Disclaimers: Anne Rice owns the rights to several names and I shan't contest her for them. Spoilers: Queen of the Damned. Meditations in No Particular Order by Ilah Sef, 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) The water, beneath the glittering lights, was a vibrant aqua blue that the eye refused to accept as natural. I sat on the edge of the fountain, splashed by its soft spray; watching the ripples caress the surface of the pool. Either the water itself was tinted - which the cascading streams of the fountain did not seem to be - or else. . . I reached down and dipped my hands into the cool water; cupped them and drew them forth. Bright shimmers danced over its surface, reflecting the lights above. Somewhere a brief bird call rang out. I wasn't certain if the sound was recorded or if some small birds had found their way into the shopping center and now lived contentedly on the crumbs left behind by careless men and women. I let the clear water trickle through my fingers and fall, with little splashes, back into the pool. Clever, to paint the sides of the pool itself, so that the water reflected the color. I wondered if he had thought of it himself or if the architects of this place had made the choice. But no - this, every inch of it, was his playground. The realm of his fantasy, sculpted on his dream and whim. It had a certain beauty to it, for all of its brash modern boisterousness. Spaces within spaces, all illuminated by the clever play of light, edged in the lush green that grew in this warm climate. The outside brought within, held in a perfection nature herself would never dream of. But man is, above all things, a rational creature - one who must control his surroundings, impressing order upon them. He, in this space, had created a glittering wonderland, set as the crown jewel within his private empire. The Night Island. I dipped my fingers into the water once more, trailed them through the cool liquid. One could loose one's self within the thoroughfares and shops of the public island, the places where the mortals came to play, to talk and laugh, wide awake and joyous in hours once only we had occupied. I had walked among them, wandered through shops and cafes, a silent ghost within their midst. There was something heady simply in the crush of their bodies, the sound of their voices - I had been too long alone, with naught but my own thoughts to keep my company. Here, amidst so many, it was as though I stood before the crash of the surf upon the shore, deafened and overwhelmed. The fountain had called to me as a place of some meager quiet, a resting point to sit, watching quietly without being swept up in their crowds. I leaned against the lip of the pool, staring down into its unearthly blue depths. Coins, silver and copper, rested against the bottom of the pool, thrown there by passerbys. They winked up through the water, wavering with each ripple. Above them, distorted, I could catch my own reflection. My hair hung down about my face, tickling my eyes, and unthinkingly I reached up to gather it back in my hands. "Here." The low voice jerked my upright and a hand, pale blunt tipped fingers and the raw boned wrist, held something out to me. A circle of thick elastic, vibrantly green, held together by a small band of metal. I took it wordlessly, wrapping it around what of my hair that I could and letting the remaining strands, too short to be secured properly, resume framing my face. He reached out, fingertips just brushing a dangling lock. "We should have grown it longer." I smiled, hiding the gesture with one hand. He rarely meant such things humorously and I hated to offend him by taking them so. "It only grew as quickly as it would, Mael. There are limitations to everything." His reply was non-verbal, a grumble of grudging assent. I beckoned him to sit, joining me at the edge of the fountain. Unsurprisingly, he disdained, though one booted foot did come to rest upon the tiled lip as he leaned forward, arms crossover over his denim-clad knee. For one moment it struck me; how terribly, horribly different it all was. There had been a time, one I could remember clearly, when we had sat together upon the hard packed earthen floor of a crude hut, clad in tunic and leggings, the afternoon sun pouring warm through the door. And now - now the light was too bright, glaringly artificial in the darkness of night; the surroundings a modern mesh of glass and steel, concrete and shapes we, in our youths, had never dreamed of. The rushing babble, all around, of a tongue that had not even been conceived then. And we, dressed in mimicry of the era, jeans and cotton t-shirts, a suede jacket thrown across his shoulders. . . we fit here poorly, he and I, two relics of a bygone age. He frowned, slipping off the dark tinted glasses he wore as he glanced at me sidelong. His hair, golden where mine was nearly white, was braided back sharply along the curve of his skull. Practical, and he had always been that - but the severity was something I did not recall of the mortal man who had taught me his customs even as I offered up my own. No, that had come later, through the decades and centuries since. "You're alright?" He was ever blunt and two thousand years had done naught but pare that bluntness down to the barest minimum of spoken word. "That bitch didn't - " "No." My world trembled, cracking, if I thought of it. And so, resolutely, I did not think. "I'm fine, now." He hesitated, studying me, then slowly nodded. "Good." He straightened, as though some weight had been lifted from his broad shoulders. "Good, then. I'd wondered." "Did you?" The words escaped my tongue before I could think better of how they must sound, fueled with honest surprise. He looked away and flushed, the barest of faint tints spread across his cheeks, visible only to myself. "I would have come." I had, all unwittingly, put him on the defensive and his voice was gruff with it. "When I heard you, I would have come. Wouldn't have left it to that girl of yours, or the priest, but Maharet and Jessica - " "Ah." I cut him short rather abruptly. "The young one. I understand." I didn't, but it was enough to know that he had thought of it. I extended my hand and after a moment more he met me, palm to palm, fingers entwined. "Thank you. For thinking it." He nodded, wordless; pressed my hand and then drew away once more. Dropping at last to sit on the fountain edge, he reached down abruptly and fished forth a coppery coin from the pool. A penny, here in the United States, the lowest of the denominations. Flicking away droplets of water, he extended the coin to me. There was something very like the glint of hidden humor in his eyes. "Here. Make a wish." Startled, I let him put the wet coin in my hand. "A wish? I thought it was from travelers, to return here." Mael shook his head, sighing. "No, you're thinking of the one in Roma. In America, they make wishes. Whatever wish you want. Just throw the coin in as you make it." "Any wish you want? No wonder they call Americans decadent." I turned the penny over in my fingers, wiping it dry. The profile of some notable personage was stamped upon it but I could not recall, from all of the many coins I had seen and carried, who he was. "I can't." "Why not?" Bending, I slipped the penny back within the water, watching it tumble gracefully to the bottom. "It was already within the fountain. That was someone else's wish. I can't take it from them." He stared and I was hard pressed to bite back a smile, knowing I had quite thoroughly startled him. Shifting his weight to his other hip, he felt within the confines of a pocket and produced several more coins, two copper, one silver. Taking one of the pennies, he handed it to me firmly. "There. Use that one." I took it from him, the metal cool to the touch. It was only a coin, with less metal content then they had once had, ridiculously light and tiny. Worn by the touch of years of fingers, tarnished with handling. A penny, nothing more. Yet Mael was watching, expression as serious as always. I turned my back to the dancing streams of the fountain and closed my eyes, thinking. A wish? Anything I wanted? My mind strayed, searching for the one perfect thing, and again my world quavered around me. If I could have any one, singular thing. . . "A wish, Marius," he prompted quietly. "Make a wish." I pressed the coin to my lips, breathed the murky tang of the copper. Then, in one swift gesture, I sent it spinning over my shoulder and heard it land with a soft splash within the pool of the fountain. A wish made. And though it was ridiculous and childish, I felt a little better for it. When I opened my eyes he was smiling, a rare expression that touched his eyes more than his lips. Holding up the other penny, he studied it briefly, then flipped it easily into the water. "You never know if the gods are watching," he explained, straightening. "Which gods?" I asked. It was an old jest between us and drew a quick snort of laughter from him. "All of them," he replied easily. "In this day, it's better not to say." Standing, he offered me a hand up, which I took. "Are you going back to the others?" Too many faces I knew and others I didn't, all clustered about like pale swathes of lilies, each one wreathed round with prickly thorns. "No," I answered. "Not yet. I thought I might look some more at the shops." His expression was disdainful, mockingly so. "Oh. Of course, you've been looking at nothing but snow for years. Whatever possessed you?" There, buried beneath the sour expression, was the voice of the man I had known when we had both drawn breath on lazy summer afternoons. I smiled and let him see it. "It was quiet," I replied truthfully. "But I don't think I'll do it again anytime in the future." His hand caught my wrist, holding fast for a moment before letting go. "Don't," he said seriously. "Never again." It wasn't snow alone that he spoke of but the rest remained unsaid, shining behind his eyes as he looked into mine. Touched, I reached to cover his hand, pressing it before withdrawing. "I won't," I promised softly. "Not if I can help it." "Good." Topic bluntly finished, he turned to look at the shops around us. His hand crept up to swat at the tail of my hair. "You either need to get a hairband, or have that cut. Which will it be?" "It seems ridiculous to cut it this late in the evening. A hairband, then, I suppose." I drew the green elastic from my hair, handing it back to him. He knotted it easily into place at the queue at the nape of his neck as I shook mine free once more. "Where do you think I can find one here?" "Are you jesting?" He strode away, slowing until I came abreast of him. "If it's manufactured, you can find it here. Just look for it." "Or," I countered, "you could show me where you purchased yours." "I thought that was what I was doing," he replied with his characteristic impatience, but the smile still hovered about the fringes of his eyes. I smiled back and fell into step beside him. -Fin- (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~pres0049/Storypage.html) **************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. Go to AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
