Disclaimer: non profit fan fiction, etc, etc, etc... I'm still saving up my angst points to get my own set of the boys, but until then I'm borrowing Anne's. I promise to wipe my sticky little fingerprints off before I return them. ;)

Spoilers: TotBT, Lasher and my spec "Rose and Thorn". If you haven't read "Rose and Thorn"... well, this ain't gonna make much sense, now is it? Besides, it's been sitting in the archive for years now... what do you mean you haven't read everything in the entire archive twice? What's your excuse?? For those in the know, this takes place just after "Rose and Thorn", before the opening of "Walk on the Wildside". It's part of the picture spec challenge that I started. =)

In the aftermath of chaos, a calm descended.

The storm had swept out its fury upon the land, raging through the day, whipping tree and bush and grass with frigid pelting rain that stung the flesh and pounded against the window pane until people had fled the streets of the local town and closeted themselves indoors, there to wait until the fury subsided. By evening it had worn itself out, the clouds grudgingly clearing, and in the late hours of the night a sort of shell-shocked quiet descended upon a land mostly asleep.

Mostly, but not entirely.

The remnants of the wind skittered across the surface of the cliff, plucked at the hem of his shirt and playfully lifted tendrils of his hair to whip into his face. He pushed them aside automatically, tucking them neatly back, unheeding how they imediately worked free again. Far below, beyond where his bare feet stood, firmly, upon the sandy gravel and tough scrub grass of the cliff edge, the waves echoed and crashed upon the rocks. Rough black rock, soaked with sea foam and dotted with the sharp edges of barnacle and mussel, countless tiny cosmos of life within each little pool that seeped slowly away with the retreat of the waves, only to fill again as the water came rushing back in. He could pick them out now, each little crawling life, each spot of color that burst out at him as the moonlight shone upon them. So tiny. So very far below.

And down there, knee deep in the surf, a lone figure stood upon the rocks and glared at the incoming tide. Pants rolled up above his calves, splashed and buffeted by the waves that rolled in and surged against him as though he were one of the rocks - and with as much movement on the figure's part. The wind and spray toyed with a mane of pale hair, whipped and tugged at the shirt that had come undone and billowed behind the figure like a cape. Unmoving, unyielding, staring out to the vast black waters. A snarling lion challenging the pounding surf, laying claim to the rock upon which it stood.

A lion far below and far away. The figure on the cliff had only to lift a hand and a single fingertip might block the view. But nothing could block the memory.

A timeless moment, suspended forever in the amber of memory. The rush that had swept the cliff edge from beneath his feet, a great shove against his body flinging him forward, the shout of rage that had died in his throat as the world opened up beneath him into yawning emptiness. He brushed his feet in the sand now, needing the solidity of it, the irritation of the little grains of sand against preternatural flesh. Solid, real, combating the memory that even now made his body sway, leaning against the edge that didn't come. A moment that telescoped into forever, an eternity as he had looked down, seen the rocks below him, felt the pull of gravity on his body and known himself helpless against it - the rush of the wind, the nausea as the plummet stole breath and reference of reality until at the last he had not known whether he fell up or down. And always the push against him, the hand of the wind slamming into him, heavy and relentless.

The shock of the landing, blinding brilliant color against his eyes; a thousand shades of gold and orange and the bright bright blue of a summer sky that he had thought to never see again, streaking out in splinters that shattered the night sky above him... and then nothing. Nothing at all.

Nothing until the blood had flown across his lips, trickled over tongue and throat, forced life back into a battered body with all the relentless force of the surf below. Liquid light, a glimpse of Heaven, the ultimate rapture. A sensation he had denied himself for years. Life.

Love.

And for that small slice of eternity it had stilled the nightmare, washed away the pain, silenced the voices that had howled and gibbered in unholy triumph as the world dropped away from his feet.

Like a fairytale, a phoenix from the flame, love had conquered the darkness. Love had won. Happily ever after.

Looking down to the distant beach, Louis shivered and longed, briefly, for the innocence of the child that believed in fairy tales.

The storm had swept across the land, across the beach and the cream topped waves. Swept it all clean, erased all trace, and in its wake the pristine state of untouched nature reasserted itself. Yet, looking down, he could still feel the memory of the ache deep behind one ear; as though a part of him recognized the blood and matter that had been left behind, poured out upon the jagged rocks below. A life's worth of blood spilled upon the stones and lapped up by the waves. His life. And in some way it was as though the man who stood upon the cliff's edge were someone else, someone new, and not him at all. Some vital portion of Louis de Pointe du Lac had been left down there, washed away in the storm, lost for all time. Absorbed back into the watery womb of the first mother, even as she breathed new life into his veins through the blood. A new chance, a new beginning... a change that thrummed through him, working its magic upon him, making him foreign to himself. The man who had stood upon the cliff only a night before was not the one who stood there now and Louis wished, for one fleeting vain moment, that he had not lost all that was familiar.

Down below the lion moved, prowled across the slick rocks, and a small smile curved Louis' lips. Not all. He had not lost quite everything. He had only to look down to that small figure to know it, and though the waves might buffet them both Lestat remained the one solid constant that Louis could cling to.

Lestat stooped now, fishing in the swirling water between two rocks. Louis already knew what the result would be, saw it confirmed as Lestat slapped angrily at the inrushing wave, water spraying up into the air. Nothing left on that beach, nothing but the lion itself. The storm had done a thorough job, and it was time to admit it.

Lestat looked up towards the cliff, and with the new sight of his sparkling new eyes Louis could see the angry, frustrated disappointment on that far distant face. The rushing roar of the ocean drowned out words; instead, Louis lifted a hand, shrugged, beckoned. A snarl curved the generous lips down below, but with one last glance down at the water swirling at his feet - one last rebellious kick that sent spray flying - Lestat admitted grudging defeat and moved away.

Even knowing it was coming, even looking for it, the instant gravity let go its grasp was impossible to see. Louis trained his eyes upward automatically, caught a glimpse, a streak of movement - and then Lestat was beside him, dishevled and wet, unbuttoned shirt sticking wetly to his skin once away from the stronger winds of the beach. He glared mutinously down at the beach below, taut body nearly humming with pent up frustration.

Gentle voice, the tone of a master trainer soothing a skittish and half wild creature - and if it had more depth to it now, if the reverberations carried farther, seemed less human, well, who was to say that was not better than its former state? "Lestat... it was only a ring."

Lestat scrubbed a hand through hair already made wild by salt water, lips pressed tight. Dropping down to a crouch, fingers snagging and snapping at the sharp bladed grass, sifting the sand, unceasing energy in those quick, surly movements. "I thought it might have fallen into a crack." Unspoken resentment at the watery thief, hating to have to admit there was something he couldn't do, couldn't fix.

Louis moved slowly, feeling the minute shifts and changes, the differences of his own movements and the way they felt in the strangely fitting suit his body had suddenly become. Coming to terms with a strength he had thought never to have, except in the fullness of time. Crouching down beside Lestat, he slipped a spider light hand about the other man's shoulders. "It doesn't matter."

"It does!" Sudden outburst, and again Louis could almost feel the thoughts forever closed to him, could almost taste them as though the words hovered, unspoken, on his own tongue. Anger, but not at the ocean - no, resentment for another thief, a fiend that Lestat longed to be able to touch, to tear and rend, fingers itching to sink into flesh that didn't exist. No gratification there, helpless anger, futile raging that burned within, consuming with a bitter touch.

Louis soothed the wild spikes of salt soaked hair, still cautious of his own strength as the little tangles wrapped themselves about his finger tips. "It doesn't," he insisted, softly. "It was an old thing, Lestat. The band was worn, the settings half broken. It doesn't matter." - then, gently smiling, lightly teasing, an unspoken offer, "If it would be better, you might buy me a new one."

A moment, considering, and then some of the tension drained from the taut shoulders beneath his hand. Salt and sand crusted fingers reached out, shyly twined with his, as though the actions of those lone appendages were completely removed from that of their owners. A fingertip traced across the lines of his own finger, trailing gently across the empty space where an antique ring had rested only the night before. "An emerald," Lestat said at length. "Ringed with diamonds."

Louis smiled. "Or a sapphire," he offered softly. "The color of your eyes, mon Lestat."

Lestat relaxed, leaning back into the circle of Louis' opened arms. "Anything you want."

Arms closed, fingers entwined. And if an unseen, unfelt storm still whispered with silken tongue, if the silent voice still beckoned - Louis turned a deaf ear and held tight to the belief that love might yet carry through to ever after. "Everything I want is right here."

End

Author Note - Before anyone starts wondering, the ring has no significance to anything in R&T. The only important piece of jewelery in that was the watch - the ring was just a minor belonging, lost in a certain literal cliffhanger.