Cynthia looked at her hands, then at the doorway to Elizabeth's room. Her mentor had retreated there for a while, leaving Cynthia alone in the living room. She reopened the book she had been reading to the page where she had stopped, and resumed her perusal.

Lyness sniffed the night air, somewhat warily. Lights and motion, distraction of ocean -- she wrinkled her nose, running quickly towards the manor house, slinking past the trees, stopping once to admire the flowers. She petted the petals with her fingertips, smiling gently, and picked up a few stones as she walked over the well-manicured lands. Small, she thought, much smaller than the one Riskard had once shown her. She paused in contemplation of the scene in front of her, humming quietly to hide her intrinsic agitation. A tree, close to the door: she giggled, climbing the tree easily enough, and began singing to herself, tossing the stones in lazy arcs, to connect, softly, then with greater volume, against the front portal. Contentedly waiting, she swung her feet, sitting alighted on a branch of the tree. She giggled, twitching her ears, ever trying to catch the voice of existence that swirled around her.

The sound of something striking the door interrupted Cynthia's reading. Knocking? She stood, going to the door to answer it, and peeked through the peephole. She saw nothing but the shadowy night through its circular frame. "Who's there?" she called through the still-locked door. There was no answer. She unlocked the deadbolt locks, considering whether it was wise to open the door to the unknown. A whim against paranoia bade her throw it wide, and she reached the compromise of calling through a cracked opening, "Is someone there?"

Ears cocked, listening, a twitch of muscle and the words rang clearer. Lyness giggled again, dropping from her shadowy perch, to alight on all fours, looking towards the door. "I have come seeking thy mistress, if she will."

Cynthia was unprepared for Lyness's sudden appearance, but quickly got over the shock. She opened the door wide enough to admit the Gangrel Primogen. "Sure, I think so, I'll ask. Come in. I'll tell her you're here." Cynthia looked at the tree, hardly crediting that Lyness had been in it, but that was what she'd seen.

Lyness shifted from foot to foot on the doorstep, undecided, sniffing; her eyes, wide and watchful, sought out the shape and form of mystical device. She asked in a whisper, "Be it safe?"

"Yes, it's safe," Cynthia assured. Lyness entered the foyer with cautious step, and halted just inside to wait quietly; a presence unto itself, her apprehension wound tight about her shoulders as she huddled close, further, inward drawn of body. Cynthia thought that perhaps Lyness was unsure of Elizabeth's welcome, so she hurried to obtain surety of it. She went to the bedroom door where Elizabeth had ensconced herself, two quick raps of her knuckles sounding louder than she'd expected from the gentle force she had used.

Elizabeth stood, smoothed out her dress, and walked to the door, opening it and looking past Cynthia for a moment, then directly into her eyes. "Yes? Who is the visitor?"

Cynthia replied with a glance over her shoulder, but Lyness was not visible from where she stood. "It is Lyness. You remember, she asked at the Elysium if she might pay us a visit?"

Elizabeth nodded assent, she did remember. Cynthia followed her to the foyer, where Elizabeth greeted Lyness warmly. "Please, be welcome to my house, Lady of Lyness. Come in and make yourself comfortable."

Soothed by the music wafting moonlike through the nooks and crevices around her, Lyness paused as she saw Elizabeth, took a quick and hurried breath, and smiled, brightening at the greeting. Her grin, infectious and irrepressible, responded warmth to warmth, and she wrapped her arms around her hostess in an affectionate bond. Cynthia watched in bemusement as Elizabeth responded in like kind, a more grave yet resonant echo of Lyness's exuberance.

"Welcomed, welcome and gladly received, M'Lady," Lyness said, giggling softly as she followed Elizabeth into the living room, thinking the Lady of Mirrors was kinder than she had first taken her for. Cynthia took a cautious glance out the door, but seeing nothing more, closed and locked it.

They retreated a little ways in, to Elizabeth's tastefully decorated livingroom. Elizabeth motioned Lyness to sit next to her on the cream-colored sofa upholstered in supple leather. Lyness looked from one thing to the next, studying it in evident awe, as she felt for such things beyond her ken - wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonder for all she passed as she was led into the room of rest. She traced her fingertips along the leather before she sat, legs folded underneath her. Cynthia joined them, settling herself into a cushiony armchair across from the two elders.

"I am so pleased you were able to visit us," Elizabeth told Lyness.

"Are there others about?" Lyness whispered.

Elizabeth shook her head no.

"There's Leslie, but he's asleep," Cynthia said. "He's sort of the butler, I guess."

Lyness relaxed a bit more, pushing her hair behind her ears and sighing peacefully. "Tis an honor, m'lady," she said to Elizabeth. A glance at Cynthia interrupted her direction of attention for but a moment.

"No need to be so formal... you could call me Elizabeth. And you know my protege, Cynthia, as well, I think?"

Lyness smiled at both. "Aye. Tis the reason I beg meeting with thee. Cynthia is." She thought a moment, then added, hesitantly, "Elizabeth."

Elizabeth tilted her head, regarding Lyness with a smile still. "What reason is that? I confess I am curious."

Cynthia looked faintly embarassed. She wasn't sure what was being discussed, but it seemed to be about her, yet not including her. This was annoying and also oddly made her feel ashamed, though she had no idea why.

"Her company intrigues, and curious to continue, I come to thee, to ask thy permission."

Elizabeth considered for a drawn-out moment. "Very well, I would consider her honored by your desire for her company, and permit it with pleasure."

Cynthia's eyes widened for a moment, then she smiled at Elizabeth. It was a curious smile, indeed. Without seeming to note it, Lyness spoke to Elizabeth, "Thou art her giver and provider. The honor is mine. I thank thee for thy trust." The Gangrel looked the Toreador elder in the eye as she spoke the words, letting the softness of their tone carry their weight.

Elizabeth smiled at Lyness, blank whiteness of teeth. "I know the trust is well placed in you."

A flash of fangs, four all told, completed the trilogy of expression, as Lyness joined the pair in their merriment – so pleased, in fact, she forgot to cover her canines. She turned her smile's brightness on Cynthia to ask, "And thee? Dost thou wish this as well? To spend time exploring life?" Her face flushed a bit with excitement and hope.

Cynthia nodded, her blond hair flipping into her eyes, so that she had to brush it aside with her hand. "Yes, it sounds great."

Lyness giggled, turning to embrace Elizabeth once more, and spoke with gentle, almost purring affection, "Well and done then." She sat back, pleased and excited, to listen.

"You will have a chance to learn about the Gangrel clan," Elizabeth told Cynthia. "Don't let it go to waste."

Cynthia nodded again, more slowly this time so that her hair did not shift into her eyes. "I won't. Thank you, Lyness." She smiled with genuine cheerfulness at Lyness, though a hint of her uncertainty as to what would happen next showed behind her eyes.

"Wilt thou be staying with me, or shall arranged time and place be preferred?" Lyness tilted her head, studying one, then the other.

"How would you find it most comfortable? She can accompany you now, if you like," Elizabeth said.

"Howsoever she likes. I hath naught but earth to offer as abode, but the welcome stretches to encompass, and farther still, should she care for it."

"Earth abode?" Cynthia considered. "I would sleep in a hole in the ground, do you mean?" At Lyness's nod of assent, the neonate looked doubtful. "Maybe I could come back here before it gets light. Would that work?"

Lyness thought carefully. "T'would be possible, but metal coach a necessity to achieve. My lands are many hours walk from the city."

Elizabeth took in the exchange, looking amused and mildly indulgent. "You may take one of my cars."

Cynthia wondered silently what was wrong with her own car, but forbore to ask. Instead she merely said, a soft echo of her true question hidden in the words, "Is there anywhere to park?"

In a thoughtful tone, tinged with melancholy regret, Lyness said, "Aye. A place of oil and earth where once Jared rested to share the stars." She smiled at Cynthia, regathering her thoughts.

"That'll work, then, sure. I don't know who Jared is, though?"

"A clanmate, gone to seek fortune where he may. Dust never settles long on those of my blood; the wanderlust takes them."

Cynthia's look softens. "Yes, it does. One makes friends and then they're gone off somewhere. It must be difficult for you."

"Harder still the remnants of affections lost, for clan and kith and kin, bound together by blood - yet intemperate tempers flare. He was a good friend, and remains one, though affections drove him yon." The sadness remained in Lyness's tone and glance, dipped light through shadow, and burned what remained – a cold and empty fire.

Elizabeth's eyes alit on the crystals in her display cabinet, the glittering shards of light echoing the emotions raised by Lyness's poetic expression. "I too regret such losses. Though our kind bear the potential for immortality, such never seems to express in truth, as the end of loves and lives comes far too often for our hearts' ease."

Lyness turned, hearing hurt for hurt in her tone - a thing, like suffering, which called to her. She smiled warmly at Elizabeth, lifting a hand to brush the hair behind one of the Toreador elder's ears. "Be contented, for loves lost burn brightly still in the hearth of hearts. Find peace in remembrance, and hope twined close in lingered sorrow. Age is pain - love is life."

The sorrows of two ancient beings crept over Cynthia like moss covering the bones of a tree after lightning had stricken it dead. "Grief is powerful," she offered, her voice as soft as theirs.

Lyness giggled a little and smiled at Cynthia. "Tis. A heady brew, best quaffed in small dose, lest master become servant to their own despair."

Elizabeth touched her fingers to the ends of the strand of hair Lyness had moved. "A bit of the life we need to go on." All were silent a long moment. Then, turning to Cynthia, Elizabeth said in a changed tone, "Perhaps you should pack. You might change your mind about spending the day in the accommodations Lyness can provide. It would not hurt to have a change of clothing."

Cynthia stood, freed from the paralyzing grip of shared empathy. "Yes, you're right, of course. Please excuse me, Lyness." She walked to her bedroom to pack a small overnight bag.

~~~

Paths and fates, having run together for a brief time, diverge again as they always will. But once a person is plucked from the faceless many in the mind of the percipient, though habit may entrench the pattern of thought and act, yet never again will that one be reducible to merely the sum of her parts.

Alone now in her house, Elizabeth gave in finally to the urge to check her hair. She fixed the strand Lyness had tucked behind the ear, and now that the out of place hair was no longer out of place, she was able to feel a bit of peace that Lyness had intended to convey with the gesture, a sense of emotional connection between her and the Gangrel, despite their differences, they had that in common, grieving, loss, and a certain kind of honor.

~~~

As Cynthia bent to put the bag into the trunk, she softly said under her breath, a quote she thought she remembered from Hamlet. "There is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." She thought, we set our own course in the larger part of choosing what we do, but the details are outside our control. Sometimes they seem to have a mind of their own. She closed the trunk on the thought and went around to let Lyness into the car.

Lyness stood close by, watching Cynthia closely. Her ears twitched as she answered in kind, knowing nothing of Shakespear's doomed prince of Denmark. "And we, through beggar's advance, take course for cause, and cause for course, lest blind to fate be bound closer still to fickle fortune."

After a moment's pause, Lyness asked Cynthia, "Dost thou wish this as well? Thy will is of great import to me."

"I do. I just don't know why. But I feel like it's the right thing."

"And like and trust and hope?" Lyness smiled a little, having affection for Cynthia. She felt a moment's pang, wondering if she would ever have a childe as full of potential as Cynthia seemed to her to be.

"It isn't like me to take a giant leap into the unknown." Cynthia grinned suddenly, feeling as though a weight had lifted off her. "I can do it."

Lyness giggled, hugging Cynthia for the first time. "As thou wilt. I hath great hope in thee; curious intent is but the beginning." She eyed the car warily, then stepped gingerly inside the beast, shivering a little as she huddled on the seat, knees drawn up to her chin. She clenched her hands together around her knees to ensure she did not damage the creature as she had so many others.

Cynthia watched Lyness's motions with a mix of concern and bemused humor. "I'm a good driver, if I do say so myself," she said in a reassuring tone. "Ok, off we go."