Sleeping on his side with his back to the door, Mael groggily raised his head, trying to focus on the wall in front of him. "Wha ... What? Dad? What is it?" Not able to see who it was speaking to him, he rolled over, staring up at his father.

"Son, get dressed and come with me. We must speak of urgent matters."

"You're joking, right? It's..." he looked over at the clock. "It's three fu... three thirty in the morning. What are you talking about, what's so darned important we need to talk now?"

BC didn't reply, only stood, motioning for his son to also rise. Mael flung the bedcovers off to the side, grumbling under his breath. But then, thinking the better of it, along with what Renee had told him, he stopped his grumbling and dutifully complied. When Mael finished dressing, BC asked him to follow. They walked the length corridor, down the elevator, through the front lobby of the hotel, and then out into the night. BC didn't say anything for quite a while as they tread down the nearly deserted streets. Coming to a park, he walked to the fountain at its center, sitting on the raised concrete rim.

Mael looked at his father, and then took a seat beside him, glancing up at the waning moon. "Dad, what's on your mind? Something's been bothering you for a few days now. What gives?" He peered over at BC, blinking to focus through the sleepy haze that still lingered in his sight.

"Maelgwn, son," he lovingly placed a hand on Mael's shoulder and sighed. "There is a war brewing. I can feel it. And I don't mean a physical earthly war, although what occurs in this plane of existence does have its' counterpart in the other realms of existence."

Mael's forehead wrinkled as he braced himself for a very deep conversation. His father had only spoken to him twice before like this, but this, this seemed different. Imperceptibly he leaned over to BC so he wouldn't miss one word his father spoke.

Turning to look up at the sky, BC clasped his hands together and rested them in his lap. Oh how he longed to be soaring over the earth, rejoicing in the freedom of flight and from the shackles of this world. "Mael, evil is gathering its forces together. Each passing day its influence over this world grows stronger, more oppressive." He gazed back at Mael, his eyes becoming two orbs of fire burning into Mael's soul. "I asked you to watch over Robert for a very good reason. If evil should acquire possession of him not only is his life in jeopardy, but the whole of this world is as well. You are still young yet, just barely more than a pup..."

The hair on the back of Mael's neck suddenly stood on end. If one more person called him a 'pup' there was no fucking way he could be held responsible for what he would and could do. "Dad, could you just not call me that. I am so sick of people calling me a pup anymore ... I've had it. It's driving me crazy!"

BC looked quizzically at him. "Who else has called you a pup, son?"

Mael shifted his seat, a little uncomfortable and uncertain as to whether or not he should have said anything. There was a pregnant moment's pause before Mael answered his father's question. "A few people. Um... ah, some girl named Renee for one. I think she's a cat, a Bastet. But hey, I could have been hallucinating, right?" He tried to laugh it off, but a scowl covered his father's face.

"A lady cat, humm. Where, in the shop or up in the apartment?"

"She was in my room ... I think." He shook his head. "I could be wrong, Dad. I was having some pretty weird dreams that night."

"What did she say to you, anything?"

Mael chuckled. "It's hard to say what she said. She doesn't speak plainly, that's for sure. It all came out... what... like, in metaphor or something like that."

"All right, can you give me an example of what was said?"

"Well..." He thought about that one for a moment, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. "Well, she said something like 'The eyes can only see what the temper is willing,' and 'the lesson and the riddle is the world, the world of the eyes."

BC leaned back a little and let out a chuckle. "Mael, what she was attempting to do was to teach you to think and look at the world through your heart and not your head. Did you learn anything?"

Mael shrugged. "I'm not sure, exactly. She said I had learned the lesson, but all I did was tell her to get away from me instead of teasing. I, I don't know. She was coming on to me, but she didn't want me." He shook his head again. "I can't stand it when girls play around like that. What, they think guys are made of steel or something?" He looked at BC. "Dad, she said that I will never know or understand what you and Robert have to offer until I see with a true heart." His head tilted slightly. "What do you have to offer?"

His father smiled. "Did she say it in that fashion?"

Mael sat up straighter, pleased with his bit of new understanding and knowledge. "No, she didn't. That's what I understood her to say."

BC ran a hand down his son's back. Maelgwn was growing up. He was beginning to understand. Albeit in small doses, but soon, very soon, those floodgates were going to burst open and then there would be no stopping the sponge that would be his heart and mind.

"Mael, yesterday, when we took Robert for his first flying lesson, what did you see?"

Mael sighed and scratched at the scruff growing on his face. "Nothing. I ran over to the side of the cliff hoping to heaven I wouldn't see any bodies. I saw nothing."

BC pursed his lips together, and then nodded. "All right, your physical eyes saw nothing. What did your spiritual eyes see?"

Mael's stare narrowed, looking at his father as if he had just grown a second head. "What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘my spiritual eyes'? I only have one set of eyes." He snorted at the ridiculousness of the question.

BC placed a finger beside his nose as he pondered Mael's statement. "Mael, please, think again. And while you are thinking, look deep into yourself. What did you see when you stood by the cliff edge?"

Mael snorted again and shook his head, but he closed his eyes to 'look deeper into himself.' Then slowly he exhaled as he'd seen his father do numerous times. Gradually he felt himself sinking, slipping off. He was standing beside the cliff edge, looking down, then up into the air, and then..."There were two... balls, sort of. They, uhh, they kinda looked like large soap bubbles. You know, clear, but with little rainbows moving around on the surface."

BC chuckled softly to himself. "What is inside those soap bubbles?" he quietly asked.

Mael shook his head again. "I don't know. There's this... music. I don't know. I hear this music. I got tired. The music put me to sleep. I felt... safe." He sniggered, opening his eyes to look over at BC. "Dad, I felt... inside, I felt happy, secure."

BC pulled Mael over to himself to give his son a hug. "Good. Always think of that moment. Use that as your anchor to Eyes." He gave Mael a kiss on the temple then let go. Pointing to Mael's heart he whispered, "The eyes can only see..." Then he pointed to Mael's head, "what the temper is willing. Do you understand? Your heart is the eyes, or gateway, opening, whatever you wish to call it, to the land of your soul, the real you, the you that is spirit. Your eyes can only see when the temper, your mind, does not stand in the way. When what you think or perceive as reality no longer clouds or puts a veil between you and the truth."

Mael nodded, and then a smile crossed his face. "Dad, could you teach me to sing?"

BC let out a laugh that almost sounded like the call of an eagle. He patted Mael's back. "Son, if I could I would, but you have too much of your mother in you." He became serious again at the thought of Mael's mother, and that questioning look in Mael's eyes. Oh, how many times he has seen that look when Mael was a child. Then, gratefully enough, as time passed, Mael stopped asking. But he could no longer avoid the question. "Mael, your mother and I realized early on that we could not stay together. There were too many outside influences that pulled at us: her devotion to her tribe, my devotion to an age-old duty. She and I spoke extensively about your future, and it was decided that you would gain more from my influence than to live in the tribe."

"Why?"

"Because, Mael, you are my son. While most of your abilities come from your mother there is one thing for which she will never be able to prepare you."

Mael tilted his head again, quizzically, waiting for his father to continue.

"Your mother will die. Everyone around you will die. But you will not, not right away. You shall live a very long life, Mael. When you finally see the end of your age you shall be approximately a thousand years old. No other garou shall live to that age naturally. It is not part of them. It is a part of you. That and your ability to see and keen that of the spirit others can not." He waited for this information to penetrate Mael's mind before continuing.

"In ages past that are now dead and forgotten, servants of creation were known as the Nephilim. Some had taken daughters from the creatures created by the One, these humans, for wife. Their children were the titans that walked this world, because they were neither and both servants of creation and human. Some humans had called them gods and worshipped them as such. That blasphemy proved to be the downfall of humans in the first age. It was a very sad ending to such a promising glorious beginning."

Mael could see the story of ages past cascading through the sad tired eyes of his father. He could see the beauty and splendor of a new earth decay under the destruction and heedless nonchalant haughty pride of a race of creatures that saw themselves equal to if not better than the Creator. Sorrow hit him in the pit of his stomach, turning it inside out.

BC glanced over to his son. "Mael, you were meant for something special. I do not know what that is yet, but I do know that I can and will prepare you as best as I am capable. I am pleased that this cat has come to you, to begin the process of opening your eyes to the real world around you."

He smiled a weary smile. "It's late, and I am very tired. We must rest." BC stood, extending a hand to his son. "Come. We have a long way to travel and the road will be difficult."

Standing Mael took his father's hand, then gave him a hug. "Robert really is my brother," he said pointing to his heart.

BC beamed, "Yes, he is."