Under Evil Stars

From what he could understand, things seldom followed a pattern that could be defined into simple rules and easy paths. Life was a constant whirlwind of choices that altered future decisions, making a true prediction of what was to be no more than an elaborate fantasy. However, with what little time he had been allotted, Pisces Magus knew with a dead certainty that his future did not spell the dreams of glory he had given everything up for. Love and hate he had banned from his life, driven forth by his unbearable need of something greater and higher than mere humanity. Perhaps Annika was right, perhaps he was indeed a fool. Yet this penchant for glory he had nurtured in his soul had twisted the paths of what may and may not have been; he was trapped now, by his own desires and his own useless hopes. So while glory would come during his lifetime it would not be his to claim, nor would he be a part of its forging.

Yes, Annika was right, he was a fool.

Not because he yearned for a greater purpose, when as a human he should have settled for the normal and the common; he was a fool because he had placed his life and his entire set of rules in a faith he could not sustain by mere belief, he needed to watch and touch, and that was something he would never have. The glory he sought was not his to gaze upon, as the Goddess he had set himself to serve would never place a thankful hand on his warrior shoulder. Magus sighed; knowing far too well that he had not been tricked by any mistake on his part but by fate itself. He had come too early, far too soon. Though still in his mid twenties, as young and fresh as any noble Norseman could be in the full maturity of youth and the strength of limitless power, he knew himself to be too old already, too old to be still young when the true wars began. It would be up to his successors to complete a task he had ultimately wanted only for himself. Fate had cheated him out of what was rightfully his; thus his faith in the power of man and God had been sullied.

Pisces Magus cared nothing for his fellow brothers or for his Goddess, duty drove him forth like a leash would drive a dog, not because he wished it to be so but because he was too proud to give up on his own vows. These very vows were what had driven his angel-voiced sister away from him. Little Annika, too young and too sweet to understand the need for blood and destruction, too immersed in the worlds of song she crafted with her own voice to see his despair.

Yes, he knew it now. Annika was lost to him, Athena was lost to him; his dreams had fled with the passing of the years and the golden future he had sowed would be reaped in full bloom by another child in another time. That knowledge in itself had embittered his once noble soul to the point of extinction, only duty remained, nothing else kept his hunger for death in check. And Magus let it, he let the corruption of his soul take over his power and he let his heart be tainted, because the purpose of his life had been lost.

He had been born too early, he had been lied to, in the end.

"And yet... there is always our next life, you know?"

Magus turned around slowly to face the speaker, his own ash blond hair whipping his face as the warm breeze of a Greek summer rushed into him. He regarded the newcomer coldly, before gifting him with his own acid retort in reply.

"And what use is that to me? You yourself have said that we do not remember out past lives anyway. My self, as Magus, would never know the glory."

A soft chuckle issued from the other man. "Ah yes, the Glory. It seems to be all you think on lately, despite the current happenings."

"Claroscuro's death has nothing to do with me." Magus intoned darkly, having repeated that phrase too often in the past few weeks.

"One would expect you would feel for him, if only a bit..." Magus turned his back on the speaker once again, crossing his arms over his chest derisively.

"Not everyone is as soft hearted as you, Sylph." He turned back to face the smaller man, feeling unnerved by the patience with which the Virgo saint endured his mental tirade. It was no secret among the Gold saints that Virgo Sylph could read minds, did so even without wanting to. It was still shocking to see him, with an aura as dense and overpowering as his one would expect a monster with the looks of a killer; Sylph was none of that. He barely reached Magus' nose in height, with a slender willowy build, hardly any muscle under his wispy clothes, his strength was mostly in his mind and the training he had gone through had hardened the definitions of his slenderness rather than given him the sheer bulk most Gold saints possessed. Added to this, he was pale like a ghost, with hair of the palest gold Magus had ever seen, eyes that were pearlescent blue and nearly colourless and skin like polished ivory: white, marble like and untouchable. Sylph was very much like an elaborate carving, gifted with a mysterious and convoluted beauty that was heightened by the simple and quiet detachment he had from the world, which Magus suspected to be pure innocence mixed with a knowledge far too deep for comfort.

"No, not everyone is. But you... I remembered you to be less cold." Sylph frowned sadly and shrugged, the wind ruffling his pale hair. Magus stared him down silently, noting that he had cut his hair yet again so that it fell in uneven locks around his face, more like a cloud of shimmering silk than like true hair, barely touching his shoulders. He resented the childish mien the Virgo saint presented to the world, it was a bit too true and too noticeable, Magus could never tell if it was real or mere hypocrisy.

"Nonsense." Magus scoffed darkly, and walked away, angered by Sylph's attempt at soothing him, the friendly gesture seeming more like an admission of pity in his own mind. Sylph did not attempt to follow him, letting him unleash his anger on his own, hopefully, where no one would see him.

*

"Despair is getting the best of most of us, surely you can't be suggesting we gave up already...it's too soon."

Ganymede gave Luis an unreadable look, weighing the implications of what he himself had suggested only a few minutes ago.

"Think about it, even you must have noticed it Pathos, there is so little going on right now, but the time a real war breaks out we will be too old to fight as we would fight now." Ganymede pushed his fingers through his silvery hair and braided it. "It's our duty to leave a successor..."

"You've been talking to Magnus again, haven't you?" Luis intoned, smiling impishly.

"If he hears you calling him that he'll go berserk, you know?" Ganymede replied with a tight little smile and a warning flash in his eyes.

"Aw... Magus, Magnus, what's the difference? In the end they are both the same acid creature." With a dismissive flick of his hand the Cancer saint got up.

"Perhaps, but he is adamant about making the difference, contrary to you." Luis laughed coldly and turned to face the sitting man.

"Yeah, I got tired of telling you all to call me Luis.... I should have never introduced myself as Pathos."

"Names tend to stick around here. But, anyway, I haven't been talking to him as you say, he's become an extremely sour conversationalist." A thick silence descended upon them, Ganymede shivered as a cold breeze touched his bared neck below the moonlike, gleaming braid.

"Well... Claroscuro's death surprised us all, I guess his loss has shed a sudden mortality onto our existences, which we had been bent on ignoring up to now," Luis let out a small chuckle after saying that.

"That's a rather humane thing for you to say, are you sure you are feeling all right?" Ganymede raised an eyebrow before lowering his gaze sadly. "But you are right, who needs to think about death when you are going to save the world..."

"As if that was what drove you to become a saint..." the other cut back, coal black eyes shinning darkly in the pale sunlight. "We all know what drives you mad...."

Ganymede paled and shifted on his seat, giving Luis a dangerous glare. "You don't know what you're talking about...." he warned, an icy terseness creeping into his tone.

"Oh, but I do!" Luis laughed. "And because you see no way out, and no end to this stupid game you play with Blood, you want an excuse to leave."

"You presume far too much for your safety Pathos, I would shut up if I were you," Ganymede rose to his feet in one smooth motion, brushing non-existent motes of dust from his loose black robes.

"But you're not me, and I'll shut up when I think I should, not the other way around. You can fool Blood and everyone else if you want to, but you can't fool me. You want a pupil because that would give you a feasible excuse to stay away from Blood. So get a pupil, train him and see if Blood cares whether you are gone or not." Ganymede hissed in anger, grey eyes narrowing dangerously just as Luis felt the room grow unaccountably colder and thicker around him.

"Go back to your feasts of murder and bloodlust but don't pretend to understand me."

"Sounds to me like Bloodlust is exactly what you should go back to... or run away from, is it?" A sharp blow to the jaw sent Luis stumbling back, still laughing as Ganymede advanced on him, eyes positively glowing with anger. "Ouch...."

He grabbed the darker man by the collar of his expensive silk shirt and hauled him up and against a wall. "Stay out of what you don't understand, and keep away from me. Understood?" Luis nodded; laughing nonetheless as he was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor while the Aquarius Saint walked out.

"A bit jumpy, aren't we?" he murmured to no one once Ganymede was gone, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully.

Not that he cared, in the end. The new Gemini saint was young and fresh compared to them, his acceptance into the order had made them realise that, indeed, they might not be on time to fight the war they had come to fight in the first place. They were breaking up slowly, and there was no Goddess to hold them together. So perhaps it was indeed time to think about training their inheritors.

*

Scorpio Blood walked into the temple silently, having not so long ago been granted the privilege to enter unannounced by the occupant of the temple himself. No sudden defensive aura snapped up to meet him, nor did the unnerving darks and lights of the temple pose any threat other than their unnatural sharpness; he had been expected then. He walked inside calmly, letting his cape flare under the sudden gusts of wind that rushed through the airy edifice.

"Saga?" he called out, looking both ways more out of custom and decorum that true need, for he could feel the youth's aura somewhere to his left. "Saga are you in here?"

"You know I am, so why ask." The unhappy whisper to his left confirmed his earlier conclusion.

"Long standing habit, I guess. How are you feeling?" he inquired gently, drawing closer to the shadows where he knew Saga was.

"Why is everyone bent on checking on my health of the late...I'm not an invalid..." the sullen tone of his voice was more than fair indication of his sour mood.

"Why? Has anyone else come by to see you?" Blood questioned, spotting the huddled shape near a pillar and drawing closer slowly, keeping himself to the younger man's back.

"Well, Dana came by asking if I had seen her pupil, but I told her I had no idea where Ganymede was; Sylph dropped in yesterday and asked if I played chess, to which I answered no, but he stayed for a while anyway; Luis passed through the day before yesterday and asked me about Kanon, whom I haven't seen for a month or so and I would like it to remain like this, Magus also came to see me.... and Ganymede. And now you, of course, if this keeps up I'll have the entire pupil and female saint population coming in to see me."

"Not that getting the females to come here is a bad thing..." Blood murmured smiling, keeping himself from laughing as he saw Saga's bony shoulders shake with constrained mirth.

"You don't change, do you?" he turned to face the Scorpio saint, noting the trademark smirk was fixed in place, as was the condescending glare.

"Nopes, not at all. You should be glad we're all worried about you."

"I can't shake the feeling this is not so much about me as it is about you all being afraid." Saga growled suddenly, getting to his feet tiredly.

"Afraid of what, pray tell?" Blood demanded, raising and eyebrow quizzically.

"I don't know, it's just a feeling."

Blood gave him a long searching look, dropping his head to one side as Saga stepped out of the shadows and into the light. The boy looked terrible.

"You look like hell," he remarked, giving Saga a sad stare.

"Haven't been sleeping well of the late..." he would not tell Blood that he kept hearing voices, nor would he ever confess what those voices said, but their distant hissing whispers kept him up at night, and restless all day long.

"And you wonder why we are all worried about you..." Blood scolded him mildly.

"Please, let's not get into that subject right now. Why are you here? Surely it's not your fatherly instincts kicking in, is it?" he offered a small smile to Blood as he said this, expecting one in return.

"Not at all, I was just feeling bored.... Ganymede is avoiding me a lot of the late, you know... we rarely talk or even...." he felt a blush creep up his cheeks, but pushed it down and held his tight little smirk in place, another long standing habit of his.

"...ah...." Saga nodded, having caught the nuance behind that slip whether Blood had intended for him to do so or not. "I guess... deaths always upset the balance, I can in no way replace what Claroscuro meant to all of you, to Ganymede in particular."

"Yes, they were good friends...."

But though neither said it, both knew that it was not Claroscuro's death that was originating the misbalance. Claroscuro's death had had little effect on all of them, but it was a feasible excuse to mask the deeper motives behind their fears, so they all used it, and thrived on it. And visited Saga to atone for disrespect to his teacher they could not mention or be forgiven of.

"I think Claroscuro was more of a father figure to him... I could never find Dana imposing, nor did she inspire the kind of respect you all do..." Saga noticed, though Blood had certainly not meant this to be seen, a strange darkening in his eyes, like the rolling clouds of a storm just gone.

"Dana is a queer character, that I can't deny, but... Claroscuro was a father figure to all of us, you know?" He let out a small laugh. "When Ganymede and Mor... " he paused suddenly, blinking dazedly as if to dispel a bad memory. "... when Ganymede and I arrived here, with some other trainees, he had already won his cloth a while ago. We saw him from time to time..." a sad light brought back some semblance of feeling to Blood's turbulent eyes.

"You miss him too?" Saga whispered, eyes downcast.

"I may in the future... but it's time to renew our lines, don't you think?" he winked half-heartedly. "Ah, of course, you are one of the 'new generation' we have to bring into existence."

"You're going to train a pupil?" Saga did not quite see how that was possible, he could not envision Blood as a teacher or as steady backup in anything but war. He was a creature of maliciously elfin beauty and deadly skills... but a mentor?

"I don't know... everyone else seems to be thinking about it..."

"Even Ganymede?" Blood jerked at Saga's gentle question.

"I...think so. Anyway, it's not my business, he can do as he pleases!" Blood declared with an uncharacteristic flare of temper.

"You sound like a dejected lover," Saga informed him mildly.

"Well, he has been rather skittish and...reluctant to..." he waved his hand impatiently. For all his imposing seductiveness Blood rarely mentioned sex out loud.

"And that bothers you why? It's not like you couldn't get other lovers."

"Ganymede is my friend... up to now he had never refused me..." Saga sighed at Blood's petulant tone of voice.

"Maybe he got tired of your eternal reluctance."

"My reluctance? As to what!?"

Not for the first time - nor would it be the last- Saga wondered what it was exactly that Blood felt towards the Aquarius saint. Was it love? Friendship? Did Blood even realise how different he was to Ganymede than to his other lovers? Was it hatred that bound them so? Pure and simple need? Was it the memory of Morgana, the mysteriously vanished trainee that plagued Blood day in and day out?

"Forget it," Saga sighed, looking away from the other's agonisingly sad blue eyes.

"I just can't understand him! If he doesn't enjoy any of it, if he doesn't like me doing it...why did he allow me to do so up to now?" An ambiguous question about and ambiguous subject. The answer could only be equally indecisive.

"Maybe he just needs a break, you can be overwhelming, you know?" Saga laughed gently, trying to ignore the soft whispering sigh that blossomed in his mind, a brush of mental laughter he could not control or understand.

Blood shook his head and sighed, unwilling to continue the game any further. He denied the emotional conflict that Ganymede's attitude was creating in him, he negated any shard of passion or natural feeling that might be born from the situation, reducing his affair with the Aquarius saint to a mere fling, as he always did. A fling that had years in the making, and years in the lasting. Did Blood even realise how twisted his relationship with Ganymede was.... did anyone at all know why Ganymede allowed Blood to use him as a plaything over and over again? Perhaps Claroscuro had known...

*

"Don't tell me... you pissed off Ganymede again, didn't you?" Magus lifted an eyebrow as Luis rubbed his bruised jaw self-consciously. After a few minutes of sullen silence Luis' dark face was illuminated by a feral toothy grin, his white teeth gleaming like sharp razors.

"Only a bit," he shrugged carelessly and smiled wider. "Such a pretty face coupled with such a boring personality... I swear, I don't know what Blood sees in him! He's nothing more than a big, self-pitying block of concrete, and only half as fun!"

Magus shook his head impatiently, giving the dark-skinned Cancer saint a warning look. "If I were you I wouldn't speak of him like that, dull as he is, he is neutral enough to have more allies in this island than you and I together."

"Always the strategist. Tell me, oh wise one, what is our strategy now that were clearly useless material where the Holy Wars are concerned?" Luis' sinister chuckle sent shivers up Magus' spine, but he fought them down for the sake of imposing himself. Never show your weakness to Cancer, his teacher had told him years before, when he had first devised his technique with the Black Roses. He never had.... not completely, at least. Everyone knew that Pisces Magus had a viciously protective streak towards his little sister; fewer still knew that his true weakness was being powerless against her...everyone knew he wanted power, at least. Did Luis, the elusive Cancer Pathos, know how deeply ingrained his inferiority regarding his sister ran? Annika had been right about him all along, and she had always known that this life would lead to nothing. And here they were, waiting for the end of the world

Craving for it.

Hating their pale and unimpressive peace.

"We should start considering taking in possible trainees..." he frowned slightly. "It's not that unheard of... I haven't been in much contact with them, but I know for a fact that there are two candidates for the Sagittarius and Capricorn cloths, and they should be taking the test to win them not many years from now...three probably." Luis' brows knit as he took this in.

"Really? I hadn't heard of them...come to think of it, Sagittarius and Capricorn have been notoriously absent these past few years." He ran a finger over his lips, deep in thought. "Which means that the younger generation is getting an advantage over us already. Why should we help them by training children ourselves?"

"Be serious Pathos, we'll have to do it sooner or later. It's not like we'll be of much use in a few years...look at what happened to Claroscuro, and he was much older than the rest of us."

Luis laughed, a long and loud exclamation of mirth; he leaned on a pillar to hold his belly as he continued giggling and let his coal black eyes roam over Magus' expressionless face. "You mean, since we've been declared useless by Saga's appearance?"

Magus looked away and let out an indifferent huff. "This has nothing to do with Saga...not really. But I guess seeing him, and how young he is, has made us all see the truth."

"That we are already in our prime but Athena hasn't even been born? Hardly!" Luis smirked and angled his hips away from the pillar he leaned on, adopting a strange and reptile-like grace in his choice pose. Magus ignored him, too used to the Cancer saint's implicit baiting; knowing how well he could draw attention to himself by mere seduction to gain power over those who lusted over him.

Not that anyone had survived a night with Cancer Pathos, anyway. Magus knew that rumours carried only a fraction of truth most of the time, but he agreed with most of them: Luis was a murderer, and everyone knew that those brave enough to bed him, be it woman or man, only fed his lust for power and death. That was his ultimate gift, death at his own hands. And he enjoyed it, Magus was almost sure that he took a deep and obscene pleasure in each kill, which was why he had never renounced his job as a Mafia assassin, when he was back at his own estate.

"But that's the way it is, anyway... even if Athena were born tomorrow, we'd still be too old by the time evil appears...."

"You sound so regretful... I wonder who's more evil? Those who want to destroy the world, or you, who wants the world to be destroyed so you can fight." A dark and terrible laugh broke from Luis' lips and he tossed his head to get his dark curls out of his eyes. "Such a selfish devotion deserves punishment, don't you think?"

"My punishment is that I shall never have a chance to fulfil my "selfish devotion", as you call it. Isn't that enough? I don't go around killing for the pleasure of it!" Magus wondered idly at why he had uttered that final chastisement knowing it wouldn't even put a dent into Luis' iron self-confidence.

"But you yearn to do it, don't you?" the seductive purr made Magus' ears burn, and his head spun at the realisation that Luis' might be striking a little too close to the mark with that last statement. He turned and poised himself for battle, one fist raised as he struggled to keep his power, those awful and deadly roses the colour of onyx, under his control. Luis laughed again and cocked his head to one side, eyes positively glowing with delight.

"Do you want me to give you a similar bruise on your other cheek?" he snarled at the smiling man, teeth bared in fury.

"...you really are thirsting for a kill," Luis whispered, his smile fading as his eyes took on a compelling and eerily understanding light. "Perhaps you should get yourself a pupil then...."

Startled out of his rage by the apparent non sequitur, Magus dropped his stance and stared at Luis in barely controlled fury. "What does that have do with this?"

"You sister infuriates you, doesn't she?" Luis drawled, smiling thinly.

"That is none of your business!" Magus snapped back, eyes flashing dangerously.

"Sometimes... you'd like to put your hands around her neck, wouldn't you?" he pressed on, a flush making his olive skin glow like burnished bronze.

"Shut up!" Magus let out a strangled scream or rage and flew at him, but stopped his own blow mere inches from Luis' grinning face.

"...and snap it...with a big resounding crack." He placed a hand over Magus' and smiled over his trembling fist. "Wouldn't you like that? To kill her...?"

"You... monster... I would never...." But he would, Magus realised. He had been only seconds away from slamming her into a wall more than once, her gentle and sad eyes becoming a burden more than a comfort. Annika pitied him, and this drove him mad. It made him want to hurt her, wound her, make her see his despair and not only his failures. It made him want to... kill her. "I would never hurt Annika!"
"Liar." The certainty with which Luis uttered that word made Magus grow cold inside. Those black eyes flickered and Luis' face broke into a confident grin. "My offer still stands, you know?"

"Excuse me?"

"My offer... to take Annika out of your hands." Luis elaborated, waving his arms explanatorily as he continued to smile.

"You think I'd hand my little sister to you, for your own personal entertainment!?" Magus ran his hands through his own pale hair and shivered. "Never, do you hear me? Never!"

"Her talent is wasted on you... and you'll end up killing her, you know?" For only a moment, Luis seemed humanly worried. Only a moment and it was gone.

"And you'll kill her in a much nicer way?" he hissed, steely eyes narrowed.

"I enjoy her singing too much to look forward to ending her life so soon. Unlike you, I see her as something more than a burden to my conscience." He smiled again, fingers weaving oddly attractive patterns in the air as he moved them. "A lovely little lark...no...even more, a nightingale."

"You'd pervert her. Do you think I don't know what orgies and mass murders your organise as parties?" Magus spat the last word, throat tight as Luis continued to smile patiently, like a parent before a child with a temper.

"Creatures like her can't be perverted. And, if it helps, I'd keep her out of those matter anyway, I wouldn't want my world to corrupt her clear little voice." Luis raised a brow and waited. "So... Magnus?"

Magus jerked and shivered. "It's Magus, for the last time!" his agitation only served to make Luis laugh again, a cold joy touching those obsidian eyes like the soft seductive caress of a knife against tender skin. "And no! I'd never do it! Much less consider it!"

"And why are you discussing it with me here and now, if you are not - as you say- considering it?"

Magus turned his back on him, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth in anger. "Get out of here Pathos," he rasped, nails digging into his palms as he tightened his fists even further. "Get out before I do something I'll regret."

"The only thing you'll regret is not listening to me now." A low laugh came from behind Magus' shoulder. "But that's okay, you'll come around soon enough, and you'll see how good a pupil will do you."

The sound of steps as Luis left the Temple was all Magus could hear for the next few hours. Even after the echoes had faded, even after the sun had set; Luis' dark eyes and slicing words still ran in his ears, still taunted him deep into the night, still reminded him of the truth.

*

Hands touched his hair, wove into it, followed the path over his scalp and his ears, down his neck, paused on his shoulders; their faltering a question in itself. Despite the warmth, Ganymede trembled.

"I can leave if you want me to," the sweet seductive whisper in his ear made him jerk slightly, the warmth of those lips so close to his ear.

"I thought I told you I wanted a rest from you," it took all of his willpower to say that, but the effect was immediate. The stroking hands left his shoulders without so much as disturbing the creamy fall of his hair, the humid breath against his cheek disappeared and the only thing that remained was the needle-like feel of those acute blue eyes hitting his back.

"So you did." The acquiescence did not startle him, nor did the sharp tone it was spoken in.

"Blood...." he began, lowering his head until his long silvery hair fell in front of him to cover his view. It offered little comfort.

"Fine, fine. I'm leaving," the bitter, biting tone was nothing new. The sudden and hurried retreat was novelty though. It scared Ganymede, that if he refused Blood the other would cast him off so easily. It hurt more than he had expected it would. Acting on impulse he found himself on his feet, one hand extended as he viciously gripped Blood's wrist to keep him from leaving, fearing that he would walk out forever. Blood's sky coloured eyes met his in a mute daze, Ganymede let his hold on Blood soften.

"It's okay.... Stay."

He did.

*

Magus came to a halt before the run down cottage he called home, his trousers were stained green where he had accidentally slipped on the dew-speckled mountain grass. I'm getting sloppy, he thought to himself, smiling bitterly. He shook his jacket and walked up to the small house, pausing outside to give the long string of smoke that came from the chimney and approving look. Annika was home then. He opened the door carefully, wincing as it creaked on its old and rusted hinges, and waited for his little sister to come into view.

"Ann... I'm home," he called out, closing the door behind himself with equal care.

The soft padding of feet on the wooden floor drew his attention to the far off little room, where his sister stood in the doorway. He looked at her in silence, taking in the paleness of her skin, the turquoise shine of her eyes and the gentle waves of her platinum blonde hair, just as fine-spun as his.

"Aren't you going to say hello?" he demanded impatiently.

She unglued her gaze from his shoes and lifted it up to his face, a wavering, hopeful light giving life to her long abused happiness. Her eyes came to rest on his, seeing right through him for a second before they dulled and dropped back to the floor. The glimmer of a smile that had been hinted at on her face vanished unfulfilled.

"Hello Magnus." She was the only person he allowed to call him that.

"You look worse then when I left...did something happen?" he walked into the middle of the room and threw himself into one of the chairs, crossing his feet on top of the nearby table with a kingly attitude. She frowned at his open display of superiority, and he could read the disappointment in her eyes.

"You've been away longer than usual..." she murmured demurely.

"Claroscuro died a few weeks ago."

"Oh...." her eyes glazed over slightly at the news. She had liked the amiable Gemini saint, on the few occasions he came there Annika had sung for him with a passion.

"And you? Anything new to tell me?" she shook her head and looked away. Magus felt an edge of frustration rise up in him, as it always did with her of the late. "Nothing? At all?"

"No..."

"No new songs? Friends? Stores in the town?" she shook her head gently at each of his questions, still refusing to look at him. He got to his feet and moved to stand before her, seeing how her willowy frame shook as if sensing his constrained violence. "Why won't you look at me!?"

She bit her lip and refused to answer.

"Annika!" he barked, and saw her flinch, whether it was from fear or surprise, he did not know. "Answer me!"

She looked up then, her startlingly blue eyes conveying a degree of pity and sadness he had not thought possible. It was like a well delivered blow to the gut, and he felt equally nauseated when her pitying gaze intensified as his own features became twisted with an emotion that wavered somewhere between horror and fury.

"Don't you dare look at me that way..." he whispered savagely, feeling the metal tang of blood on his mouth, having cut his tongue with his teeth as he seethed.

"You asked me to," she replied lowly, hands clasped in front of her and trembling, her tiny shoulders arched as she waited for him to....

Goddess.

"You think I'm going to hit you?" he whispered incredulously, and saw her shiver and take a step back. "Oh Annika.. I would never...."

"Don't say things you don't mean!" she cried all of a sudden, her eyes filling with a stubborn determination he both envied and hated. "Why else would you come here if not to impose yourself over me to feel better!"

Magus felt a muscle in his left arm twitch, along with a sudden stinging urge to break something, to hit something until his knuckles bled. Why did everything have to be so strange and complicated?

"I'm here because you're my sister... and I love you...." he tried to make amends, but his voice sounded false even in his own ears. Annika, with the training and knowledge of pitch and tone only an experienced singer could have, detected the underlying implications all too easily.

"You loved me once... perhaps you still do. But if you come here because you love me, then don't barge into the house I take care of like you were a king, simply because you feel powerless." Dangerous little thing that she was, she knew him all to well.

"Annika..." he growled, feeling his face flush in anger.

"It's always the same. I wait for you to come back, hoping I'll find the brother I knew and loved. But all I find is you, not my Magnus, but Magus... Pisces Magus. And already you are hopeless and pitiful... and you hate me because despite your strength you cannot face the world as you are... as it is," her sad whisper set his temper on edge, making his sight go blurry with fury.

"Don't you dare judge me, you have no idea of what my life is!" he cried, raising a hand in anger. Annika gave him one long and profoundly sad look.

"The only strength you ever found was that of fighting others, and it's not enough to guide you through your life... don't hate me for the mistakes you were too ignorant to perceive." To have anyone say such things was a greater insult than he had ever borne, to have his baby sister, barely a girl with her childish cheeks and flat chest say it, it was more than he could bear. His vision clouded for an instant, when it cleared again there was a sharp stinging sensation across the back of his hand. He shuddered and looked down, clenching his fists in impotent anger.

Annika was kneeling on the floor, clutching her cheek as silent tears of fury fell down her pale skin, creating moist pools between her clasped fingers. "Are you satisfied now?" she whispered, eyes focused on the patterns of wood at her feet. Magus jerked away from her, feeling his body as a disjointed mass of muscles out of his control as his equilibrium wavered and he fell back into the chair he had occupied earlier.

"Dear Goddess... Annika...." But there was nothing he could say to her, and he knew it. So he picked himself up and strode out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him to drown out the soft sobbing that came from inside.

*

Sylph eyed the chessboard carefully before he moved another pawn forward, eyes never leaving the board until he was certain he was choosing the right move, he set the pawn down. The vacant spot in front of him made him feel stupid, playing chess with himself, but he got up with a sigh and went to sit in the other chair, observing his move as an enemy would, trying to see through the flaws in his own reasoning. After a while he moved a knight and leaned back into the chair.

This was pointless, the only person who could point out his mistakes to him was someone other than himself.

He let his thoughts return to that boy he had sensed, the strange and cold little creature whose wise nature was so dramatically offset by his lack of feeling. His power was far greater than any he had sensed in any other child before, but did this justify his trying to turn a heartless boy into a warrior? Teach an unemotional boy concentration and you'll have the perfect killing machine. A wonderfully detached being, objective and all encompassing in his power... and so dangerously pure.

So pure he would be inhuman.

Virgo Sylph let his thoughts roam over that boy, knowing that even if he doubted his own sanity he had already made his choice.

*

"Sometimes... I wonder if it would be better for me to have died when she left," Blood whispered, his head pillowed in Ganymede's warm chest. It rose in one great heavy sigh and fell again, one long-fingered hand moving up to stroke his straight blood-coloured hair covetously.

"Might be so." Blood heard the vibration of Ganymede's deep voice in his chest, where his ear was pressed against it and smiled at that odd comfort. At least this was real, there was no lie or fantasy in the pleasure and the warmth, even if Ganymede was such a silent creature. He wasn't as unresponsive as everyone thought him to be, nor was he cold in his arms. Though outside....

"You would have preferred it that way?" Blood inquired ironically, and Ganymede laughed coldly at his question.

"You died the moment she left just the same, what's the difference?"

Cold air kissed Ganymede's chest as Blood rose on his knees upon the mattress and gave him a sharp glare; Ganymede returned it with languorous confidence, still retaining that crisp frost in his eyes that never vanished, not even in the midst of.... Blood shook himself angrily and slipped out of the bed, pushing a robe over his shoulders he moved to stand near one of the candles they had lit, its flickering flame making his hair seem a darker and even deeper red.

"You've been acting strange," Blood whispered, his breath making the flame dance, casting odd shadows about the room. The soft rustle of silk against skin made him shiver and when he looked up Ganymede had got up as well, with only a long black shirt covering him. He looked like a painting of a God, or something out of this world. His dark skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat, making his unnaturally pale eyes seem almost white, save for the small black pupil. The long shirt drooped slightly over his firm shoulders, falling down just a little below his hips but just enough to cover him, his silvery hair shining like mother of pearl as it flowed down over his dark body like a steady stream of moonlight.

"Many things have happened," Ganymede sighed, warming his hands on another candle, staying far away from his lover.

"You've been pushing me away... still are."

"It's time to take action..." Ganymede murmured.

"This isn't just about Claroscuro or Athena.. is it? You really want to train a pupil..." the awe in Blood's voice made Ganymede smile sadly.

"Yes, and no."

"What do you mean?" Blood turned away from him, fingers clenching in the rough fabric of the robe had had thrown over himself to ward off the night chill. Nothing could protect him from Ganymede's natural coldness.

"I think we both need something else to worry about...other than the past," Blood flinched at those words, eyes narrowing.

"Come again?" he demanded, his voice a silky stroke of violence.

"She's not coming back Blood, come to terms with it. If you gave her up for Athena, then fulfil your duties to Athena. Otherwise, you gave her up for nothing, and your love for her was worth even less." Ganymede half expected Blood to turn around and beat him down for saying that, he did not expect the silence that followed.

"She..." a convulsive swallow was heard, "...she might still be waiting for me, out there."

"I doubt it Blood, truly." Ganymede watched quietly as Blood's shoulders shook and the robes slipped down one shoulder to pool on his bent elbow.

"I can't help wonder if she's alive at all....it's impossible to tell." The small hitching laugh that followed made Ganymede sigh, drawing close to his lover to push the robes back up. He rested his chin on one of Blood's shoulders and put his arms around him.

"Then go out and look for her... it's been years since she left anyway." It pained him more than he could say to utter those words, but it was perhaps the only way to end this once and for all.

"Where to start..." Blood's eyes lifted and they were glazed with unshed tears.

"Graveyards," Ganymede whispered in his year like it was an endearment. "Start with the Graveyards, and then... you'll see."

"I'll see....? You won't help me then?" his pleading tone was all too strange and vulnerable. Ganymede laughed gently and tightened his arms around him.

"I have a duty to complete, and when I do that...." Only they Goddess knew what would happen then, but if he could go through with that, then perhaps he might find something else in his life. Something other than this futile game of self-deception and unrequited love.

"....the Graveyards then...."
Let her be dead, Ganymede prayed, let her be dead and buried. So that this nightmare ends.

*

Annika stumbled over the cobblestones of this strange place, shoulder hunched as countless marble eyes stared her down with implacable force. She shied away from the flocks of Greek and Roman styled statues, feeling unusually small and vulnerable under their stony gaze. She clutched her bag tighter against herself and hurried after her brother. Magus paused every now and then to be certain she was following him, so he heard her startled gasp as the huge villa swam into their sight.

"B-brother....?" she looked up at him, her huge blue eyes beside themselves with fear.

"You'll stay here from now on, with a friend of mine," her face twisted in anguish as she saw through the implications of this.

"Not Pathos..." she pleaded, her childlike face contorting in desperation as he gave her an empty glare and, placing one hand in between her shoulders, pushed her forward silently as he too picked up the pace again. Annika shook her head in disbelief, but said nothing further.

When Luis stepped out to meet them, Magus wordlessly pushed her towards him, his eyes showing nothing more than a dark need to hurt and be hurt in return.

"You were right," he said to Luis, his voice perfectly controlled.

Annika gave him a pleading look, which he ignored, shivering when Luis' laugh broke their reverie. "Welcome to my humble home, in that case," he spoke in perfect Swedish, his black eyes dancing with laughter as he pried her meagre belongings from between her cramped fingers. She turned in a whirr or skirts and stared at her brother.

"Why....Magnus?" he didn't even flinch.

"I'm going to start training my successor, and you'd only distract him. You'll be taken good care of," he nodded absently, his cold blue eyes avoiding hers all the same.

"Just like that, you're getting rid of me?"

"If I ever need you, I'll come for you," he countered calmly.

"But you won't miss me?"

He never answered that question, he was walking away before Luis had even come back for her and he was completely gone by the time she had been shown to her lavish room, full of toys and dolls she had no love for.

"You'll get used to this place," Luis assured her, before reaching out to touch her hair with a little smile. "I built a lovely cage for a lovely bird."

And that was all it was.

*

It was a relatively warm afternoon when Ganymede reached France; he shivered despite the warmth and turned his head to stare at the little girl that walked by his side. If she could be called that, he reflected. Dana's girlish frame and baby cheeks spoke of youth, yet her lively and often haggardly wise eyes spoke of years beyond human comprehension. He doubted neither, and never questioned the nature of his little teacher. In all the years he had known her she had never grown, she looked to be twelve when he was seven, she still looked to be twelve more than 15 years later.

Fifteen years.

That was how long he had been immersed in his life and duties in Sanctuary. He had been the Aquarius saint for ten of those years. He felt ages old even though he was only twenty-two, and Dana probably felt a lot older and younger at the same time. How old was she? How many children like himself had she trained? How many deaths did she hide behind her childlike smile?

"Just as beautiful as I remembered...." she sighed, spreading her arms and twirling on her feet like an excited baby getting a trip to the park. Her delicate white skirt flared up over her undeveloped thighs as she spun, her hair like raven's wings fluttering in the wind. Ganymede had to admit that there was something oddly attractive, something akin to lust, about her little body and flighty moves. The allure of finding a woman's experienced smiles and knowing looks encased in the body of such a young thing, so devoid of the bitterness women with a fraction of her age would have... it was intoxicating. And there was something faintly pagan and nostalgic about the way she twirled, with her arms lifted up to the skies.

"You are making a spectacle of yourself," he warned her, trying hard not to sound reproachful. Sometimes being the pupil of such a young looking creature was too hard to manage. Getting scolded by her was an experience he could not very well define.

"I am a little girl, I can do anything and not look out of place. It's the charm of being a baby!" She winked at him and smoothed down her rumpled dress with comfortable ease.

"If you say so," he conceded with a small sigh. For a moment her violet eyes met his and he shivered. "Now can you please tell me what we are doing here?"

"In France? I thought you wanted to see it! There are so many beautiful places to visit...." Her eyes shone dreamily for a moment. Ganymede frowned deeply.

"You've been here before," he stated.

"I've been everywhere," she sniffed derisively, casting little or no importance to such a powerful truth, for it was clear her answer had not been rhetorical. Ganymede preferred not to dwell on the implications of such a fact.

"So why are we here now, specifically?" he inquired, raising one delicate silver eyebrow. She put her hands over her mouth and giggled like a prankster would before a joke. Her eyes glimmered with joy.

"I thought you'd want something to do while your idiot of a lover goes around chasing a phantom's tail all over Greece." Her small shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug and she winked at him again. Ganymede felt a slight suspicion at this; Dana rarely did things for no reason at all. She might be a child in many ways, but he knew the teacher in her and her tendency to throw veiled challenges into his path. Just like she only answered to questions with half truths, his training with her had not been so much an act of learning from her but being guided into the right paths, out of his own choosing, by her careful prodding.

"So, you know where he went?" He felt a heaviness settle in his chest as he said this, having indeed wanted to stay away from Blood for as long as his search lasted. Long though it might be.

"I also know he will never find her," Dana whispered, making him jerk and turn to look at her in surprise.

"What...?" he pushed those words past his own lips, feeling a cold weight come to rest upon his shoulders.

"He won't find her, though he will, during this search, find something else that will set his life back on track, at least for a time." She pursed her lips for a moment and stared up at her pupil with a guilty sadness shining in her eyes. "But it's the only way for him to let go... marginally."

"Will he ever let go completely?" he whispered bitterly.

"You know he can't, Ganymede.... just like you. Try though you might, you can never let go." She reached out with one of her chubby hands and touched his much longer and slender fingers. "That's why I brought you here."

"I didn't quite follow that last part, what does France have to do with Blood?" he smiled thinly and gave her a questioning look.

"Like many things, apparently nothing. You'll see in a little while." She looked around herself and seeming satisfied she grabbed his hand tighter and pulled him towards a toy store. "Come, help me find a new doll."

"New doll? You collect dolls?" he asked her incredulously, earning himself a frown and a glare.

"What would you have me collect, toy cars and aeroplanes? I'm a girl, for Athena's sake!" she muttered sullenly, still pulling him towards the store.

"Er.. no, of course not. What would you like me to get you?" he asked finally, giving into her will as he generally did. Dana smirked and pushed him into the store.

"One with a frilly lace dress and gold locks!" Ganymede shook his head impatiently and followed suit, knowing better than to go against her wishes. Old she might be, but she had a child's stubbornness.

"What's with you and dolls all of a sudden?" he growled harmlessly. Her smile faded somewhat and she stopped before a rack full of handmade china dolls, her eyes thoughtful.

"They are like getting a baby... I'll never have babies, you know? But... dolls are almost as nice. Dolls don't grow up, like me, and they don't suffer, like....you." She picked up one of the delicate toys and fingered the satin dress it wore.

"But you trained me all the same," he put in gently.

"You were my duty," she replied, without looking at him. He did not feel pain at this admission, it had been obvious all along.

"And you knew what was best for me, even if I never listened to you," Ganymede went on, a soft sad smile gracing his lips.

"I told you loving anyone or anything was a bad idea..."

"And loving dolls is a good idea?" he cut back, eyes shinning oddly. Dana put the little doll back on the shelf and gave him a long stare.

"They won't make wrong choices, because their future is frozen. I'll have nothing to regret from them."

"But you regret me?" Ganymede inquired, a tense edge to his voice.

"I regret your love," she whispered, never avoiding his gaze. It was Ganymede who looked away, biting his lips softly.

"Yes well, I regret that too. But...I can fix that when the time comes. I'll teach my pupil, when I have one, that an ice saint can never fall in love." His grave determination made Dana shiver, but she said nothing. "Love... is a foolish, useless thing."

"What if you fail just like I did?" she murmured, eyes lidded.

" I won't, because he will see what it did to me, when the time is right." Ganymede picked up one of the dolls and touched its smooth porcelain cheek.

"Then... it's all settled." He looked down at her in curiosity, and she grinned back. "I'm going to go and get some money to by one of these dolls, why don't you walk around in the meantime?"

Ganymede knew all along that she would not come back for any of those dolls. Her message had been less cryptic than usual, but the matter still remained. Why France of all places? Why this particular town whose name he didn't even know? He walked out of the store when he was sure that she was gone, and indeed, he could feel her nowhere around.

He felt something else however, a strange hint of power he couldn't quite place, so he followed it. Just as Dana had known he would, though this, Ganymede did not yet know.

*

"In other words... you want to take him away?"

"Though you try to sound affected, we both know better. You do not truly care for him, and he would be useful to me. Useful to many people."

Sylph stared down at the tall blonde woman, sensing her inner turmoil. A faint tinge of disgust crept into his own aura as he realised that it was more her enforced morals than her conscience that kept her from taking the deal.

"Must I offer you money in exchange for him?" She flinched and shook her head, clearly her pride went beyond such measures. Her long, manicured fingers stroked the small swell of her belly, where Sylph could feel the growing presence of a child. A girl.

"And if I say yes... you'll answer for him in all aspects, and I will never have to deal with him?"

"Yes."

Sapphire blue eyes pierced Sylph's much paler ones, chilling him with the degree of nonchalance this mattered produced in the older woman. Her sparse ability to feel seemed to be centred on the little spark of life that bloomed inside of her, wishing this new child were less smart, less deep and less... real. She wanted a doll, not offspring. Sylph refrained from commenting further on that matter and waited.

"You can have him then, but I do not want to find you dropping him back into my care when you tire of him, for he is a distressingly dull creature."

"Your son will be safe with me, Miss Emily."

"Should I care?"

*

Luis tensed slightly when he felt a small hand sliding into his pockets, probing carefully for a wallet or something to steal. Had he not been the highly trained assassin he was, Luis knew he would not have felt the gentle, experienced tough of the little pickpocket. With one fluid motion he turned, catching the thin little arm in a death grip, hearing the soft gasp of another child, a girl, close by.

Fiery blue eyes stared up at him defiantly, from a mud-caked boyish face, thin and strained. There was a startling hatred in those depths, and a darkness seldom found in humans at all. Behind the little boy a young girl shivered, his sister clearly.

Luis smiled delightedly as the youthful spark of potential coming from the boy made his hair stand on end, as the child's blue eyes flickered dangerously, promising pain and violence and....

"Yes...." Luis murmured, kneeling before the child, whose eyes shifted from anger to surprise. "You will do just fine."

He laughed out loud, black eyes dancing as the boy tried to wriggle out of his grip and finally gave up, panting as Luis wordlessly extended his hand to the little girl who took it quietly and followed him to his car.

Luis hummed to himself pleasantly during the long trip to his villa, where Annika waited in mute defiance, where his companions planned murders and thefts of all kinds.

"And now, I have found myself another killer," the boy looked up in fear as he said this, but Luis did not care about whom he had murdered already, as such a young age, or why. All that mattered was that straining hunger for more that the boy himself did not know yet. And the pale, silent figure of his sister, who stared out the window in a daze that, in the years to come, would never leave her.

Annika refused to meet the two children, sensing perhaps the nature of their presence. Luis did not force her into anything, content to listen to her aching songs, as she languished and died off of loneliness, trapped in his claws.

"Oh Magnus... will she even care when you come back for her?"

All things would be known, in time. And in time, Luis promised himself, he would make the boy crave for death... not his own, but the one that he could bring.

*

Blood walked into the graveyard silently, the last one he had yet to check in Greece, his last silver of hope. If there was hope to be laid in Morgana's possible death... but even in his own heart he found himself yearning to stand before a slab that proclaimed her dead, just to know that it was over for real, and there was no chance of finding her again. Just to know, for sure, that he would never again hold her, and keep that knowledge in his mind to stave off a need that had transcended all sanity.

Perhaps this was what loving someone forever was like?

"If so... I want nothing of it."

The undertaker gave him an odd look, but said nothing. Perhaps he knew better than to anger a man who carried himself so regally, like a proud feline would, after a kill. Blood sensed the man's discomfort, but his thoughts moved away from the sullen man as he felt the inimitable aura of children, quite a few of them, scattering even as they approached while other's hid, knowing better.

"As I tell you... I am pretty sure we don't have anyone under that name here..." the undertaker muttered, dragging his feet tiredly across the terrain.

"Please, all I want to do is see it myself and I will bother you no more..." Blood shivered as he felt the telltale hint of a cosmo, realising that one of the children who stared at him so keenly had the growing traces of an aura that could be trained. Could be...he shook himself and came to a stop, glaring at the spot from which the power emanated. "You have kids around here?"

"Kids? Aw damn, yes. Little thieving scum, they steal the flowers and hide here by night. I gave up on catching them long ago."

Blood felt the children begin to move and found himself gathering up his inner shields, as if those little boys represented a threat to him. The thought itself was worth a smile, though he did not manage to call one up. Marble angels stared down at him, a thousand names etched into stone, and none of them was the one he sought. The only thing that could make his life worth the effort, or worth ending it. But she would not appear, would she? She would remain like this, an unfinished business that kept him alive with the hopes of seeing her again, that kept him dead to the world because he knew he would never see her again.

Damn her!

He shuddered and looked up, his own light blue eyes scanning the area as he felt a presence come closer... the child whose aura had been dancing across the edges of his own. Such power, at such young age! Blood felt strangely irritated by the child's insisting probing to his aura, knowing even as he probed back that the boy did it unconsciously, he didn't even know he was using a technique most humans would never learn. A bit like himself, when he had been a child and his sad-eyed teacher picked him out and brought him to sanctuary, trying to find penance in his pupil rather than in himself. Just then, the man spoke to him, his raspy voice startling him out of his thoughts.

"Here we are... Maria Leighton... that is the only English name with the initials M.L. that we have here. What was the name of the lady you were looking for?"

Blood sighed sadly, shaking his head in defeat. "Leigh... Morgana Leigh."

He felt a deep sorrow pierce him, that he would never find her no matter how hard he searched, that he might spend his entire life checking through every cemetery in the world and he might still not find her, because she did not want to be found. Because she had left him... because she had not loved him enough.

"You should be glad then sir! This is the last place where people come to look." The watcher laughed and slapped his thigh, caught up in his own joke. Blood twitched, feeling an urge to skewer the man right there and then, to make him suffer for laughing like that at something like Morgana's absence from this place. Why couldn't she be dead and buried? Why wasn't she deep under the earth, where her memory could never haunt him, because it was only that: a memory?

Why?

He was raising his fist when a shadow broke out through the bushes while a pack of children fled in the opposite direction. It was the boy who came to them, the powerful little creature, who came to a stop in front of them and pinned them both with a gaze that spoke of murder and destruction. Blood felt ice creep up his spine as deep dark universes and unspoken realities flitted in the boy's gaze, pinning the other man, as a predator would do with his prey. For Blood, the enchantment lasted only a minute before his own aura overpowered that of the boy's and he cocked his head to one side, feeling the wind rustle his hair as he stared down at the child. It was an irony beyond Blood's understanding, to have come here fleeing his duties, to have come here in the search of his past, only to find his future. Already he could feel the throb of his cloth as it hummed in tune with the child's untrained aura, and Blood knew. He knew he had found his pupil.

It was a sharp and bitter laughter that broke past his lips, a mirth both agonising and delightful, mocked as he was by fate itself he laughed at the boy's expression of despair, laughed so hard tears fell from his cheeks. He stepped forward and caught the boy in his arms, holding him fast even as he writhed like and eel, even as the boy caught his eyes again, trying to enforce his superiority only to find his captor laughing even harder, struggling to keep it from turning into sobs of angry acceptance as the child's warm body pulled taut odd cords in his soul.

"Sir... are you all right... that kid might have a dagger with him. He looks small but..." Blood hushed him with a dismissive wave of his hand, staring down at the shivering for he held in his arms, touched by the vulnerable light in those powerful eyes, the need they reflected back at him reminding Blood of his own eyes, years earlier.

"I am quite all right.. though this is quite a surprise... what is your name child?"

The boy glared up at him, though Blood felt the hopeful thump of his little heart... had anyone hugged him ever, even in violence? "Milo."

"Milo? How very appropriate..." Blood said, and smiled. "My name is Blood. Scorpio Blood."

Milo swallowed carefully, leaning into the tight arms without noticing, asking for warmth with that small surrender of his body, and Blood laughed again. Not because it was funny, or because he felt like it. He laughed simply because it kept him from crying, yet he did not let go of the little boy, not for hours, until he was curled up and asleep.

"Only a monster can understand another monster," Blood whispered, and the boy shivered in his sleep, hiding his little face in Blood's shoulder. "Only a monster can love a monster..."

*

Ganymede sighed, bending down to pick up the limp body of the child. Indigo hair stuck to his pale and sweaty forehead, pale cheeks dusty and cold when he touched them. The boy flinched in his sleep, brows furrowing as some unknown nightmare flashed in his mind. Ganymede felt the cold whisper of an aura touching his, the child's subconscious response.

He knew now why Dana had brought him here.

The boy weighed a lot less than he looked to be, and Ganymede judged, by the feel of his aura, the he was not the twelve years he represented, but more likely six or seven. The body felt warm and comfortable to hold, though Ganymede did not enjoy the pulsing life he sensed, nor the knowledge of what was to come. He had wanted a pupil, and here was a possibility. But....

But....

Blue eyes opened groggily, and widened as they touched Ganymede's own. He watched in detached fascination as emotion rippled across the child's face, a sudden yearning ache to be held followed by a swift almost tearful look, and the urge to pull away and never be touched again. Ganymede let him jump off his lap, even as he sensed the child's desperate state of mind. His eagerness to die was appalling, though Ganymede could understand the feeling, the certainty that death was better. He stared down at the child, and voiced his question, knowing that they boy was thinking.

"Is it now?" Ganymede's soft voice seemed to chill the boy; his dark eyes widened even more.

"There is no reason for me to be here," the boy murmured, keeping the tears out of his voice. He trembled as Ganymede pierced him with a look, holding him captive in his gaze.

"That is not a good enough reason to die. How can you have a reason to die if you don�t even have one to live?"

The boy had no answer to that, and Ganymede felt a brief resurgence of emotion at the quivering uncertainty that laced the boy's aura. A hope in love that Ganymede would crush in the years to come.... as it should have been done to him.

He stood and straightened his grey jacket, aware of the child's awe look

"So you have no reason to die?" The boy shook his head and lowered his gaze to the floor, twisting emotions fought in his heart as he avoided Ganymede's eyes. "Then come with me, child."

He regarded the boy coldly, dispelling his sudden weakness in the face of a child that was so like him in so many ways, and that would surely suffer more than he had. Or less?

"Come with you? But...where?"

"Does it matter where? Come with me and find something to do with your life. It�s so worthless even you don�t want it... why not put it to a better use than beggary?"

"Are giving me the chance to find a reason to live?" Ganymede shrugged at the boy's question, casting his eyes away with hurtful indifference.

"Perhaps a good reason to die...but it will be better than this, no?" The boy nodded, his eyes acquiring a new depth. Ganymede let out a breath of annoyed satisfaction and knelt before him, taking those little shoulders in his hands.

"What is your name child?"

"Gabriel."

And so he led the boy away, into a life that he knew the child could not guess at for the time being. He took the opportunity fate presented him, and gave into the weak need to warn the child only once, when he uttered a statement that someone should have told him.

"From the moment you said yes, your life is no longer your own."

It never would be, from that moment on. Ganymede knew it was more than fate that had brought him here, he knew Dana had had her hand in this. Perhaps that was why he accepted the boy as his pupil, even though he saw the need to be loved in his eyes, and vowed to kill it.

*

Magus sighed, stepping into his temple just in time to notice Luis' presence in it. The dark, perverse joy he radiated made the Pisces saint want to retch. Was he as twisted as the Cancer saint? He who had surrendered his fragile little sister to such a monster?

"What do you want, Pathos?"

"I heard you found a pupil," Luis giggled lowly and slithered into his line of sight, raising his arms over his head the stretch himself like a lazy cat. "Is he worth giving up your sister for?"

"Does it matter any longer?" Magus whispered, drawing a tired hand over his eyes, trying to rub out years of pain and knowledge that served no purpose.

"Sylph found himself a pet-project too," Pathos went on, a smile perched upon his lips though his eyes remained as always, preternaturally cold.

"And you?" Magus inquired softly, feeling the weight of a thousand battled he would never fight pressing down upon his shoulders and his heart.

"But of course. The pupil-mania has taken over Sanctuary. You will never guess who else came in just now, hand in hand with a little wraith with killer's eyes..."

Magus felt a sob rise in his throat, unable to contain his sudden exhaustion as Luis danced on his feet, revelling in the feeling of pain and tired despair that clung to him. That clung to them all

"Don't tell me... Blood?"

"And Ganymede too... looks like we won't be kept up at night by mating rites again...." Luis laughed aloud and leaned on a pillar, coal black eyes fixed on Magus', waiting for a reaction.

"How is Annika?"

"She refuses to talk, eats very little... sings all day. Wanna come and see her?" Luis goaded, licking his lips in delight.

"No." Magus' clipped violent answer sent the Cancer saint into another fit of giggles.

"I knew you'd say that."

Magus sighed and opened his mouth to say something... but what? Was there any point in saying anything at all, to anyone? Here they were, readying the soil for the future, for the crops the children Pathos announced would harvest. And they, who had given their lives into preparing themselves for a war that never came... they, like Magus himself, would follow Claroscuro into oblivion at the hands of the children they were training. Those children, who still gazed up at them with some degree of hope... or love.

The future would bring glory to them, as it would bring oblivion to those who brought them into existence.

"In the end no one will remember us, no one will care."

"Does this even matter? Warriors don't have gravestones Magus." Luis smiled sarcastically, drawing a finger over his lips in mock seduction. "All we have is here and now."

All they had was death.

*

Ganymede did not expect what he found when he came back. The sight of Blood proudly displaying his pupil was both disquieting and new. He reached out and touched his own wards' aura, sensing a strange distress in him. Blood's pupil reminded Ganymede of Blood so acutely that the pain was almost physical, just as Gabriel reminded him of himself.

"Life is like a cycle," Dana told him, later that night. "Sometimes it just keeps repeating itself."

So Ganymede mourned an early mourning, not for himself, not for Blood and not for the guilty-looking Dana. He mourned for Milo; Blood's little silver of hope, because no one else could see what he saw. Her mourned every time he saw Milo's eyes light up in hope, every time he saw Camus walk into the room. Blood still came to him regularly, needing of him what he could not ask of anyone else... release. And Ganymede knew that Gabriel saw everything, knew that Gabriel knew the truth. But he said nothing, he kept himself to his drawings just as Blood kept himself to his haikus, until the time was right.

*

Saga smiled vaguely, waving a hand to acknowledge Blood's greeting. The Scorpio saint had come back from his futile search, leading a child that had raised Sanctuary's gossip into a fever pitch. Though Saga had seen him often, and had conversed about him with Blood too, he had never spoken to the child. There was something in him that was so powerfully attractive it scared him. Nevertheless, Saga walked closer to them, drawn by curiosity to that powerful little aura that pulsed with life against his own, so like Blood's, and yet so alive. The whispers in his mind said nothing, falling into complete silence as he drew closer. Blood's pale blue eyes could not hold a candle to the child's eager, brilliant gaze, so full of adoration and awe. Saga found himself combing his hair with his fingers.

"And you are...?" He asked softly, touched by the warm light in the boy's eyes. A light that drew him to the child, captivating him with its sheer intensity though he feigned nonchalance.

"Milo, sir," the boy answered back with an easy smile, a hint of seduction startling Saga. The boy could not be older than fourteen, but there was a hint of maturity in his eyes and stance that made Saga smile... made him feel uniquely drawn as he had not felt in years. Not since Kanon had left, not since the whispers in his mind had begun slicing him to pieces, bit by bit, inside out.

But the boy's smile was sweet and enticing enough to make him forget about that, and it caused an odd warmth to start up in his heart. An odd ache, to hold that growing light in his arms, basking in it, and to bring it into an even higher brilliance.

"Ah, Milo, I shall remember that."

*

"Some futures are scattered across time and space, only to be brought into harmony, into meaning, when they are needed. There is no sense in crying over those who will have no tears to shed, just as there is no sense in crying over those who make them so..."

Sylph whispered gently, stroking his pupil's long hair. Blue eyes opened marginally to stare at him through veiled lashes.

"...but affection is never senseless."

Will closed his eyes again and turned to face away from him, his aura, laid bare, reflected nothing, offered no answer. Sylph had always known it would be so, but he possessed a rare and useless trait called hope that dared him to believe where others would have not done so. It was with hope in his heart that he disappeared one day, leaving Will to his own devices as he sought an answer to the question he could never quite formulate. He lived many years, far away, remembering how decades earlier, he and a group of children had walked into Sanctuary to become heroes and he died, years later.

Alone.