For as long as he could remember, he had wanted to fly.

He was the only one that he knew who had this dream. The other boys in the city had comparatively more mundane desires. They wanted horses, or carts, or sweet breads from the store. When asked about the future, some replied that they wanted to become teachers, or doctors. They were content to race around the city square and steal apples and swim in the nearby rivers, splashing and cavorting and generally having a good time.

No, not him. Each day after school or after his chores he would do the same thing - go out and walk in the grassy fields around his house, staring at the sky. Or he would climb the hill furthest away from the town, as if by getting a few feet more off the ground he could get closer to that vast blue that stretched above him.

The neighbors would sit and shake their heads whenever they saw him at his activities. The boy's addled, some would say. It's a stage, others said. And others still would look at his parents, who would look abashed and away. They didn't know what afflicted their only child either, to make him forego play and work and spend the better part of each day in what seemed like a daze, always looking up at the sky.

What he loved best were the airplanes and airships that ever so often flew ahead. He often thought they looked like birds soaring above him, winging high in the sky, graceful and beautiful. The airshows where they would be many of them were too far away from him to attend, but the hill afforded him a decent view of what was going on. There was never a day where he missed one, and rarely still any time where he couldn't be found on the hill, gazing in rapt attention at the flying ships. When he got home he would tell his parents how he was going to get into one of them when he was older, or better yet, build one!

When he finished school his course was simple and certain - go to the academy and become an engineer, or a pilot. His parents had sighed and shook their heads and wished him well. His father had wanted him to take over the farm, and his mother thought that perhaps a trade might suit him, carpenter, or shoemaker - something respectable. But they knew that nothing else but the open sky would satisfy him, and so after buying him a new suit and all the books that he needed, they bade him a fond farewell.

He arrived at the academy without incident and his first year there was bliss. He applied himself to his studies with such vigor and tenacity that the teachers there stared in astonishment at this quiet, serious youth from the faraway villages that appeared to do nothing but read and write each and every day. He cared not for the girls that batted their eyelashes at him, or the parties that his fellow classmates seemed to live for. One thing and one thing only consumed him from dawn to dusk - the dream of flight.

But then the war came and everything changed. There were no more dances or parties to be had. The gay smiles of the pretty girls changed to frowns and eyes that once had sparkled in childish innocence now were squeezed tightly in pain. Where once there had been jokes and horseplay in class, now there was nothing more the drone of the teacher's voices and the scrawl of pens on paper.

The war was bad enough, but what tore him apart more than anything was the change in the planes. As the months dragged on he saw the designs of his dreams change. Curving wood was replaced with harsh metal, paper and cloth with screws and rivets. Where once supple beams of oak had been bent to enable them to go ever higher, now black metal hugged the frames tightly. Speed was sacrificed for armor, beauty for brute strength.

He began to hate what he was studying. Where were the planes of his youth, the sleek-limbed contraptions that flew and whirled through the air with the grace of birds? Not here. They had been replaced by dark and heavy beasts of war. Doves and swallows had turned into eagles and falcons. His quick and eager stride to his classes had become a heavy slog through mud, the bright spark of his ideas fading to grim reality.

His only solace was in his own ideas and creations. He saved all his notes from the classes and even as the curriculum changed, his own plans did not. He spent night after night at the library,

putting together designs fanciful and majestic. In his mind and fantasies the war had never come, and the planes that he saw were still the same ones that flew high and fast through the sky that he so adored and longed for.

Then came the letter. His father's farm was hard-pressed to make ends meet what with the war raging on. They were fast running out of money, and so he would have to come home.

When the headmaster came to dismiss him, all full of meaningful advice and stern regret, he nodded and said yes politely and but secretly he hid the diagrams that he had drawn in the pockets of his best suit and in his luggage. Wars might come but they would never destroy his dreams.

It was cold, wet and raining when he boarded the horse and carriage that would take him home. Raindrops splattered all around him as he spent the entire trip back staring at the night sky.

The war worsened. Food was rationed and then became almost impossible to find. Family treasures that had been kept for generations were taken out, sighed over, and then consigned

to the black market. There was no talk of school anymore, or flying...just survival.

He went to the fields to work, spending most of his day in hard, backbreaking labor. Whatever meagre harvest the land provided was soon finished quickly. The very idea of riding in an airship seemed as far away now as the sky itself. But still after each day when the hoe and rake had been put away and the animals sent to their pasture, he would go up to the hill and look at the sky.

Deep inside he knew how impossible his dream was. Even if his family had money and even if the academy reopened, he couldn't even go back to the libraries. They had barred all passage to the capital a year ago, and even if he could...all they made in what was once the city of his dreams were flying machines of war, metal monstrosities than flew low and dropped bombs instead of soaring high among and over white clouds.

He remembered the planes of his youth - how they danced in the sky and made impossible shapes in that azure field that spread overhead. He bent to his work, weeding the fields with such tenacity that his parents were amazed much as the teachers in the city had been. But little did they know how much pain there was in his heart, and how it never seemed to lessen despite how much he tilled the soil and hoed the earth.

When the soldiers came to enlist him for the war, he was nowhere to be found. A friend had tipped him off a week before that they might be coming to take him and he had fled his home in preparation. He knew others who had starved or willingly maimed themselves so that they would be able to stay in their village and not conscripted, but that path was not for him.

He hid in the forests, and foraged for food with the skills that the war had taught him against his will. It was no bad thing to be a farmer's son...you knew animals better than most, and the habits that he had observed during his work on the farm served him well in setting traps and snares. His time spent among seeds and plants had taught him where to find the roots and berries that kept him alive.

And every night when he was sure that the dark shapes did not befoul the afternoon sun and when the soldiers had gone to bed, he went back to sit on the hill and dream. He thought it better to sit there, lost in dreams and memories, than be caught up in something that did nothing but steal the hearts and lives of others.

It was on one cold autumn evening that he saw her.

For as long as he could remember, he and the other children he knew had been warned about going to the castle. It loomed over the village, an imposing black edifice that was higher than any of the hills that he watched the planes from. He knew the rumors well - there lived a witch there who would skin you alive and eat you. If you even so much as stepped on the road leading there while the moon was out, you would freeze and die. Throw salt over your shoulder before you set out.

But the woman that had appeared that night and stood before him was no witch. Nothing could have prepared him for her beauty. Her eyes were a deep shade of red, and the lightest blond hair that you had ever seen crowned in head in white gold. Her skin was pale white, almost alabaster. She wore a black dress that seemed to float off her body, wisp-like, and she moved so lightly it was as if she was floating off the ground.

He froze as she approached. Was this the witch on the castle that he been warned off for as long as he could remember? She certainly didn't look like it. He wasn't sure what to do - run away, or scream in terror, or perhaps even pray for deliverance.

But it turned out that he would need to do none of that. She came up to him, smiled, and spoke. She told him that she had seen him on the hill for as long as she could remember, and that she knew about his love for the sky. She had been watching him all this time, ever since he was a young boy - watched as he had grown and went off to the capital, watched as he had returned to work on the farm and ran away to the woods. She knew him well, and she had an offer for him.

"Come with me." she said, her gaze intent. "I will grant you eternal life, so that you may outlive this foolish war and be able to build what you desire. I too, wish to fly. That way we will both be able fulfill our dreams someday."

He had never cared much for magic. Science would be what made his dreams come true, give lift to wings of paper and limbs of wood. Not whatever the old wives and superstitious folk in the village spoke of. But seeing her in front of him, crimson eyes boring into his own, he was forced to change his mind somewhat. There was no mortal frame that could contain that impossible beauty...and what she offered certainly went against everything he had studied in school and seen in the air.

Eternal life. What songs were sung about and legends written. But those meant nothing to him. All he wanted was the way to the sky.

If he had eternity, if he had all the time in the world...then the war didn't matter anymore. He could take as long as he wanted to make his dreams come true. He was tempted despite himself. The long grass on the hill blew slightly in the night wind as he looked at the strange and beautiful woman before him, and he found himself wanting to say yes right there and then and accept her offer. But something else also pulled within him, because he knew that if he acceded to her there would be no turning back.

Sensing the indecision within him, she smiled again, showing her fangs his time, and asked if he would like to come to see the castle.

He nodded, and she led the way.

She brought him to the castle as the top of the mountain, the same one that he and all the other children of the village had been warned never to go to again and again. And indeed until this day he had never even thought of visiting it once. No matter how high on the mountain it was, it was still on the ground, and what he sought was the sky itself.

It was sparsely appointed, with great halls bereft of everything except the most token of furnishings. There was no one else besides the both of them. Somehow he had imagined a whole bevy of servants at her beck and call, but they walked through the empty corridors their footsteps echoed hollowly.

He followed her silently till they got up on the balcony, where a glimmering crescent moon shone overhead. And that is where she told him how she had watched him look up at the sky, and how she too had followed the planes overhead. She told him of her own dreams and how she had always wanted to fly. He looked at her, pale and angular face lifted to the moon above and lost in fantasy, and saw no witch or immortal vampire but instead a kindred spirit.

Then as she finished she came back to him and asked again. Would he accept eternal life, so that he would be able to make both of their dreams come true? Come live with her in the castle and she would do everything in her power to let him build whatever he wanted to make.

He looked at her and long moments passed. And then he nodded. How could he say no?

She narrowed her eyes and her fangs showed. "Then the pact is sealed."

He raised his throat willingly to her, unafraid. The stories said that it would be endless midnight that awaited him, but something beyond even eternal life called to him. The immortality that poets and warriors alike had sought was to him only a means to an end, nothing more.

Her sharp fangs tore through his throat and he felt her drink long draughts of his life's blood. The last thing he saw before he his eyes flickered and closed was her pale face lit by lunar light and smeared by his blood.

It was a different life inside the castle. He had never lived by himself in all his short human existence - he was always with his parents, or in a dormitory at school. But now he was left to his devices the entire day - or rather, night. She lived in the rooms above his, and they almost never saw each other.

Of course, he couldn't go out in daylight anymore. But that didn't matter much to him. There was nowhere he wanted to be except here. The dungeons of the castle provided a seemingly endless supply of rats for them to subsist on. They didn't taste like much but he was consumed with a hunger that was beyond blood or the need for survival. He longed for the sky, and he had given up his mortal life (and, if the priests of his village were to be believed, any possible hope of redemption) to gain the chance to get there.

Once he had gotten used to his unlife he went back to his house to retrieve the books and the designs that he would need in order to build the planes of his dreams. He allowed himself the luxury of going into his parents' rooms to look at their sleeping faces one final time. What would they think? Their son had not only abandoned their family honor by desertion, but had given up his humanity as well. It didn't really matter to him anymore. It was a new life, a new death, one in which he could devote himself totally and utterly to his

dream, without fear of war or age.

Then followed the sleepless nights and days in which he poured over his notes, making wild sketches which slowly turned into more concrete designs. Without the books from the imperial libraries he had to guess at a few things, but he had committed almost every book he had even read on flying to memory and so it was not difficult to compensate for whatever he did not know. And when the theories were done with he was finally ready to begin construction in earnest.

When it came time to build the frame he went up to her chambers to ask her for her help. He needed timber, and wooden struts, and the tools to bind them all together into something more than the sum of their parts. Whatever she asked for, she would smile indulgently and then provide. He didn't know where she got them from and didn't ask - besides, he had a plane to build and a dream to fulfill. With the materials he needed by his side, slowly the machine took shape, strut by strut and beam by beam.

He didn't miss his parents, or his village, or indeed anything of his previous life. He often wondered if there was something wrong with him, if he should feel more sadness, more regret. But then again, why should he? He cared for them, of course, but they have never understood his dreams, never understood why he wanted to take wing and fly into the skies above. They were most likely better off without each other.

Even immortals need a break now and then, and one day when he felt his eyes smart and his head grow heavy he heard her twinkling laugh call him to him. She insisted they have dinner. It would do him a world of good, she said, and he couldn't find it in himself to refuse. She exerted a strange pull on him - something in her eyes, her face, and her lilting voice - and it was not just because she was his sire in undeath.

So he came to the table and he marveled at eating rats served on fine china with silver cutlery, but that was what she wanted to do, and so they did it. Once was not enough for her, and so every few days she would call him to sup with her.

They began to speak after dinner. She told him stories from her long life, wars that were fought, loves that were lost, and he told her about his life in the village, and going to the capital. They avoided all mention of the war or the new kinds of planes that they both so obviously despised. This was a time for rest and sharing before they returned to their respective tasks.

It could have been weeks, or months, or even years that they spent there in that cycle. His nights were filled with work on the plane, and when torpor overtook him he would slump to the ground, insensate. He would get up when his sleep was over and she would call to him and then they would feast together on a rat or two and speak of unlife and flight and everything else.

They grew closer in the time that they spent together. He began to know her moods - the slight shift of her hands before she answered a question, the wrinkling of her nose before she sank her fangs daintily into the furry flesh of her dinner. The toss of her ash blond hair and how her eyes closed in soft pleasure whenever she spoke of flying.

And so one day, greatly daring, he asked her about how she had come to want to fly.

She laughed - that tinkling laugh that he had come to know so well - and asked him why he wanted to know. He didn't exactly know how to reply - did he want to know her better? Understand her more? He was not completely sure himself, so he just said that he was curious.

She tossed her head in her little-girl way and a faraway cast came into her blood-red eyes. Then I'll tell you, she said. Listen well.

It was when she was younger - just a child, really - long before she had become undead, longer still than before he was born. There had been a war - far worse than the war that had brought him to her castle. Her family had been killed, and...oh, how sweet of him to show concern! No, she didn't feel anything anymore. It had been many, many years since, after all.

Where was she? Ah yes, the war. Everyone she had known had died, and somehow she had survived. She had escaped the fires that had laid waste to the city of her birth, and run far, far away - where and how she had no memory of. Finally she had ended up in a mountain somewhere, and had scavenged roots and berries from the earth so as not to die of starvation.

It was a hard and bitter trial for a young girl, and she could remember herself being almost sick from hunger and staggering from tree to tree, desperate to stay alive. And then one day as she looked up at the starry skies above her, she wished that she could fly. The open field of the many lights above seemed to promise freedom from war and pain and hunger and everything else down in the world below.

That was years before she was turned, and even after she had lost her mortality, that memory still lingered within her...the twinkling of the brilliant motes in the starry sky. Most of her kin lose their memories when they become undead, but not her. She didn't say anything about her sire, and he didn't ask. It wasn't important.

It suddenly occurred to him that he had retained all of his own memories. He had awoken the next day in the castle dungeon, much the same person as he had been the night before, just changed irrevocably in one significant way. He asked why and she smiled winsomely at him in reply. If you had lost your memories, she replied, how would you make those flying machines?

It was only then that he realized just how old and powerful she must really be. He had never heard of a vampire who could choose what her children in undeath remembered and did not. But he felt no fear from this childlike, innocent and ancient creature before him, just love, affection and loyalty. They were no master and servant, but comrades in search of the same goal. He watched her clean her plate daintily, mopping up the last of the spilled blood with a silk napkin, and felt a sudden burst of caring for her. No matter how long it took,

he would make sure they reached the sky.

He never wondered about the world outside the castle. Perhaps the war had ended, perhaps it had not. It didn't matter to him because even if new planes had appeared, they would be of the new school, all dark metal and frosted glass. He saw how quickly his fellow engineers had been to abandon the planes that he loved, trade the open sky for burning ground. When he had left the capital it was always talk of steel and iron - none of the paper and wood that he would need to break through the clouds and into the reaches of the sky.

He began to talk to her about what he was doing after dinner. How the work on the plane was progressing, how he had managed to put each beam and piece together in new and exciting ways. He described the building of the plane in detail, gesturing with his hands, tracing patterns of connection, construction and creation. She would watch and listen, laughing and clapping her hands in girlish glee. Spurred on by her excitement he would talk on and on, deep into the night, drunk with the passion of relating the story of their dreams coming ever closer to fruition. And she would watch him and smile a secret smile - half that of a parent indulging a child's whimsy, and half that of an accomplice privy to dark secrets. They were both crazed, he knew,

intoxicated by an idea that was bigger than either of them.

One day she suggested they take a walk, to the same meadow that he had met her at. He was on a verge of breakthrough - an adjustment to the trinary wing cluster - and he agreed, thinking that the fresh air would do him good.

Everything looked different at night. The long grass swayed in the wind, and the lights of the city shone brightly far away. His parents were probably long dead and buried, as was everyone else he knew. He could barely make out some buildings from where they stood, and he saw some others that he had no knowledge of. The town looked different than he remembered...it was either that it had been rebuilt during or after the war, or that he had simply forgotten how it was supposed to be like. His life there - going to school, talking to the townsfolk, hoeing the fields - seemed like it came from another world.

She watched him silently and when it came time for them to go back, she met him with a question.

"What will you do once you're done?" It was a simple query, but one that she asked with utter conviction. He marveled at her faith in him. Even now as he neared the end of his long nights of toil, he wasn't completely sure if the plane would work in the way that he wanted it to. But she was sure, and that was enough for him.

"I don't know." he replied truthfully. He had never thought had far. They would go to the sky and then that would be the end of it. If he completed the machine, if they survived their maiden flight, then...he guessed that maybe he would build another one, even more beautiful and strong that the last. And then another? What does one do past the limits of a dream?

That seemed to satisfy her, and with another tinkling laugh she seized his hand and pulled him with her on the past to the castle. He almost stumbled in surprise and she let go of him to twirl amidst the long grass, her skirt billowing and her voice lifted in mirth. He looked at her, amazed, because for all her age she resembled nothing but a village girl at a dance, spinning with carefree grace as the night breeze sent blades of grass up and around them. Then, her impromptu performance finished, she took his hand once more and

they both walked back home, a lightness in their step that was not there before.

The plane was almost complete. One was supposed to have assistants on hand for a launch, but it was only him and her at this point, and so he did everything himself. It seemed strange, even crass, to attempt to ask her to assist - not that she would be able to. She had never evinced even the slightest hint of desire to know how a hang glider functioned or how an airship stayed aloft. He would talk for hours about mechanical functions and wind shear but all she would do was look at him and blink her ageless eyes. She wanted to fly

and he was the one who would make it happen, and that was all she needed to know.

It was hard, almost backbreaking work, but the limbs of the undead do not tire or fatigue and so he worked on, night after night. Wood had to be bent into shape, struts fashioned painstakingly out of whatever was on hand, screws and rivets hammered together in the correct manner. He was no carpenter or metalworker and so it took far longer and was much harder than he thought. But it wasn't as it they were in a hurry, after all. They had all the time in the world.

Before he knew it, it was the eve of their maiden flight, and he was beside himself with excitement. The moon was especially full and round that night, and he took that as a good omen. He checked everything again and again but after the fifth time he knew it was time to go. There was a limit to how much preparation one could do, even for something as important as this.

And even with all the checking he had done, he knew something might go wrong. Safety had been his preoccupation - if it didn't work, then they could simply try again. A fall from such a height as they were going to might tax even an immortal's power of regeneration. But there was no way to know until they were actually aloft.

Would it work? He didn't know. He looked on at his handiwork and knew both desperation and pride. A very human sense of worry flashed through him - it had to work, it had to fly...it simply had to! It was easy enough to say that another one could be built, but he had put years (decades?) of sweat and toil into the machine, and the very thought that it would not do what it had been designed to shook him to the core.

A gentle hand tapped his shoulder, and he turned around to look at her expectant face. She took his hands in hers gently but fiercely. He looked down at where they were joined and saw that his were as white too, but stained with machine oil and grease. She flashed him a quick smile and a sharp, knowing glance - co-conspirators, the both of them. Then she pointed to the plane and he nodded. After all these years and struggle - it was finally time.

He had wanted to go first, but she had insisted they sit in the plane together. And as always she got her way. She had such supreme confidence in his ability that his indecision began to wither and die in the face of her belief. Maybe it would really work. It would go off without a hitch and then they would be both aloft in the sky, their dreams fulfilled. Then the brisk night air blew and he shook his head and brought himself back to reality.

He ran through the checks swiftly - he had made them all a hundred times before - then placed his foot on the accelerator and pushed down. The plane lumbered slowly out of the hangar, its propeller turning. He had barely managed to scrape together a functioning engine from what scrap iron was available, and he had stoked it with just enough coal for them to drop off the sheer face of the castle battlements. From then on it was sink or swim...or rather, fly or fall. He had thought of many other ways to get the plane airborne, but none of them would give him enough lift to remain aloft.

Inch by inch the machine moved, and his heart was in its chest as finally, it teetered on the edge and then fell over it. She cried out in surprise, but he was too busy adjusting dials, and pulling levers to spare even a moment's glance. This was it - either all his calculations worked or in seconds they would smash down on the rocks below. Or maybe they would fly for a while and then smash into the hills - it would be the grandest of ironies if they crashed onto the same place that he had spent so long looking at the sky atop.

They fell towards the earth, faster and faster, and then suddenly the wing flaps tilted and the ailerons aligned and inside of heading downwards they were sailing up. A gust of wind had come just in time and the canvas wings stretched over the wooden frame caught it. And just like that, they were flying.

Flying...flying, finally, finally flying! He couldn't believe it. He gripped the controls tightly and closed his eyes for a brief moment. It was really happening. Looking up at the moon which seemed closer than ever before, and then at the grassy fields which moved swiftly below him, he knew unfathomable joy. It had all been worth it - all the time spent in sketches, in design, in constructing this plane that they were in right now. The wind blew again and he banked left and then right and he shouted out for the sheer pleasure of existence,

just because he could.

They spent minutes in the air, spiraling and turning atop the air currents. He shot his passenger a glance and saw her face rapt in ecstasy, unable even to make a sound. He was about to call out to her but stopped at the last moment - he didn't want to interrupt whatever she was feeling. Besides which he had the plane to keep control of.

He was just thinking about heading back to the castle when a judder ran through the plane. His eyes widened in alarm. Something had gone wrong...but what? The undercarriage was secure, and he had made sure that the struts were all fastened - but it was too late to think about what it was that happened. Their motion through the air slowed and they almost stalled - he shot her a worried glance but he saw no fear in her eyes, only serene curiosity. Even now her faith in him was as strong as ever.

The wind grew stronger and in doing so turned from friend to enemy. From an almost complete stop suddenly they were moving again, but far too fast this time. He struggled to control the plane but the pull of the air proved too strong for him. The wings were the first to go - the same lightness that enabled them to fly in the first place now a liability against the force of the elements. Rips and tears appeared in the fabric, and then the frame itself began to shake and shudder. Slats and struts alike came loose as he watched in horror; the entire plane began to disintegrate around him.

He lost all control of the craft and they veered wildly to the side as it continued to split apart. A final blast of wind proved to be the coup-de-grace and it ripped through the plane, splintering wood and sending them flying. As they spiraled through the air helplessly he saw her sprout wings - black and leathery, powerful enough to maneuver in mid-air but not strong enough to fly as high as she wanted. Of course - she had been cursed far longer than him, and the tales always spoke of the abilities of vampires to shift their shapes.

He shouted out to her but the wind whipped his words away. He caught a glimpse of her face, mouth pursued in a grim smile, fierce eyes narrowed in determination. What did she -

He knew what she was going to do even before she did it, but he was helpless to stop her. He flailed helplessly in freefall as her body enfolded his and they hurtled earthwards together. They tumbled through the air in what seemed an eternity even longer than their unlife...but when they finally hit the ground her small body shielded his from the worst of the impact.

The shock of the fall had knocked them both apart, and despite her sacrifice he had not escaped unscathed. His vision swam before him and he tottered from side to side, barely retaining consciousness...and even that in time proved a futile battle. He sank down onto the ground, head spinning. But when he finally came to he took one look at her prone form and summoning what strength he had, ran to her. Fighting back tears, he cradled her frail form in his arms and began the long walk back to the castle.

She lay still, stiller than death - because of course she was already dead. He tried his best to rouse her, alternately shaking her and calling her name, but nothing worked.

In the end, afraid to cause more harm than good, he laid her in the bier in her chambers to rest and stole back to his designs and to collect the ruins of the plane that had been supposed to take them to the skies but had merely sent them to the ground.

He spent what seemed like endless nights in blame and self-recrimination. There had to have been a better way...it was the wing design, he knew, too ambitious and spread too wide. But if he didn't have enough lift he couldn't even had held aloft for as long as he had. Maybe he should have gone to town, to the city, sneaked into the library and night and stolen their designs. But he couldn't do that. For even if he had created a machine that did not crash, it would be an ugly thing, black steel and ridged metal, and she would have been so sad to have their dreams polluted by war. Far better for her to rest in that state between unlife and true death than to sully their mutual desire in that manner.

The pull of hunger finally broke his reverie, and one day he found himself in a mad dash to the cellar. It was the sitting in a pile of rat corpses - matted fur and stinking blood staining his hands - that brought him back to himself. He looked at himself, disgusted. Enough, he told himself. Enough. Even if she never woke, even if it was his fault, he would see their dreams come true.

He returned to his designs with renewed determination. He began to study birds, bats, insects, anything with wings, anything that could help him achieve his - no, their dreams. He had never fancied himself much of a botanist (he remembered himself being heartily bored by the subject in school) but now each and winged creature seemed to be there to learn from and to teach him something.

Looking at how alive and vibrant the animals around him were, for the first time ever he regretted his decision to embrace eternal life. The beetle's thin wings as they flitted from leaf to leaf, the graceful dance of the butterflies, each delighted him in ways until a few days ago he never would have thought possible. The flitting of bats from place to place was a study in beauty, and the buzz of gnats and wasps music to his ears.

Few birds flew during the night, but he went back to sit on the same hill he knew so well to catch a glimpse of them, silent owl and swift nighthawk both. He closed his eyes in concentration and focus and felt the wind - that same force which could both damn and bless him - caress his face gently, and he knew its swift power and hidden might. And then after that he would go back to the castle to draw and sketch and design some more. In his mind lines and curves began to take shape, intersecting and transforming into another vision, faster and stronger than what he had built before.

And whenever his drive faltered and his resolve wavered he would go to her chambers and look upon her wan face smiling gently in repose. Grief and regret would assault him once more, and he would swear again to reach the skies no matter how long it took. If not for him, then for her...for the both of them.

He took even more care this time. The spiders had taught him the secret of their webs, and the hummingbirds their ways of motion. He had redesigned the entire frame from scratch, knocking out the top and replacing it with another. The only things that he had kept were the canvas wings, for even all his studies had not shown him a better way to catch the breeze and remain aloft.

He was of two minds this time as he wheeled the plane atop the battlements once more. He was more confident now, but at the same time. If he died as well...then they would both have lost their lives to no end. But once again there was no way to tell it unless he tried.

Again the sudden plummet earthwards, but this time he had no need to depend upon stray gusts of wind for propulsion. He had learnt enough from the insects and animals he had studied so intently, and so this time the frame flexed and bent and glided it flew through the sky

It worked! It worked! His happiness at his success was marred only by the knowledge that she was not there to join him. But it was a step forwards. He had reached their goal, and now all that remained was for her to awake and share in it. But what if she never woke? If she remained in that place between sleep and death forever? He pushed aside any thought of that and steered the plane home.

He built another, and then another, and then another after that. Each flew better and more easily before. He would take each out to test them and each time he was a bird among the air currents, flying and leaping with the same grace as the avians whose wing shapes he had copied. He flew through the evening sky and close to the moon in all its phases - waxing, waning, and gibbous - over the town of his birth which looked so different from above, over grassy fields and even farther away, so far he could even see the lights of the capital. He had conquered the air, made it is servant, and was subject to its fickle whims no longer.

But despite all his successes she would never wake. Each night he would kneel by her, hoping, even praying, but she still remained silent and unmoving. Finally in desperation he took to telling her about the planes as he had before. Everything that he now knew, from the mysteries of the living things that he had learnt to how the his new hasp designs and engines combined to create new and better ways to take wing. But still she lay there in stillness with a silent smile upon her face.

One day he ran out of supplies and could do no more. She had never told him where she managed to procure everything that he needed for his designs - the lightweight wood that bent as he needed it to, the canvas pieces and rivets of brass and copper - it had all suddenly just appeared whenever he wanted. Just like with everything about her, he never asked and she never told him. He supposed that he could go out into the woods, steal an axe from the town and fell trees to make another machine...but what would be the point? She was still asleep and would not wake no matter what he did. He had mastered the sky but even that dream was for naught without her to share it.

He fell back into that same reverie that he had gone through before when he had but this time it was not hunger that broke its hold on him. One night he simply found himself back in the hangar, staring at his latest creation. The sky...so distant for so long, but now well within his grasp. Except that in many ways it was even further than ever before.

For lack of anything better to do, he found himself walking the meadows late at night.

Maybe it was better if they had never met. If she was still half-alive, wandering through the fields late at night. He would be long dead and gone by now. If he had never been turned, what would he have done? Gone back to the academy, most likely. Perhaps he would have been drafted into the war, and then he would have lost his life at the end of a stray bullet or cannon shell. Or he would have survived and married and had children, grown old and died.

Then he would never have made those flying machines, and she never would have fallen, and he would be resting in the cool damp earth instead of standing where he had first met her.

He plucked a stray blade of grass from the ground. Maybe he should leave the castle, and seek out another one of her kind - he or she might know what to do. She had never told him of any other vampires, and he didn't know the first thing about beginning a search. And even if he met one, what would he say? Would they even want to speak to him, or offer their assistance?

For so long all of his being had been consumed by flight - dreams and the longing and love of it. He knew nothing else and had never wanted to. But all that knowledge and passion would not bring her back from wherever she was now.

He walked closer to the town and saw it spread out before him. It had been many, many years since, but from the castle it somehow looked the same as always. No one had ever come up to visit, and he supposed that they told the same legends that they always had - of the flesh-eating witch and the werewolves that lurked in the forest. Eternal life meant that one could simply outlive the tales and stories of yore. Either that or become one with them.

What had happened to his father, he wondered. And his mother? Had they despaired of their only child and spent the rest of their days in sorrow? Or had they gone on to better things, working to restore their farm to its former state after the war had gone? He would never know, for they were long since dead and buried. He felt that he should be sadder, that he should grieve more – but instead the only emotion that he could sense was one of quiet emptiness.

The war…it had to be over by now. His classmates had most probably followed his family into the grave, along with everyone else he had known in life. No more would his dreams be plagued by cold metal and harsh iron. Such irony that the same passage of time that had granted him the means to surpass the war had also ended it.

But it all meant nothing unless she woke. He stood there a while longer, taking in the night air and gazing at strands of long grass cast into the wind by a stray breeze, and then returned to the castle.

He went back to sit by her side, his devotion the only thing he could offer at this point. The nights passed, and he was deep in another vigil when it happened.

He had his eyes closed when suddenly he felt the touch of a hand upon his face. His eyes flew open in amazement. It couldn't be - but it was. She was sitting up and regarding him steadily, as beautiful as he remembered.

"You've done it." she said simply. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. She could see the answer in his eyes, so he simply nodded. What else was there to say? It was like that on that night hundreds of years ago, when she had asked and he had answered. He had accomplished their mutual goal many years before. All that he had waited for was for her to awaken to share in it.

"Take me there." He would only be too glad to. He took her hand in hers and together they walked to the hangar.

She took her place in the seat with the same propriety that she had on that night years ago which he couldn't even really remember. But now confidence replaced indecision, and he could feel the same way about himself as she felt about him. He grinned at her and she smiled back so widely that her fangs showed. The time had finally come.

What had been so difficult now was so easy, and he took the now-familiar sudden plummet down from the castle walls at such a clip that she shrieked in amazement. Her surprise was music to his ears as he sent the plane into a downward spiral, and then a quick turn sideways. Next was a sudden plummet to boost their velocity somewhat, and then he pulled at the levers and the wings aligned and they went up and

up and up -

- until they were soaring far above the castle that was their home, and the clouds were brushing their faces. The night breeze blew cold around them, and the earth spread below them, panoramic.

They flew, and she laughed, and it was laughter as he had never heard from her before. The sweet tinkle of her voice climbed high into elation, and he heard it match his own hearty laughter. He reached a hand back to clasp hers, and their fingers twined around each other as the plane flew.

The moon shone brighter than it ever had, and it was so close...so close it seemed just inches away. Mindful of the limits of even his finest creation, he banked down once they had reached their zenith, but and out of the corner of his eye he saw her outstretched hand try to touch it.

He looked back at her and their eyes met. He saw hers shining in the moonlight, and her lips parted in half a laugh and smile

They were flying, and they were more alive than they ever had been or ever would be.

Nightbird Calling

The boy was waiting for her at the window.

He was waiting for many reasons. Because he was bored, for one - he was afflicted with the insatiable curiosity for life that is the illness of all boys his age, and the pursuits of home could only amuse his young soul so much. Because it was an excuse to come up to the window, to look down on the City below, the High Market and the Pillars...he did have an excellent view of from his windowsill, and he loved to sit and watch the world go by - as much sitting and watching a boy could do. And because he wanted to get away from the homework that he was supposed to do.

But mainly he was waiting because he knew she would come.

A boy's life has all sorts of things in it - games, assorted pranks and mischief, scoldings, the odious and dreaded school. Friends, enemies (easily made and destroyed, lost and found) Secrets that were dear one day and useless the next.

But it so happened that in a life so tumultuous - as all boys・lives will be - this particular boy wanted a little bit of routine. He wanted to be sure of something, to know that come what may, a certain thing would happen at a certain time. It gave him a sense of security, of comfort. He wanted, most of all, to have something he could count on. And so he went up to the window to wait.

It was a long time before she arrived, but he didn't mind. He had waited longer before, it's just that he didn't really remember doing so, and if he did he wouldn't really have minded either. So he sat on the windowsill, watching the birds fly past and the leaves tumble down, listening to the sound of the wind in trees, waiting.

And after a while, he began to hear the sound of silent wings. He wasn't sure how one could hear silence, but he did. It you were to ask him, he might tell you that it was a kind of whispery sound, a bit like rats in the attic, if the attic was your mind and the rats were the kind of voice that kept on telling you to eat the vegetables that you didn't want to. But then again he might not.

She landed on the branch right next to the window, preened slightly and looked straight at him. He smiled back.

"Evening...early aren't you?" Her voice was always different, always strange. It never sounded the same way twice.

The boy shook his head. "No, I'm not. The sun hasn't gone down yet."

She paused to shake her head, stretching her arms out ever so slightly to shake away the dust from her journey. "Why, so it hasn't. We have plenty of time, I think." There was a brief silence in which both she and the boy were bathed in stillness.

He waited expectantly for her. "So what shall we do today?"

Turning back from gazing at the setting sun, she favored him with a rare smile. "We could go down to the Pillars. I have something to do there."

"Alright then, let's go." The boy didn't really like going there in particular...actually, while he was with her, he didn't like or mind going anywhere in particular. It was enough that they were going somewhere, and she was going with him.

"Come. We don't want to be late, and it's a long flight." She beckoned to him, and since it was only a short distance to the branch and her outstretched hand, he jumped from the windowsill, confident that he wouldn't fall. He did slip a little on the surface of the wood, but she was there to steady him, and soon they were ready.

"Hold on. I'll be flying a little low today." He nodded to show that he knew, and they were off.

The spires were always a sight to see, from his window or up close. They stood so high and proud and black, silhouetted by the morning sun, that he was in awe of them no matter how many times he passed by them, whether it was on foot as he walked to school or in the air as he was now.

He clung to her back tightly as she swooped and dived between each tall tower. His short hair was whipped back by the wind and he shrieked in delight as they swung past and over the City.

They flew over more of the busy streets and scattered buildings and he peered over her shoulders excitedly. He saw people spread out below him like so many ants and watched in fascination as they began their day. He was so high above all of them, and they were so far below.

No matter how many times they did this, he never grew tired of it. He greeted each trip with the same childish enthusiasm - eyes open in wonder as he took each sight and sound and smell. Such is the innocence of children.

He bent over her shoulder to ask her where she was going, but after a second pulled back. He didn't need to ask, he knew. They were going to where they always went.

They passed by the High Market with all its hustle and bustle, the fountains in the Main Square as they bubbled and frothed, and soared on beyond the hills and the rivers that were outside the city. The works of man slowly gave way to the greens and blues of nature. Cobblestones and brick roads turning to forests and rivers. And finally they were there.

With a great backwatering of wings she came to a stop, the blast of air from her landing sending fallen leaves and pebbles flying. He slid off her feathery back carefully. Brushing a few stray feathers from his clothes, he looked around. He had been here many times already, but he never grew tired of visiting.

It was a graveyard on the outskirts of the City. Headstones dotted the grassy knoll where they found themselves, and there was a mausoleum further on inside which he had never been in.

Others avoided the place, thinking it full of ill omens, bad luck or both, but he loved it. It was quiet, and peaceful, and not one else ever came here, so he could be alone with her for as long as he wanted to be.

The dawn light painted the grey stones a pale yellow-white and the leaves and the grass glimmered with a faint radiance. They had come here at many times of the day, from bright afternoon to shadowy dusk, but it was the early morning that he always liked the best.

He left her alone for a while as he wandered through the gravestones, trying and failing to read each inscription. He touched one after the other, marveling at their smooth texture of the marble and their raised inscriptions. She didn't like to be disturbed during her first few minutes here, and he didn't ask why.

He liked how she never asked him anything, and how he didn't need to ask anything either. With the adults and the other children there were always questions, questions and more questions.

What did you do at school today? Where are you going later? What would you like to eat? He didn't see why they couldn't understand that some things were just the way they were because they were, and that no amount of talking or questioning would make it otherwise.

She understood, though, and he liked that about her as well. She just sat, and flew, and did whatever it is that she was meant to do, without talking about it or questioning anything. That was just how she was.

He looked back and she saw that she was almost ready. She had this way of raising her head and looking about that told him that. He ran back to her, small feet scattering stray leaves left and right, and he was happy to see her smile in return. It was time to do what they had come here to do.

He followed her as she went to each grave in turn. She raised her wings, her eyes would change, and then the words on the stones would flare bright red. He didn't know exactly what it was that she was doing, only that he enjoyed watching her and that it was somehow necessary.

And once again unlike the adults he knew she never minded if he stopped halfway to play with some fallen leaves or to sit beneath the shade of a nearby tree. There would be no nagging about how he was lazy, or he should help, or being chased back into the house to do his never-ending pile of homework. He could watch as she worked, and that was exactly what he did - until a stray squirrel attracted his attention and he chased after it.

The squirrel didn't hold his attention for more than a few minutes, and then after that it was a fallen branch which he swung against a nearby tree with a satisfying crack, and then after that a stone that he kicked down into a stream, delighting in the sound of its splash into water.

But then he grew suddenly tired as children are wont to do, and he slumped down in the shade of a tree. He half-dozed, half-slept beneath the swaying branches, and he let his tired mind and body slip off into the world of dreams and memories.

He remembered when he first met her.

It was a school day, but not a very good one. First of all, it had rained, and he had forgotten to bring his old shoes, instead choosing to wear his new leather ones. They had gotten all dirty from trudging through the mud and he knew that his mother would yell at him.

Then he somehow forgot his homework when he was sure that he had packed it the night before. The teacher had made him stand in the corner and the whole class had laughed at him while his cheeks blushed red. It was unfair...so unfair! He knew that he had put his books into the bag. He just knew it.

Finally, an older boy had bumped into him and took the money that he had been saving to buy a new book. He had shouted in indignation and rushed into the other youth, trying vainly to get it back, but all he had gotten was a punch in the stomach for his troubles.

The day dragged on and when school finally ended he trudged home miserably, his new shoes sinking into the brown muck that caked the streets. His mother did indeed shout at him for the state his shoes were in, and he just stood there sadly for a good ten minutes. It was a repeat of the afternoon with his homework - being scolded for something that wasn't even really his fault.

Worn out and tired and all he wanted to do was to sleep, but even his warm and comfy bed could not console him. He tossed and turned for a while and then, finding no solace in slumber, he moved to sit at the windowsill instead.

And then he saw her. One moment it was a clear and sunny day and the next a dark shape had blotted out the sun. She swooped down with a sudden motion and looked at him, not unkindly.

"What's wrong, little boy?" she asked.

If he was older he might have been afraid of her. But youth lends one a certain invincibility, and he couldn't believe this majestic creature meant him any harm. If he was older still, then he might have run shrieking to get his mother, or to the nearest temple to call a priest. But he was just a young boy and as such knew nothing of the injunctions against speaking to one such as her.

Her great black wings seemed natural because no one had ever told him they were not. Her eyes were as fierce as an eagle's but at the same time as gentle as a dove's. Her voice was unlike anything he had heard before...but then he had not heard many things in his young life. She was fierce and terrible, beautiful and silent all at once.

So instead of running away or calling for his mother, he smiled at her and reached a hand out in greeting. His small fingers curled around her claws and he found their scaly surface somehow reassuring.

He told her all about his horrible day - about the shoes, the rain, the older boy, the teacher - everything. She listened intently, nodding at key points, and never interrupted even a single time.

When he was done the boy heaved a sigh of relief. He felt so much better. He was not yet old enough to understand the easing of the soul that having someone listen without judgment can bring. He just knew that he felt good. Then, remembering his manners, he thanked her.

She smiled in return, and closed her talons gently around his hand. Then with a great sweep of her wings she was gone once more.

She came back every day after that.

Sometimes he would talk and she would listen - about his day at school, about the things they did, about the other boys and girls. And sometimes they would just spend time together, looking out onto the City below. They couldn't see much from his windowsill, but they could see enough, and he would point out each landmark excitedly and she would nod and smile at every cry and gasp he made.

After a while she began to take him with her. He was scared at first - she flew so high and so fast! - but he gradually got used to it. She was gentle with the first few flights until he found her sudden takeoffs and landings to be as natural to him as walking. They circled his house first, until he was comfortable, and then the spires, then the High Market, and then they flew to the outskirts of the City and beyond.

Every day he began to look forwards to when she would come. The time (late afternoon, usually) when he would be back from school, and how he would hurry through his homework so he could be ready when she appeared near his windowsill. When the clock struck for the fifth time in the town square his ears would prick up, because that meant only a few more turns of the sundial before it was time for them to leave.

He never asked his parents about her, or told them what they were doing. They were always busy in any case - his father at the smithy and his mother baking, cooking and generally keeping the house in order. They assumed that he was somewhere playing with the other boys or amusing himself with something else and he didn't see why he should tell them otherwise.

After weeks of flying with her the visits became the highlight of his day. There was nothing else in his life that would compare - not his schoolwork, not the running through the open fields outside the temple, not even the sweet cakes that his parents would sometimes buy back home from the stores in town. School was a boring routine that he had to endure, and all his chores were just things to get through until he could spend time with her. He looked forwards to when she would arrive and her black wings would block out the sun and then they would take off to parts unknown.

She brought him all over the City and to many other places besides. They would soar high above spires and mountains with equal ease, riding the air currents like birds. They went to the rivers and he would watch in awe at how she would deftly spear fish after fish with her claws, and then eat them in a few fast, savage bites.

They visited meadows filled with strange fruit and she had cautioned him never to pluck, and the ruins of buildings that he had never known or read about. Upon her back he saw parts of the world that had forever remained unknown to him.

But she always returned to the graveyard. She had brought him here on one of their early visits and he had loved it, asking her to bring him back again. She had smiled, nodded and complied, and though they visited many other lands, it was always there that they both would return to.

He was too young to know about duty, or purpose. He only knew that she always went there, and where she went, he followed.

She would tend to the graves in her own way, and he would play in the tall grass and in between the shade of the trees and watch her, and he was as content as only a young boy with no cares could be.

For a time, it seemed like those days would go on forever. But things change.

It was a day like another other. He had gotten up in the morning and eaten his breakfast of crusty bread, then taken his bag and gone to school. The teachers droned on and the boys played rowdily at lunchtime and after the school day was done he made his way back home.

But today something was different. People looked at him as he walked back through the cobbled roads, and then they would turn their heads away, whispering. There was sighing and pointing and much shaking of heads. He was confused. What was going on?

It was when he neared his house that he truly sensed something was wrong. There was a crowd of people near it, talking amongst themselves, though they parted when he approached. They looked at him concernedly but he paid them no mind - he wanted to know what had happened, and he was sure his parents could tell him.

But when he got into the house he saw his father sitting at the table - he never sat at the table unless he was eating dinner - with his head in his hands. The priest was there, and as he entered the holy man cast a compassionate glance his way.

"What's wrong? Where is mot..."

And for the first time the boy realized that his mother was nowhere in sight.

With the voice of one who has had to deliver bad news many times before, the holy man laid a gentle hand on the youth's shoulder.

"Your mother...your mother isn't with us anymore."

The priest's lined face and voice seemed a thousand miles away as he spoke. A cart had fallen somewhere above the High Road, filled with stones fresh from the quarry.

An accident, he said. It wasn't anyone's fault. No one could have foreseen the ropes fraying and snapping when it took a sharp turn. And no one could have known that it was just that moment when his mother had exited the bakery and walked onto the street.

The stones had fallen from the cart and crushed her in seconds.

No, no...it couldn't be true. He dashed into the kitchen, expecting to see his mother bustling around the oven, her shrill voice chastising him for something or other. He would endure being scolded a hundred times a and thousand dirty shoes, if only she would be there.

But the kitchen was empty. The spice bottles were on their racks and the rolling pin was set against the wall in the same position that she always left it. A fine coating of flour covered everything, the only evidence that she had even been there in the morning in the first place.

The boy looked around wildly, frantically, and the priest walked slowly towards him, intending to soothe his troubled spirits. But suddenly his father moved forwards towards his son and spoke sternly to him.

"That's enough of that, now. Quiet down and don't trouble the priest anymore." He reached forwards to steady his son's trembling shoulders, heedless of the effect that his words had on the young boy.

His father was a simple man, and he didn't realize that that was possibly the worst thing he could have done to console his frantic son. Quiet down...quiet down! That was the last thing in the world that he wanted to do. He wanted to scream, to shout his defiance at a cruel world that would take away his loved one from him.

So that is what he did. The boy let out a cry that shook the rafters and dashed out of the house, screaming. His father's calloused hands tried to restrain him but even the long hours at the forge were no match for the strength borne of grief and desperation.

He barreled through the crowd outside his house and ran down the streets not knowing or caring where he was going. All he could feel was the ache in his mind and his body, a dull pain that sunk deep into him. He couldn't think or feel properly...it seemed like the entire world had come askew.

But somewhere through the haze in his mind a thought came to him. Find her. She would know what to do, she would fix it. She could listen, and then and look at him in that way of hers, and then things would be ok. She would know where his mother was.

But where could she be? It was the late afternoon and so he could go to the windowsill, but there was everyone else blocking his way. His father would stop him for sure and take him back his room and lock the door and then he would never be able to find her.

The graveyard. That was it. She was always there, and after those many many flights above the City he knew the way. He started running to where he knew she would be.

It was a long way to the graveyard on foot, longer than he had ever thought possible. But even if he had known it was could never be done he would still have run on, past the spires and the High Market and the rivers and trees. His feet grew torn and blistered and his breath ragged with fatigue, but still he ran on, driven by something more than himself, a need that could never be met by words or platitudes.

She was there, as he knew she would be, looking at each gravestone with wings outstretched. She glanced at him as he approached, shoulders heaving with exhaustion, and he knew by her eyes that she understood what had happened, as he knew she would.

She came over to him and stretched out a taloned wing, and that gesture suddenly unlocked the gates that the priest's hand had been unable to.

He sank to his feet, sobbing. Where there had been screams before now there were only tears. Grief and loss surged through him, and her wings made a feathered canopy as he cried and cried and cried.

And then finally the racking sobs wound down into teary-eyed sniffles he raised his head and asked her the question that humanity itself had wondered for forever.

"Why do people have to die? Why can't you bring them back?"

As a child he didn't understand - couldn't understand - the impossibility of what he asked for. He only knew that his mother was gone and wouldn't come back and that there was only person in the whole world who could do anything about it. He couldn't have known that what he asked for was beyond blasphemy, beyond countenance, that to even do so would send the priest of the temple into a blind panic. He simply asked out of pain and the need to end it.

She reared up above him, and he backed away, terrified - for here She was revealed in all Her terrible glory. The wings had spread back, dark shapes against the night sky, the talons raked the ground and the tail lashed like a beast uncaged. Then She spoke, and it was flame and sorrow, regret and stillness at all once.

"There is nothing in this world that can forestall death. Even I do not have this power. I bring the souls to the gate, nothing more."

For an endless moment the worlds parted and for a moment he saw what she must see each time her wings spread in front of the graves - light and darkness swirling in unfathomable patterns, sounds that echoed through one's being with such force that simply listening to them changed you. The world beyond yawned before him, and both abyss and radiance shone back from it.

Then it was gone, and he looked at up her, tears still streaking his face. His young mind could not understand the words that he heard, or the images he had seen, but his soul told him otherwise. He knew the truth of what she said, and it hurt it even more than the loss of his mother had.

She reached down with one hooked hand and flicked each tear from his cheek. The points of her claws scraped ever so gently over his naked skin, and then her great wings caught him as his eyes closed and he fell into them.

She never came back after that day. When he came to he found that he had been deposited in front of his house, and she was nowhere to be found. He had dried his tears and gone inside and slept for a night and a day.

The funeral was a simple affair. His father had learned his lesson (from the priest, perhaps) and chose not to remonstrate with his son any longer. Instead he left him well alone and let the boy mourn their mutual loss in his own way. The funeral procession wound down the streets that he knew so well from the air, and they seemed so long - much longer than when he flew above the City, the wind in his hair, his hands on her feathered back.

With the reality of pain and loss in front of him those days seemed so far away and long ago. Someone had to keep house and cook the meals and make sure everything ran properly, and with his father still at work that duty fell to him. What with everything that was going on, he never even realized that she was gone until a few weeks had passed.

At first he was upset, and then indignant and then after that, furious. Where did she go? How could she just simply leave him here like that? What about all the time they had spent together? But as time passed the flames of his rage cooled and hardened like the steel on his father's forge and grew into a feeling that when he was older he would know was called resignation.

Though he never forgot her, other things began to take their place. As his grief waned he began to go out and play with the other boys - what his parents thought he was doing in all the time he spent with her. He took walks in the grassy fields outside the City, and went to the High Market to buy fruits and meat. He circled the spires that he had once passed in the air on foot, marveling at how high they really were.

And when he came of age and went to the temple to learn the prayers that each young man was expected to know, he came to understand what an honor it was that one of the Elder Ones had come to his windowsill and flew with him on her shoulders. Who had even shown him a glimpse of the other world, the twilight realm that even the highest of the high priests had not seen in more than twenty years of devout service.

His father, after the prescribed two years of mourning, took another wife, someone unlike his previous one. She was short where his mother had been tall, silent where she had been loud. The boy - now halfway to manhood - didn't hate her, nor did he love her. She was just there, another member of the house. The cakes she baked weren't as good as the ones that his mother made, but he didn't expect them to be. Her voice was never raised in anger, but then again, neither did her hands pick him up when he fell, or brush the dust of his clothes and ruffle his hair. She was someone else entirely, and he could accept that.

The years passed and the boy grew into a youth, and then into a man. He began to wonder anew if she would come to see him. They still lived in the same house, and sometimes when the evening approached he would glance at the windowsill where he used to wait for her every day, hoping to hear the sound of great wings. But that never came, and little by little his hopes died.

It soon came to the question of his chosen vocation. He thought of being a smith like his father, but somehow the thought of beating heated metal into hard shapes day after day held little appeal to him. He could perhaps become a carpenter, or shoemaker. Maybe even a scribe? In recent years he had gotten better at his lessons and his teachers had begun suggesting that that might be a good choice for him. If joined the temple he might see her again. But then again, he might not. And even if he did, she might not want to see him. Too many questions to answer, with no way to answer them.

He took to walking around the town square, unsure and uncertain. He would look at the sky and past the spires and remember the days when they would dive and spin past their tall, tall arches and - and then he would shake his head violently and try to be rid of the memories that seemed to only pull him back and away from the practical considerations of what he had to do to survive. It was too long ago, and those times had little or nothing to do with who and what he was now.

And so he thought, but suddenly one day as he was meandering aimlessly as usual through the city streets a flash of memory thundered through him, and he remembered the glimpse that he had of the other world, and what it had meant. The lightless night that lay beyond death. The vision of the lands beyond that one day everyone would go to.

Something seized him, and he began to visit the sick, and ill and the dying. He knelt by them and heard their stories, he bathed their heads in water and held their cold and clammy hands. And when the mendicants had left their beds and the priests had said their prayers, it was his words that stopped their shaking, his fingers on their faces which soothed grimaces of pain into calm and peaceful smiles.

He became someone who did not fear death, and because he did not, people came from towns around to hear him speak and to look on at this man who visited morgue and sickbed with equal impunity. When they looked into his eyes they saw no judgment or censure, but only compassion, wisdom and resolve.

He spoke to them of death, of dying and what lay after. And his voice rang with such conviction that they believed him, he who had not passed through the ranks of any temple nor wore the robes of any priest, but who as a young child had ridden on the shoulders of Death's handmaiden herself.

He himself never worried or wasted a moment in regret or recrimination, though there were sorrows and joys aplenty in his long life. He never took a wife nor had children, but spent each day in service to those who needed him. But from the day that he first spoke to the ill and the dying, he asked the same questions no longer.

Because he knew that one day, when he himself was at death's door, she would come. And her wings would spread wide and eyes grow darker than night, her talons would close over his frail and fragile hands, and together they would fly once more over the City and its black spires, the High Market and the people below, past rivers and forests and fields...fly to that dawn-lit graveyard and beyond.