her. She rarely talked of it to Via not for fear of what he should say-- but because she felt she didn't know him. And she was tired of not telling her the things that were on her mind. She used to trust Adalare...even if she'd disliked her at the beginning, she had still trusted her. And especially after she'd found out about what was going on, she felt as if she'd formed a bond...

But while she still felt the bond with Adalare, this new person she'd become felt strange to her eyes, and to her thoughts. So she snapped, and joked, and talked as if everything was normal, but Wendy felt herself ready to bolt at any moment. To snap and just tell him to leave. She didn't trust him. And it frightened her.

Although she trusted Petra, she still feared her. It was the same with everyone else she knew. Adalare had been one of the only people who she'd never felt afraid of-- or, not too afraid of, anyway. Wendy had never fully been able to trust since childhood.

"About important things." She said shortly, folding her arms and refusing to look at Viator. "Can we go somewhere? Do you know anyplace we can talk that's-- not my kint? It's a little unsteady."

Indigo eyes flicking to the girl, and with a sigh he straightened, rolling shoulders and stretching his neck. With an audible pop, his spine corrected itself and he grinned up at the wanna-be witch. Her eyes boded ill, and his unsinkable smile shrunk a bit.

Uh oh. Choppy seas ahead, lad.


He stood, and after glancing at the crowd once more, he shrugged sympathetically. "Oi, there's a few corners tucked in an' about the place. I'm sure we can find un that'll suit." Stalking forward, he began to lope along, ducking through people and groups, knowing exactly where he was going.

There was a bit of an empty scruffy field behind a few kints, where a small hill would dissuade all but children from clamoring over. Waving Wendy on, he climbed it with dexterity and jumped the small ledge on the other side. He paused there, offering her a hand.

Wendy followed, absorbed in her own thoughts until he offered his hand to help her up. She looked at him sardonically and lifted herself up without his help, giving him a look that said Pshh, really? That was stupid. When she was up she sat down and nodded at him to sit next to her.

For a moment she was quiet and her hand picked at the grass without noticing the motion. Finally she sighed, letting go of the handful of grass that she had accumulated and dusting her hands off. "I don't trust you." She finally said, and it hurt her to get it out in the open. It made her that much more vulnerable, because she was being more honest.

Wendy took a deep breath, "I don't trust 'Viator'," she said with practically tangible air quotes, "And I'm trying. I'm trying but I can't. I can't trust you."

It hurt again. Because she knew it was true.

It was like a bullet to the chest; he could see the gun, but it was still a shock when the pain actually bloomed. He had been half settled when the words struck him, and after a long moment of just looking at her, he turned his face away. What can you say to that? Scratching the back of his neck helplessly, Viator swallowed the obvious question.

Ye know why. Yer not who she knew. It's just... hard to accept that. Almost ten years of perfect freedom were coming crashing down around his ears; Wendy brought back memories he'd thought properly killed. They rose from their graves of her, that girl who he didn't claim, yet claimed him.


Rubbing his permanently smooth chin in thought, he fought the desperate sadness that overwhelmed him. I'm still me, he wanted to say, but it wasn't the truth. He hadn't been the 'me' she knew for so long, and even now, he didn't want her. She was a beacon of things better forgotten, things overwhelmingly bad.

Letting a heavy breath woosh out, he scratched the crown of his head, forming words in ways he could barely remember. This is no time for... for nautical talk.

"Wendy... I'm sorry." There were other words which could have been said, but that was all he needed to start with. Staring at one calloused, abused hand, he fished out his last remaining tie with that girl, the girl who died in the winter snow. The violet pendant felt cool in his hand, and though he didn't look to it, he could see the design in his minds eye; the owl and quill, sun and moon of the Levent crest, etched into beautiful violet resin.

Gnawing his lip, he tapped his nose in concentration. "Try to see it my way, Wendy. I went through-- and he did--" Growling, he shoved the bauble back in his pocket. "Suffice t'say I ent about t'go back an' be that'n anymore." His face was a sunken mask of apathetic anger. Standing, he looked about ready to leave. "Ye can trust me, that's all ye need. I still care about ye, remember." Avoidance was the safest shield.

Not as sorry as I am.



Wendy saw him put something in his pocket but she wasn't really looking. She was listening to what Viator had said, and his words chilled her to the bone. Suffice to say, he isn't about to go back and be that one anymore. She repeated in her mind, trying to make it clear. The truth that it seemed to bring up threatened to engulf her. For the first time it hit her why she had felt fearful of Viator, awkward and uncomfortable. This was no disguise...this was an entirely different person.



Wendy wanted to let him leave, but suddenly she was angry. As always, her anger came without warning and her eyes snapped up angrily. The scene she was playing felt strikingly familiar as she lashed out at Viator, "I don't see how I can trust you at all. You're not Adalare, you're a coward."

The words came unbidden to her lips and her eyes stung as a wash of pink rushed to her cheeks. "Adalare, please. What are you playing at?! A man?! You aren't! You aren't even!" Again the urge to shake Viator overtook her but Wendy restrained herself, folding her arms and backing a step away.

"I want to. I want to so badly, Adalare." Wendy said tightly, her face rigid as she spoke, "You know I've never been able to trust easy. How could you even begin to think I could trust this-- this--" she waved her hand up and down at her boyish disguise, "This other person. I don't work like that."

Why won't you talk to me?

The small passive looked at the ground bitterly, "Besides, it's not as if you trust me. I don't see why I should return the favor."

He paused. He could take being a coward. It wasn't the first time he'd been called one. Yet the implication that she, she with all her weaknesses and brokenness, was somehow strong than him, was shatteringly untrue. Or too true. They were the same, in the end.

How can you possibly understand, Wendy? Did you ever get dragged down so far that every touch was a gift even it if was wrong, even if it hurt worse than the loneliness? He had so many words, so many thoughts about why she had been led so willingly to the slaughter, why she came back each time begging for it.

It made him want to hit something.


He kept his face away from her. He knew she would see something familiar, bleakly familiar in his eyes; vacancy. She was there, almost, the rage of a little girl almost calling her forward. It was unbidden. Neither wanted to give up the balance of power. She was dead and quiet and he lived. Now Wendy was calling back memories, of when the man hadn't yet been born.

"Oi, not a man. You say that. But I ent a woman, either, can never be one. He made damn sure of that." He touched smooth jaw, soft neck, the curve uninterrupted to the collarbone. In those lines were the truth of Wendy's claim, but in the soul was where Viator knew, knew that he could never be like her.


Looking at her, finally, he didn't care that the lines of his face were drawn in a mix of rage and depression, that his eyes were whirlpools of anguish. In every angle was the proof of abuse, brokenness healed as best as it could. "Stop calling me that. She's dead. She died. He killed her. And it's better that way." Tossing his sun-goldened hair from his cheeks, his hands became fists.

If you understood... you wouldn't be asking.


Anger glinting in his eyes, he grabbed Wendy by the arms, pulling her closer, til she was forced to either look into his eyes or at the ground.

"Fuck it, Wendy, what do you want to hear?" He shook her a little, tears coming into his eyes. "You want to know how he-- he-- took me? You already know that. You saw. Or do you want to know how I've been sailing and flying to escape from him? That I wake in the night, crying his name, sometimes in fear but oh goddess sometimes not?"

He released her, bringing his hands to his temples as he tried to control the torrent. "Is that what you want? You want to see her again? Well Dammit, she ent gonna talk. She doesn't talk, cause he broke her. She's better off dead that suffering through each fucking memory." Tossing his head, he climbed over the ridge again, pausing at the crest to look at Wendy with blank eyes. Call me back and I'll listen.

What she saw in his eyes was terrible but what she heard him say was worse. Wendy felt frozen, and she could almost feel tears beginning to jump to the edges of her eyes but she swallowed and forced them back.



Wendy let out a small gasp and then glared into his eyes, ignoring the fearful palpitations of her heart. Oh Alioe what has he done to you, my sweet Adalare?



It wasn't his words that made the younger passive cry, but his tears. Although she still stared bravely up into his eyes wetness dripped down her cheeks. She didn't dare move. She felt her heart begin to encase itself in a little rock, to shut out what Adalare was saying. And hadn't she felt that same thing? Right after Adalare had left-- hadn't she gotten a taste...just a taste of what she'd been through?

And it was one of the most frightening things I've ever been through. It stopped me from being with Him, once. And she went through more of it than I.

But these thoughts were just in passing, Wendy was more concentrated on Adalare's face.



Wendy let out a small whimper as he left, immobile as she watched him leave, her hands still raised up as if he was holding them in place. But she couldn't. She could never leave well enough alone.

"Viator! Viator please! She's not dead!" Wendy called out desperately, her voice cracking in the process, "Please! I don't-- I don't know what to do, I don't know what--" Her lips trembled and she let in breath of air, covering her face. "She's not dead. I have to believe that." she murmured, unsure if she wanted Viator to hear, or if she was only talking to reassure herself.

"I wish..." she trailed off, and fresh tears leaked out of her eyes. But these were angry. "I wish I had killed him when I had a chance. I wish I had killed him like--"

Like I killed Bronely. But she couldn't say it to this stranger. She wanted to say it to Adalare. Wendy wiped at her tears hastily, "She's alive." she repeated more firmly than before, sniffing.

He jumped back over the ridge, looking at her, face empty of all emotion. Indigo eyes stared at her without a hint of internal struggle.


Without a word, he walked back over to Wendy, and seamlessly enveloped her in a hug. Contact with her wasn't as scary as it was with others. Perhaps because she'd always touched her, always been good at respecting boundaries as a girl. She was still the same as a woman.


"Aye... she does live. Though if'n either o'us could help it she wouldn't." He murmured into Wendy's strange hair, holding her close, feeling her chest rising and falling against his own. It was strage, a woman's form; was it really his too?

After swallowing back the envy he felt for her, he released his hold on her. She was like small bird, so colorful and light and easily broken. He was once a bird, too. He... she used to fly with whim and fancy and felt fear and desire and hope. But broken wings can't fly. So he built new ones, ones better because they could carry him farther.

Sucking in a breath, he focused his energy to becoming Viator again, losing the girl who was swimming just below the surface. "Chin up, Lass. Ye'll age early wit all them tears. Just lookit me." He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. "Ye can trust me, Wendy, because in here's all her memory without her sadness. I'm like... like th'brother she shoulda had. And yer her sister in heart. So that makes us siblin's too." He pulled away, looking into her eyes.

"So, ye see, I do trust ye. Yer th'only one who knows... anythin' aboot me. An' I see things bein' better that way. Just cause I ent wearin' a blue dress or callin' myself a lass don't mean I ent just as much connected to ye as she was." He brushed a strand of hair from her face, tolding back tears but smiling. "Yer th'only one who knows, and yer the only one I'd trust wit it."

Wendy shook her head against his chest, "Shut up." she whispered half heartedly. "You don't know anything."



Wendy looked up with a sigh. Her expression didn't change or falter. She didn't believe him...yet she didn't disbelieve him. But instead of arguing she shrugged and let go of him. He wasn't her. He would never be her.

I need someone to talk to.
That terrible ache in her chest started up again. I miss Pascual.



At these words she glared up at him, helplessly angry again. "It's different though, isn't it. Trusting someone with somebody else's secrets. It's easier." Her voice was cold and quiet. "I'm sure you'd trust me with your own, but you aren't real enough to have any." What secrets does a doll have? A mask? None but that of the player. Oh you fake, fake man! Give me back my Adalare.

But a quick fear gripped her chest and Wendy grabbed Viator's hand before he could leave. "No, forgive me. I was unfair." She didn't feel it was the truth, but it would have to do for the moment. "I...I can trust you, Viator? You've said this."

Wendy pulled her hand over the fuzziness on the back of her head nervously, "I killed a boy." she finally managed to choke out. On the off chance that she would hear as well. On the off chance she was listening from deep inside.

He paused, knowing she was right. His hands, burined in the fabric of her shirt, clenched and he closed his eyes to hold back the tears. To hold her back. She wanted to be there so bad.

Viator wanted to explain that was the only way, that Viator was a shield that protected the inner softness, the inner brokenness-- but she didn't understand. There so much that she should never understand.

No man is an island, I heard a lad say once. Well, if a man is an island he's no man t'all. "I have me own secrets lass. They're just o'a kind that ye wouldn't... I'll tell ye. I promise." He made as if to leave, thinking she'd said her piece, when...


He nodded once, eyes shadowed. "Ye can trust me."


Oh how she surged, how she wanted to control, to comfort. She would always be the comforting one. The sad fact was, he wanted to do the same; the lines where he ended and she began blurred. Standing silent for a moment, he stared down at his shoes.

"It's a hard thing t'do, lass." he choked out. Then the bottom of his world fell as he realized that's why she ran away. "Oh darlin'..." It was the closest he could be to her, the one Wendy wanted. He fidgeted uneasily, wanting to hug her again, but somehow awkward.

Wendy didn't notice his discomfort. She was too wrapped up in her own vision again. "Is it? I found it hard to stop myself." she whispered. Her hands fluttered up and covered her mouth for a moment, as if they unconsciously wanted to stop her from saying more. She pulled them away and clenched them to keep them from trembling. "He had come to apologize. For k-"

Her throat locked up and Wendy gasped, had to sit down to steady herself. She glared down at the grass, keeping herself in control so that she wouldn't cry. Wendy waited until she could speak again, "I never told you about Pascual." She said in a clear voice, looking down at the grass. "I don't know if you met him Ad-- Via. I only met him after you left because I kept getting--" beaten black and blue? "Punished. Anyway he finally got my head mostly straight. Mostly." Without realizing it she was phrasing things so that they sounded less harsh. "I...We..." Respect for the dead. You couldn't admit it when you were alive, but now? What does it matter...

"I loved him." She finally said slowly, listening to the words out loud, "I mean we never..." Her ears turned pink and she shrugged, "Some things happened right after you left and I got so scared. So we never...you know. Kissed or anything. But I loved him. I did." She growled fiercely, the nails in her hands digging into her palms.

Wendy felt herself exposed and suddenly became very afraid again. She shrunk for a moment, trying to find the courage to continue. Finally she took a deep breath. "Whatever. That doesn't matter. He died. He's dead. A boy named Bronley killed him." Her breath caught in her chest again as the unfairness of it all struck her yet again. How dare they.

The rest of the story came out in a rush, "And then he came to apologize, and I was so angry. And he wouldn't leave and then he bowed and I just st-started to kick him until his face was a bloody pulp of nothing and then I left--" she winced. It sounded cowardly, "I left Vala-- and I left Brunhold..."

He stood there, a war within flesh, the combatants undefined and merging, no side winning or losing yet obviously embroiled. Why does she want out? She's broken, destroyed. There's no way for her to ever move without him crippling her. Yet she fought; Wendy was hers, not his, and she needed the indigo eyed passive girl who had been strong enough to not cry.

Why coudn't he understand that broken things are drawn together? He was two ticking watches, gears grinding. He could taste the soap and cold on his tongue.


Pascual... she remembered him. Total brat, but always smiling. She had taught him how to clean the observatory, and though a pain she;d enjoyed his escapades, even with the frown firmly entrenched upon her face. He'd had a good head on his shoulders, for a brat. If she would gonna have any o'the lads there it woulda been him I picked. They coulda caused some big trouble there-abouts.

Then again I wouldn'ta picked anyone then. Now least I can tell between th'good uns an th'not.


He-- he bit his cheek, trying to find words. Unable to. Utterly useless. He was without that empathy, lacking in the certain affection she controlled. If I'm... I'm her again will I ever go back to being me? He needed to know. They weren't different, not really. He just wanted them to be, wanted that delineation.


Pain. Abject sadness. Perhaps some relation, finally the connection to what she said. A mask is only a mask. I'll always be...


Killed a student. It was-- Biting back words that would hurt, words that could kill, she held the remains of nine years loosely in her heart. Held them... let them fall away. Wendy. It was her Wendy, in pain and utterly deject.

She opened her arms, and her eyes of indigo brightness, swirling with tears, were those of ages gone. "Oh Wendy..." Adalare smiled wanly, though the tears. I can be broken for her, I can be... for her. "Wendy I'm so sorry..." Her voice was soft as ash, but it was her. No false accent, no forced depth.

Yet it felt like the protection was gone, the shield had died leaving her a shining beacon. Oh Wendy you'll be the death of me, she'd said at school. Now she meant it. Wendy, for your sake I will die.

"Adalare?" Wendy asked in a surprised whisper, turning and meeting her eyes. "Adalare I miss him so much." Her voice trembled and tightened and she let out a choked sob, turning and folding herself into her oldest friend's hands. In front of her, she could cry. Weeping was not Wendy's forte, and she tried to stifle it against Adalare's chest but quiet hissing noises still escaped her. "I never meant for it to happen! If I had just st-stopped him from going into the cafeteria then maybe--"

Wendy's small frame shook miserably against Adalare's, and it was only be sheer force of will that the passive managed to remain upright instead of collapsing where she stood.

"Hush sweetie, I know, I know." Adalare tried not to slip back into Viator's speech, the proper estuan not easy on her seasalted tongue. Sweetly running a hand over the peachy fuzz of her skull, she comforted the girl as best she could.

Somehow this was her job, the mother, the listener. Perhaps because no one was there to hold me while I cried.

She shook her head, realizing the foolishness of the though even as it developed. She couldn't have told anyone; they too would have been in danger. She'd been strong enough to bear her own burdens and now she had the ability to carry others as well. Wendy was her heart's sister, at this point.


"There was nothing to be done, Wendy. Things happen to good people, sweetling, and we just have to cope." Denied her own coping device, Adalare felt naked and bare, but right now Wendy needed that. Somehow, even Viator's cynicism slept. "We do what we can. That's all."

Wendy's tears stopped but the shaking didn't subside until much later. "I d-didn't know if I c-could tell you! I was so afraid!" She felt herself calming down and just held on to Adalare. The real Adalare. "I used to be so much stronger. I used to not cry but now I can't seem to stop." The words came out in a whisper. "When I-- when you found me I was c-crying. And after we went to bed I g-got up b-because I needed to do it again."

Her hands tightened on Adalare's clothes, "I hate it," she whispered fiercely, "I hate feeling like this. I hate them that did this to me. They-- I can't help being how I am I can't!" She was taught with anger, feeling the adrenaline run through her body again just as it had when she had killed that boy.

She felt like a liar... sweetness, feminine empathy, hadn't been hers in ten years. Viator was more honestly emotional... Adalare was the simulacra, not the sailor. However the internal philosophy of who was a mask and who was reality didn't need to be fought right now. He--she--they could act like Adalare, it wasn't difficult. Wendy was a catalyst for such behavior, always had been.

"Darling we're just who we are. We have to try and eke out something of a life in this mess." She sighed, pulling Wendy closer. "I'm sorry about Pascaul, and I'm sorry about the boy... but... we have to move on." Oh I'm the hypocrite of the ages. She knew it. Yet there wasn't anything to be done. She couldn't heal, couldn't move on. So did he. And right now he was gone, leaving the broken shell of someone who needed protection out.

She's a selfish child, she shouldn't demand these things of you! He tore into Adalare's mind, sailor's accent falling, contorting into something darker and more familiar, she shouldn't have you. Even in the moments since becoming Adalare, she felt him, not Viator but the real Him, like worms in the core of her soul.

"Born victims never know what it is to be alive. We got a taste then had it ripped away. Now we're here to finish it. Oh Wendy... it's hard, I know, but we have to..." She shook her head. She couldn't be Adalare for much longer. The steel that made Viator was already fading...

But it's so hard...you should know that! Wendy sighed into her shoulder, feeling small.



Wendy gripped Adalare's hands in her own, looking up with her own startling eyes, "We're here to finish it." She said, her voice suddenly steely, "Because the others can't. We have to be strong for them. I left-- I left people in Brunhold, Adalare. I left them to rot. I can't live with that. Not without doing something to stop it."

Something had cleared in her minds eye. It was beautiful, and blinding, this thought she had. She felt as if at the merest breath the dream would vanish. Now she was smiling fiercely, "It's up to us. Us that're free. Us that have the power to speak out."

Adalare pulled away, both from Wendy and from the flesh. Shields flared, and though Viator remained buried, she wasn't herself. Vacant eyes stared into the distance, and the oldest defense she had; denial, withdrawal. Even the thought of standing up was--

"No. You can, Wendy, but I found what I want. I'll keep my silence." Before anything else could be said, he passed a hand over his face , attempting to find feeling. Failing. He couldn't care enough for the fear, the terror. I can't, Wendy. I can't because what if he finds me? You killed your enemy. Mine lives, and I fear him. Viator fled from the crest, unable to process the terrible idea; he found his life, his place. Gods be damned if he would undo it, for anyone.

Ten years, Wendy. You have part of me, but not all of me. I will not be that ruined.

She said it without thinking. Without planning.

"Even after what he did to you?"

Wendy gasped as soon as the words came out of her mouth, and covered it with a grimy hand. Shit!

"Adalare-- I didn't mean--" She said quickly, but the words were out...

He heard it, mid lunge.

Viator fell, hard, yet didn't allow it to stop him. He was gone.

Especially after what he did to me Wendy. Silence is better. Adalare and Viator were the same person, in the end, and both of them agreed on that. There was no need to speak.

Viator fled to the rivers where he cried, the first time in many years. All proof if it was washed away with the current.