“You'll be safe here, I swear it.” I heard Jason tell the old man.
They were in a high tower in Jason's castle. There was nothing physically in the room for the 'prisoner' to sleep on or hold onto. But at least it was clean, dry and lit by the moon or the sun. When Matthew had been delivered to the castle, the man who'd brought him assumed he was to be taken to the darker pits of the place. A perception and mistake which had embarrassed Jason to no small degree.
“I can't let you go.” Jason continued. “But do you need a pillow or something?”
“I don't see how that can matter to you.” Matthew told the creature bluntly. “If I'm your prisoner, what do you care the condition of my cell, or how I feel about it?”
“After everything that's happened, I don't ask you to believe me, but this IS as much for keeping you out of their hands as it is for Beth.” Matthew looked up, stunned at his daughter's name. “She's been asking about you. I assumed seeing you face to face was better, for her, than through a magic mirror or something.”
I could see Matthew raise his hand as though to strike his keeper. I made myself flesh to stay the blow. “He's telling you the truth.” I told the old man bluntly. “I can sense your perception that he is being dishonest by keeping you both here, when she took your place in the bargain. But that's not it at all. Well, not the whole picture anyway. I can't describe it too clearly, because I can't see it very clearly in the first place, but he and I both think things outside are about to get very chaotic and destructive. Probably having something to do with that hunter who wanted to make himself a suitor. Either way, this 'creature' as you see him really is just trying to...well no matter how either of you feel about your being a prisoner once again, making you miserable is not his goal. And he does care about that.”
“Who and what are you?” Matthew asked in a mystified tone.
“I'm someone with magic.” I answered him bleakly. “Well, someone with what you would view and describe as magic anyway. But I don't have just one use or purpose for it. My gifts can be used for either good or evil, can be seen as either good or evil. But to avoid assumptions for why I use my powers, I usually avoid using them in public.”
I will tell Beth that you are here. I'm not trying to hide you from her. But please, let her hear it from me first. Let me bring her up to you. I don't want to use that precious time to explain what you're doing here. I WILL tell her.”
Jason turned and left in a rush. Matthew stared at me. “What does he mean the evening he has planned? What is he trying to do?”
“He's trying to make one last effort to prove he's changed.” I answered at once. “And I don't mean proving it to you or your daughter. What you see around you, including the creature you think he is, is his punishment for something that happened years ago. He very much deserved it at the time. And what's left of...their time really is almost passed. I better go and do what I can to make sure the shadow of what's coming doesn't hang like a storm cloud, trampling what this night is supposed to be. Interpret that how you will.”
“Are you really as young as you look miss?” Matthew asked as I turned away.
“Well that depends what you mean by 'young'.” I answered him with a smile. “I really am as healthy as I look. The expression 'fit as a fiddle' really does apply. I've lived way more years hereabouts that what the youth on my face would ever show. It is not a great power that I posses. I'm not projecting this appearance or whatever. This is just how I live.
When I got back to my room, I was having trouble making sense of things. I could remember everything that had happened to get them to this place. That is I had memories of most of what had passed between any of them, as though I had been somewhere physically nearby when most of it had happened. The problem was, I'd just arrived on the scene a few minutes before Matthew was brought here. I decided if I was going to have any hope of understanding what was to come, that I actually would be here to witness with my own eyes, I'd have to look back on everything I just learned...and trust what I saw.
“Even the most comfortable prison is still a prison.” Luther told Charles glumly. “I'm not blind to that truth, and I don't think you are either. We can't change the master's mind. She made this choice, to exchange herself of her own free will. It was noble as well as brave and I will do what I can to see she is not treated as a prisoner, beyond being as trapped here as the rest of us.”
Two vampires in a bar watch a couple strangers; a geeky congenial alien and a laid back but changed human until they leave. Nicolas wanders over to Jeanette who has the single most intense expression a biological organism can have. After a moment's thought Jeanette says: Either I've become even more human than you have, or something less alive than either of us just walked out that door!
"Yeah I'm crazy. I've known for a long time that I was crazy. Hell I knew I was crazy before I technically WAS crazy...that doesn't make me incorrect. I wear the badge of weirdo with pride and if that makes me 'crazy' it's a craziness this world could do with catching!"
Tao: (paraphrased) Dar if your animal friends are scared to come with us, doesn't that say something about what we're charging into?
The demon Curipuria: (of the tiger, Ruh) Beastmaster, I have a question for you. Which hurts more: the claws of the tiger, or that you were betrayed by a friend?”
The Beastmaster: (looking at Tao) ...That I almost betrayed a friend hurts more.”
Dar: Will you take me? (to the Terron camp to find Kyra)
Tao: (stammering) the..the..Terrons have sorcerers, warriors, beasts beyond your imagination.
Dar: (tensely) Yes. Or no?
Tao: I swore by every star in the sky that I would NOT go back there EVER...But you saved my life. (Dar nods) My name is Tao it means 'the way'. And I'll show it to you.”
“Oliver can I take with you for a minute?”
Oliver Queen looked up from his novella to a welcome sight: Quentin Lance standing in his study as if he belonged there. “Of course Quentin, what's up?”
“I know when the three of us are together, me you and your mom, you're very chill about it and I appreciate that. But I wanted to know...ARE you okay with it?”
“Mr. Lance, you've been seeing my mom romantically for a year and a half, you've been living with us for the past five months. If I had a problem with it, you'd have heard about it like way before now. And is this going where I think it's going?”
"I want to ask her to marry me. But I can't stop thinking I'm charging in like a jackass."
"Mr. Lance, you know me, both sides of me and you've accepted them both. Because you took the time to get to know us...and made damn sure the Green guy was as good as you thought. You're not charging in half-cocked. And you are NOT pressing advantage. The two of us work well together, the two of you love each-other.. Be your straight-forward unadorned passionate self and ask her."
"...Okay on the list of things I thought you might say that was nowhere near the top."
“...Wait were you worried about what she would say or what I would say?”
“Oliver, to say we have a complicated history is an understatement. I didn't want you resenting me forcing my way into MORE of your life.”
“Then you don't give yourself enough credit. Mr. Lance for the past five years I've wondered what it would be like to call you *Quentin* on a regular basis. And now I think I can.” His brain seemed to catch up to his friends admission. “Quentin are you high? As the Arrow I already trusted you. I decided the moment I heard your admission that I liked you. As weird as this sounds, given who I'm talking to, I want you in my life. ESPECAILLY if that life means being my step-father.”
“I...I can't tell you how much that means to me Oliver.”
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