Monday, March 8, 2010
Will: at the end of the day
I would like to record this fact for posterity: When Louis de Pointe du Lac says that he is entirely at one’s service, he is telling a bald-faced lie. That or he missed my hints on the ride on back, but I find this latter possibility remote at best, as they were rather broad hints.
However, I shall put aside Louis’s uncanny ability to pay very precise attention and still completely avoid taking one’s meaning, and return to my homecoming. 
Being once again in this room, and seeing the ladies and Voldemort at long last, was nearly overwhelming; perhaps I had not fully credited how much I missed them. I stopped a moment to watch them and recover from the intensity of my relief at being home; Louis respectfully faded into the background whilst I got ahold of myself. (This proves his perceptiveness and thus goes even further to convince me that his ignorance of my wishes is entirely willful.)
Ariel was the first to spot us, and soon after her cry of delight, we stood upon the dresser and I, in Tara’s arms. The others were, naturally, glad to see me as well, although Ariel was unduly distracted by Louis, who had been gone only a few hours to my three months. 
The babble of greetings was, however, cut short by Meep. He announced himself, as is his wont, with a meep, and the conversation died rapidly. 
“Is - is that, um -” Tara started.
“Is that alive?” Mulan finished, recovering from her evident astonishment enough to sound suspicious.
“Meep is most certainly entirely alive,” I said firmly. “Why?”
“A stuffed animal? That’s just silly,” Jasmine said.
“It did bother me, but I couldn’t place why,” Louis mused.
“Because it doesn’t happen,” Jasmine insisted.
“He’s adorable!” Ariel said. “Mulan - can we -”
“Ariel,” she protested. “We’ve got an evil overlord and a vampire. Could you just wait until we figure out what’s going on?”
“I don’t know how we’re going to figure it out,” Tara said, patting Meep dubiously. He meeped. “It’s against all laws of God and man, but here it is, and I don’t know how to even start… unless you’ve got any ideas?” This last was directed at Lord Voldemort, who shook his head. “And we don’t have any other experts on magic. If Giles or…” she shrugged. “But I don’t know.”
“Dumbledore would know what to do,” Lord Voldemort said mournfully.
“David would at least know where to start,” Louis murmured wistfully, then looked rather surprised at himself.
“Dumbledore wouldn’t have to know where to start,” Lord Voldemort muttered. “He’d already be finished.”
“We know, sweetie,” Tara said tolerantly, trading a significant look with Jasmine.
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “I’m sure we can all think of someone who’d be handy to have around, but we could also try working with what we’ve got.”
“Where’s his other eye?” Ariel asked.
“I have it,” I said guiltily, handing it over. “I’m sure it can be reattached.” I should perhaps not have provoked that cat.
“So until then, he’s in a strange country, half blind, about to undergo surgery,” Ariel said. She blinked her startling eyes.
“Alright,” Mulan said, and Ariel’s face lit up. “I didn’t mean we had to turn him out, it’s just that things have been so…”
“Yes,” I interjected as Ariel made off with Meep and the eye, apparently intent on his surgery taking place sooner rather than later, “how have things been? I understand there’s been some cause for alarm.” 
“Well, the spiders are still around,” said Tara, “but they’ve got help now. Snakes.”
“Really big ones,” Mulan said. “That Voldemort can talk to.”
“They won’t listen to me, though!”
“No,” she acknowledged. “Anyway, they’re definitely unfriendly and uninformative. And then we had a flood.”
“It’s been a little bit biblical here,” Tara said, with a distinct lack of condemnation worse than any actual accusations might have been. “How was Spain?”
“Sunny,” I said, abashed. “And I fear I failed in my objective, technically speaking - but I did retrieve something of use.” I produced one of the odd stones from the beach in Cádiz. “Lord Voldemort, I believe I have something of yours.”
“Oh," he said breathlessly, approaching me with trembling hands. He took the stone and cradled it gently in his arms, all but cooing to it.
Ariel approached him, expression reverent. “Is that…”
“Yes. I can feel it," he said. “The first of my Horcruxes.” 
Mulan closed her eyes and looked to be praying for patience.
Behind them, Louis looked contemplative, then as if he had remembered something, and then as though he were fighting the urge to laugh. His face cleared completely when Ariel turned to share their triumph with him, and I left them to it.
“I brought this back as well,” I announced, and produced the coin in question. “Since you two seemed so fond of him.” 
“Ooh, it’s Cervantes,” Jasmine said, brightening considerably. “I’ll hang it on my wall. When I have a wall to hang it on.”
“He writes in Spanish,” I informed them. “I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”
Tara snorted. “Head or tail…” When she remained alone in her amusement, she added, “Because… it’s a coin… Oh, never mind. Will,” she moved closer and lowered her voice, “What’s up with the Horcrux? Did you actually, I don’t know, feel something?”
“Yes, please,” Jasmine said. “Do tell. This is only making Ariel worse. And him, but Mulan isn’t going to be broken up about his obsessions.”
“It was an interesting rock,” I replied with a shrug. “It needn’t be anything real to help him, so long as he believes it is. I saw one like him in Spain, one who had chosen no identity…” I shuddered. “We are fortunate that he has. I think us better off in supporting his delusions than allowing him to see their falsity and reverting to that, that empty husk, aware only of pain.”
“That’s… actually… well, good.” Tara patted my hand. “Thank you, then.”
I was distracted momentarily from my well-deserved accolades by Louis taking his leave of us, apparently for the day. His departure was flawlessly polite, but most rapid. Ariel’s variation was its only prominent feature; she shook his hand solemnly, and as though this had become their custom. He looked touched; Mulan, immensely irritated. 
“Gone all day, then?” I inquired wistfully.
“Comes with the territory,” Mulan said. “Of being a vampire. At least, apparently.”
“It does,” Tara said. “I mean, not where I come from - they can at least stay awake - but his…” She waved her hands about. “I don’t know. His kind. They pass out all day.”
Realizing that Mulan had in fact already mentioned that Louis was a member of the growing legion of the undead, I managed to cover my shock and asked only whether he’d let slip in casual conversation the relative nature of his being a living soul.
“No,” Tara said, blushing furiously. “I - um, I actually - that was me. I read those books. When I was younger. It didn’t occur to me…”
“I’d rather know than not,” Mulan said firmly.
I decided to forego asking which books these might be in favor of changing the subject, tact being one of my many gifts, and asked after this flood they had suffered in my absence. And so we traded stories well into the coming morning. 
Having been up all night, most the others retired for naps soon thereafter. I was forced to come to terms with the new sleeping arrangements: as Louis disappeared completely for the day, I would not be sharing quarters with him. Instead, Lord Voldemort would be sharing my side of the drawer. Even after my experiences in Spain, which have opened my eyes to many possibilities concerning love, I find myself utterly uninterested in Lord Voldemort, so this is rather pointless. At least I can once more gaze upon the bewitching features of my Morgan.
The exception to this retreat was Tara, who suggested that we go to see the house. With a promise to scream if the spiders or snakes put in an appearance, we essayed this venture and were, at last, alone. 
“We cleaned it up a little,” Tara said. “Moved the furniture to the attic for safekeeping, wiped the place down, tried to get the carpet to stick to the floor again… But. Things have been crazy.”
“So I gather,” I said. “I am sorry, you know - that I didn’t find her. I left word everywhere I could, so that she might find us should she happen to be in Spain at some future date.”
“Will,” she said. “You don’t have to find Willow. But we have to talk about -”
“And I do regret not telling you before I left. It was ill-done of me.”
“That. Will…”
“O,” I said, the words seeming to leap in response to my desperation, “never say that I was false of heart,
“Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
“As easy might I from myself depart
“As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie…” I coughed. “Well, you take my meaning.”
Tara sighed. “You have to tell me next time.”
“I swear it.”
“That’s the last time you’re poetry-ing your way out of something.”
I nodded.
“Did you read that?”
“No,” I realized. In fact, I hadn’t had my book while I was gone at all. “I think I may have remembered it.”
She smiled and took my hand. “Good, then. Now let’s go back and get some sleep.” 
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