I blink uncertainly.

She just grins at my confusion and then returns to chasing her tail.

I kneel on the ground and watch her play, awed by her beauty, feeling alive, feeling strangely at home in this place, although this is my first ever spirit walk.

My knife shakes in my hand. 

It feels heavy and unwieldy, strangely alien within my trembling fingers as I press its hungry edge against his pale skin. His wide blue eyes are bright with fear. Then, as the tip of the blade slides through fragile flesh, that brightness spills and falls like slow rain down his cheeks. His blood wells and bubbles through the broken tissue until it becomes a steady stream of angry red. 

One gasp of pain, then he is shocked into silence as he watches his blood rush like volcanic lava through the chasm I have cut into his formerly virgin-white wrist.

For an endless moment I stand there while his eyes darken. His mouth tightens and twists with the fear of betrayal and a tiny whimper escapes through his pain-pursed lips. 

His hair is haloed red-gold against the rising sun. His eyes are as blue as the misty morning sky and gray shadows swirl within them, like the spiraling smoke from our dying campfire. His bare chest is sweat-sheened, his skin quivering with a combination of pain, fear and cold.

The alien paleness of his beauty astounds me, causes me to shiver at the enormity of what I am doing, the risk I am taking, the lure I cannot resist.

And for a moment, I doubt the choices I have made that have brought us here.

The dawn is fraught with danger. I can hear a myriad of whispering voices inside my head, each urging me to turn back, step away, before it is too late. A thousand images tumble through my mind, a ceaseless kaleidoscope of memories of places I have not been, of people I do not know, of lives I have not lived. An insane cacophony of sound and vision. Memories of violence I have never witnessed, of the touch of hands I have never felt, of pain I have never suffered, of grief that I have never experienced.

Of the losing of a love that I haven't even found.

I see my sudden fear reflected in his eyes and I stagger, knees weak, my vision clouded by the throbbing, surging flow of blood from his wound.

But I know, somehow, that it is too late now to choose another way.

Our feet are set upon this path.

Whatever fate has brought us to this moment will not be denied.

And, with that understanding, I twist the blade backwards and slice through my own darker flesh.

The intensity of the pain drives the visions from my head, banishes them back to whatever netherworld they escaped from and, in the sudden sparkling brilliance of his eyes as he sees me fulfill our pact, I am sure that the images, the doubts, were just the work of evil spirits who would attempt to drive us apart.

Just as our fathers have striven to keep us from this act with their dire warnings that our worlds are too distant from each other for us to bridge the gap.

Yet, now I know for certain that they were wrong.

My blood is exactly the same shade as his, despite the disparity of our skin tones. Beneath the outward surface, we are alike.

Perhaps, *that* is the ultimate truth of this ceremony.

We are brothers in blood now, if not in flesh. Our differences cast aside as we join at that most basic level of merging fluids; as I thrust my wound against his and press so tightly that our blood mingles and becomes one.

My heart is thudding in my chest, or perhaps it is *his* heart that deafens me with its thundering beat. Our combined heartbeat is so loud that for some strange reason it reminds me of my people's drums of war. 

My forehead is pressed against his, our sweat tears blending together, the white-hot lance of pain in my wrist almost forgotten as his essence seeps inside me and flows through my veins like an invading army.

/Forever/

"Forever," he agrees, as though I had somehow spoken aloud.

Perhaps I did.

Our promise is caught and swept away by the wind, becoming no more than a whisper between the trees and yet it has power in its dissipation. It cannot be recaptured, taken back, denied. Our vow, given voice, will never now be silenced.

I shiver as, unbidden, the memories that are not memories fill my head once more with violent promise.

Yet, despite the peculiar certainty I have in this moment that our joining will bring fire and destruction upon us, I am equally certain that in this merging of our bodily fluids we have forged a bond that even death cannot rip asunder.

I shiver and pull my tattered coat tighter around my body. 

It is not only the terrible gnawing hunger in my stomach that keeps my blood so chilled that even my bones ache. There also is a thin layer of ice forming over my clothing, my hair and my week-old beard.

Crammed so tightly together in this box car you'd think our bodies would generate heat, but in the intensity of this bleak winter the very breath that emerges from our mouths in a pale, wispy fog becomes a saturating dew that freezes on contact to form a skin of frozen water over our trembling bodies.

Still, fewer of us breathe now and the cold at least prevents the corpses from rotting and adding the hazard of disease to our slow, freezing starvation.

The dead lie like untidy bundles of twigs, their limbs black and twisted, their shamed nakedness an offence against God himself though not even I can find anger against the wretched souls who stripped them of their rags in a desperate attempt to extend their own suffering for a little longer.

But I will not accept my own share of the booty. I cannot bear to clothe myself in the garb of the dead, even though I barely dare hope that this journey will end before my own limbs sprawl lifelessly upon this slatted wooden floor.

I bear enough shame, enough guilt, to carry to the judgment of my God without adding more sin to the blackness of my soul.

I hate.

Oh, admittedly, we all hate. 

Even those of us who sit shell-shocked and stunned, mumbling unheard prayers like madmen. Even those who were blindly led onto this train with the innocent stupidity of sheep, loudly denying reality, incapable of believing in the brutality of fellow human beings.

But I am not innocent and so my hatred burns hotter. I do not even have my faith to comfort me any more.

The star on my coat mocks me so much that I am pleased that its garish yellow is faded beneath the layer of ice. I would tear it from my breast except that the action would be misconstrued by my fellow prisoners. They would see it as a denial, they would accuse me of turning my back on our God. My apparent loss of faith would be a more grievous insult to their wounded souls than any physical harm our enemies have so far caused them.

They won't understand that it is Jehovah who has turned his eyes away from me.

I'm a sinner.

A fool.

I loved him.

I thought he loved me.

I trusted him, believed him when he assured me that I was safe, that we were all safe, that the rumors were just fanciful lies. That he would never allow anything to happen to me, to us.

I still believed in him even when the soldiers came and rounded us from the ghettos and herded us towards the train station. I kept looking for him among the sea of black uniforms, waiting for him to come and tell me it was a mistake, selfishly expecting at any moment to feel his hand clutch my shoulder and pull me back out of the line.

And he was there, at the station. Beautiful as ever, his face angelic over his severe uniform, his eyes as impossibly blue as the morning sky, his hair so pale in that early morning light that it seemed as though a red-gold halo formed around his features.

He was standing so stiffly that he barely seemed to breathe, and by his side his father stood, his patrician face set in a cold smirk and although his arm was thrown casually over my lover's shoulder as though in affection, I could see the white knuckles of his hand straining as he kept his son in place.

A lesson then, I understood. An errant son being brought to heel.

And still I could not believe that he would do nothing to save me. That after all the years of defying his father over our relationship, he would now step back and let me be taken.

Our eyes met, and I saw fear, pain, anguish and resignation. He dipped his gaze from mine, his cheeks flushing with shame, and then, and then…

....he just turned away.

There is fear.

Not fear of pain, though I know beyond doubt that pain will be a part of our joining.

No, the fear is deeper and greater than that. A fear, perhaps, of losing myself completely; of drowning in the depths of his blue, blue eyes and never resurfacing again.

My whole body is shivering, shaking, trembling as though I can barely keep myself from turning and running, running, running until my very heart explodes inside my chest.

His fingers burn me with their very gentleness. Soft pads of flesh, barely touching as they glide over my sweat-drenched flanks, yet ice-hot as they scald me, mark me, crawl inside my very spirit with their brutally gentle assault.

Like osmosis his essence, his spirit, his being, sinks inside my open pores and transmutes muscle to quivering nerve endings.

There is terror.

Terror that I will lose myself in this; that by accepting the glide of his flesh within mine, I will lose the ability to be alone.

There is pleasure.

Heat upon heat, the sliding of flesh, the trembling of my skin as his lips burn a trail of fire throughout my body, as his touch ignites my senses, as I thrash wantonly beneath his loving assault and open myself wide in surrender.  

There is pain.

In the midst of my pleasure it comes as suddenly as unexpected betrayal, as sharp as the piercing of flesh with a knife, a ripping of flesh, a spurting of blood, and I scream as though I am a woman giving birth. 

Yet, even in my temporary agony there is joy. 

My body is bursting open to welcome a life inside, not to eject one.

And in the aftermath, as his fluids pour inside me and his heat withers within me and my battered, bruised flesh resonates with the memory of his brutal thrusts, I sob and am undone.

Unraveling like a shredded garment, the threads of my life fall apart. My self-image as torn as my tender flesh, my knowledge of who I am, of who *he* is disintegrates, washed away in the flood of blood, semen and tears.

We are one.

Forever.

And I know, in that moment, that without him I am nothing.

A chill wind slithers through the naked trees. Its voice hisses a thousand whispered secrets, laying my soul as bare and vulnerable as the winter-stripped willows. I see a lonely withered leaf spinning and twisting on the end of one thin branch as it strives fruitlessly to survive. It dances its death-throes, brown with age; a dried withered husk that soon crumbles into dust and blows away until it is no more than a memory. 

Beneath my feet the grass is charred, burned by the frost to the color of the surrounding bark and, here and there, the corpse of a flower lies crushed and defeated; fragile flowers bleached like bones in this graveyard of summers past and long forgotten.

It is time, perhaps.

"Akoochimoyah, I have traveled far from the bones of my ancestors…" 

Yet, have I?

Have I traveled far? 

It does not seem so now, as I huddle here at the lake's edge and see the silvery rippling across its surface, the water shivering like the skin of a great slumbering beast. Its breath betrayed by the slight ebb and flow of the water that laps at my feet, yet I sense its power harnessed deep within the dark depths. 

Fathomless, bottomless lake that jealously conceals its mysteries beneath an illusion of calm within this barren, winter landscape.

This place, once timeless, is corrupted now with the cancer of age, of despair, of death.

Throw a pebble into the lake and it stirs briefly, it shudders with irritation at the temerity of one who would disturb its rest but then, too soon, it settles back into its coma, the disturbance forgotten. I'm forgotten. 

I throw another stone, larger this time, heavy enough to open a gashing wound in the mirrored surface and it bleeds a series of ever decreasing circles until it heals itself with a low grumble and slumbers once more.

"But perhaps there is a kind spirit…"

Kind? What is kindness? Perhaps this place has the right of it after all. Perhaps the only kindness now is the ability to forget.

Yet, I am like that twisting leaf. I will not willingly succumb to this winter wasteland that is all that is left of a young man's dreams. 

She laughs at me. A choking, bark of humor that emerges as little more than a wheezing cough from her white muzzle. Her eyes are so blindly opaque that they shine blue in the moonlight and her ribs are stark against her age-bleached pelt. It hurts me to look at her like this, arthritic and old.

As I am arthritic and old.

I reach a gnarled hand out to caress her head and her eyes are soft despite their alien sheen.

/It's time/

I blink at her and shake my head in negation, although just that much movement sends a wave of pain throughout my whole body.

Odd that, that I should feel pain here when my body is not even truly in this place.

/It's time/ she repeats, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as though she has run a great race and is now exhausted and ready to rest.

But then, what greater race is there than life itself?

Yet still I refuse. I am not ready. I'll never be ready. I'll never agree to leave my body because of the treasure that I so jealously guard inside my failing heart. *He's* there. All that is left of him is his memory and I will not lay that burden down and allow him to blow away like dust.

/He's waiting for you/

I don't care.

I don't believe any more. I've lost my faith, lost my way. I no longer believe enough in an afterlife to risk his spirit with my own death.

/Just as he's always waiting for you. Forever/

I don't understand her.

Of course I don't understand. My whole tribe is long gone, the warriors slaughtered by the blue coats, the women raped and murdered. Even our children's bones became ash on the wind. 

For forty years, I have survived alone to bear witness to my people's suffering. I have endured prisons, near starvation and enforced marches from one reservation to another. Never settling in a place for long before the white mens' greed devoured the place I had been allotted so that I was forced to move again. 

Watching one promise after another be broken as easily as the bones of my people, as one sanctuary after another became a new slaughter ground, as every time hunger and despair dragged us back onto our feet to fight we were crushed once more.

And still I survived to sing the song of my people. To give them eternity. To keep some small part of them alive. To keep some small part of *him* alive.

/It's time now/

No. 

I haven't protected his memory this long only to give up. I have guarded his spirit within my heart for too long for the mere frailty of flesh to let me down now. Let him down.

But I'm tired.

So tired.

Perhaps I should just rest a little, gather my strength, lie down at the side of this slumbering lake and just close my eyes for a moment.

Strangely, the ground feels soft against my stiff bones as I curl, just for a little while, and lay my cheek against the brittle grass. She curls against me and her warmth seeps into my body, stealing over me like a blanket of comfort.

I'll just close my eyes for a little while and picture his face. Not as I last saw it, flesh viciously torn by my bullet, but as I first saw him, silhouetted against the sky, his pale flesh and laughing eyes, his lean limbs and his perfect profile captured forever in my heart.

I smile and feel my breathing deepen, as a feeling of languor fills my body and the constant aches and pains that have been my companions for so long slowly begin to abandon me.

But I am not alone.

He's waiting for me.

And I let go.

The clearing is silent, except for a faint murmuring breeze that whispers through the branches of trees that huddle half-naked on its perimeter. On one of the low-hanging branches I see a lonely early leaf spinning and twisting, its presence defying a faint, lingering chill that the pale sun is too weak to combat.

The lake is quiet, peaceful, its surface a mirror-like reflection of the clear pale blue of the sky and beneath my feet the yellowed winter grass is speckled, here and there, with the bright green of fresh growth. Yet a little of the brave new grass is black-edged with the savage gnawing of frost.

It is a morning of promises and warnings, both so intermingled that I am confused whether I am in a place of birth or death.

Yet, on the edge of the clearing, there is a wolf pup cavorting playfully as she gambols through the early grass. The sun is low in the sky but it still casts a halo of red-gold over her lush pelt. 

She is beautiful.

I feel my mouth curving into a wide grin of pleasure at her carefree antics and I feel a strange sense of recognition, although I know I have never before witnessed such a glorious creature.

"Are you my guide?" I ask her hopefully.

She pauses her play and darts me a sideways glance, her fur-face oddly expressive, her soft-eyes swirling with both wisdom and mischief.

/Of course. I'm *always* your guide/

"Always?"

She just grins at my confusion and then returns to chasing her tail.

I kneel on the ground and watch her play, awed by her beauty, feeling alive, feeling strangely at home, although this is my first ever spirit walk.

The wind whips my face and I throw back my head and laugh in delight as my thighs clench around the powerful muscles that ripple beneath me as I gallop across the endless plain. 

There is nothing but the thunder of hooves and the heavy snorting breath of my mount as it lengthens its stride, pushing its muzzle forward in a vain attempt to steal a little more distance on its rival. Neck and neck we race, his own pony seemingly unencumbered by the harness and saddle that separate man from beast. Even then, in the midst of my joy, I feel sorrow for him. Grief that in this, as in all things, he is kept slightly apart from the reality of flesh on flesh, honed muscle on muscle.

Perhaps that is why I do it.

I veer my mount against his, so that our legs slide against each other, and then I leap, mid-gallop, twisting my body so that I land behind him with an almost painful jarring. His pony's squeal of protest at its new burden is lost behind his roar of laughter at my antics and he makes no move to dislodge me, even when I snake my arms around his waist and blow against the skin revealed by his barbarically short hair. 

It's only when my fingers creep upwards to brutally squeeze his nipples that he hauls his mount to a savage halt that almost unseats us both.

"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice high-pitched and breathless.

/My brother…my lover?/

He shakes his head in frantic denial, sliding from our mount and stumbling away, sinking to his knees, his face pale with shock, his eyes dark with anger. 

No. 

Not anger, something else…something bright and dark and fearful.

/MINE/

Again he shakes his head. His people do not believe in that, he stutters. His people see me, see *us*, just the idea of us, as a sin.

His blue eyes are bright with fear and then, as the tips of my fingers slide over fragile flesh, the brightness falls like slow rain down his cheeks. Yet his groin swells noticeably beneath his tight uniform pants.

/My brother…my lover!/

And his head droops in acceptance, his thin shoulders trembling with a mix of fear and resignation, as though he always knew that our exchange of blood would lead to this place, this time, this ultimate consummation.

"I'm yours," he whispers. "Forever."

A warm wind tickles the lush foliage of the trees. Its voice sings of a thousand dreams, and, as I spin around in wonder, my soul adds its voice to this chorus glorifying life. I see a butterfly gliding from flower to flower on the multihued blanket that is richly spread twixt lake and forest like a living carpet. It dances lightly through the sun-speckled foliage, its wings sparkling in the refracted light that shimmers from the calm surface of the deep water.

I sprawl on my back in the long grass, enjoying the sunbeams that bathe me. My eyes close, but I do not need vision to see her as she prowls through the bulrushes that edge the lake. When she finally approaches me, her long shadow casting between the setting sun and my face is enough warning to make her voice expected and welcome.

/You are happy?/

"I am content," I reply. It's not the same thing, but it is enough.

/Then what do you seek?/

Seek? I am confused. I seek nothing. I am content to lie here and rest.

/He is waiting for you/

"Who?" I ask lazily, although my body shivers as though a cloud has crossed in front of the sun. A half-remembered dream flickers somewhere on the edge of my consciousness. I reach out to snag it, to catch it tight, but it flutters away like the butterfly. Something fragile, and beautiful and wild.

It's gone and I mourn its passing even though I know not what it even signifies.

/It is time/

"Time for what?"

She just grins at me, her sharp teeth flashing white, and I shiver again as a vague memory stirs of white flesh, sun-gold hair and blue, blue eyes. For a moment I almost catch the features of the stranger's face, but the image blurs and is gone.

It is the stench that I cannot bear.

The pain is nothing, not even worthy of mention. The fear is not a weakness; in this time, this place, only a fool would not fear. Even the grief is bearable. It is a burden I carry willingly.

But the foul stench of my own soiled body is putrid and rank, reducing me to the animal that they call me.

Yet I am not an animal.

They will discover that tomorrow when I choose to die with dignity, with pride. I will not scrabble in the dirt for weapons any more than I will wrestle my fellow captives for the few scraps they throw us.

I will defy the eagle, even if I can only do so by refusing to fight.

Perhaps he sees that in my face. This lone, willowy youth who hides behind his uniform and his father's strength. 

I spit at his face and have the pleasure of seeing his blue eyes flash with fear as my saliva rolls down his cheek like a tear.

"I mean no harm to you," he says, his voice ridiculously soft in this place of death.

"Bastard pup of a traitor slut," I growl, and am amused to see the shadow of pain that darkens his eyes.

So he knows my tongue and that is why my barb has struck home so deep.

Of course. How else would he carry the coloring of my people despite the iron and leather of his outlander uniform? He may be the son of a general, but he is the whelp of a slave girl.

"Does this amuse you, brother?" I snarl, jerking my head around the filthy cell where tomorrow's gladiators await death. 

/Brother/

The word echoes through the cell, whipping him with its scorn, and then resonates into a backlash of regret as some elusive, half-formed memory teases at my subconscious. 

/Brother/

My own mocking word strikes an unexpected wound into my own heart, as his fine-boned features twist with indecision and obvious pain.

His companion is wary, his dark eyes darting between his master and myself, uncertain of the words we speak but certain enough from the youngster's start of pain and my own mocking grin that I am causing offence. Certain enough to strike me to my knees with the back of his sword and then kick his sandaled feet into my already agonized ribs.

"Stop," the young soldier demands, pulling his companion away from me. "I would take this one as my body servant. Do not damage him further."

Before his companion can advise him of his foolishness, I laugh in his face.

"I am no tame dog. I am a wolf. Take me from this place and all I will give you is my blade in your heart," I promise him.

"I am traveling to your homeland soon. I require a guide, a servant, and in return you go home. Is that not worth a little loyalty, *wolf*?" he demands.

"To go home as a slave?" I mock. "I think not."

"I did not say I would require a guide home again," he replies, with a strange smile.

Is it that easy? Can I trust that he will free me when we reach my home?

No.

It is a trick, a deceit, an offer made by a Roman demon no matter how innocent his face.

Yet, my blade can pierce his heart as easily on the shores of my own land as it could do here.

"Yes," I say. "I will be your guide."

"And will you give me your loyalty?" he demands.

"For now," I say. "Brother."

"Give me your hand," he says, scrambling over the precarious ledge and reaching a hand out towards me.

"Get out of here, Paris," I spit, "before the whole thing comes down."

He doesn't listen, the fool, even when I point out that if he climbs any further the staircase will collapse and take us both to our deaths.

"Yeah, but on the other hand, If I save your butt, then your life belongs to me. Isn't that some kind of Indian custom?" he challenges.

"Wrong tribe," I lie.

"You'd rather die than let me be the one to rescue you?" he demands incredulously, and somewhere, deep in the pits of the Ocampan staircase, I hear a lone wolf howl.

"If I have to die, at least I'll have the pleasure of watching you go with me," I say, and I reach out and grasp his fingers with mine.

A chill wind slithers between the naked trees and gnaws incessantly at my exposed flesh, its hissing teeth laying my soul as bare and vulnerable as the winter-stripped willows that surround me. From the corner of one wind-whipped eye, I see a lonely withered leaf spinning and twisting on the end of a thin branch. It dances its death-throes, brown with age; a dried withered husk that soon crumbles into dust and blows away until it is no more than a memory. 

Beneath my feet the grass is charred, burned by the frost to the color of the surrounding bark and, here and there, the corpse of a flower lies crushed and defeated; fragile flowers bleached like bones in this graveyard of summers past and long forgotten.

And between the trees a white wolf lurks, her skull-like face set in a rictus of scorn.

"Are you my guide?" I ask her fearfully.

/Of course. I'm *always* your guide/

There is no welcome in that admission. I can feel her scorn washing over me like a shower of sharp needles and my skin prickles and burns under her gaze.

I tell myself that it is the bitter wind that is causing my eyes to sting with tears, yet I feel the strength drain from my limbs until I sink to my knees on the ground.

And the wraith wolf circles me with flashing, angry eyes.

/You never learn, do you?/ she snarls.

And I shiver, feeling chastised and frightened on this, my first ever spirit walk.

"You have to leave this place," he says.

"This is our home," I reply. "This is where the bones of our ancestors lie."

"By tomorrow it will be where *your* bones lie," he replies angrily.

I watch a bird break cover from the lakeside and swoop into the air with a frantic beating of wings and my heart races in time with each downstroke. Yet, when I speak, my voice is calm and firm.

"This is our home."

"You're not listening to me," he accuses. "Why won't you listen to me?"

Tears break free of his bright eyes and hover on his pale eyelashes.

"We have a treaty," I tell him. "We have no reason to run and hide."

"Do you think I rode here for nothing?" he demands, wiping a hand angrily across his dusty face, smearing white tear tracks through the grime. "Do you have any idea what will happen to me if they find out I came to warn you?"

/Traitor/

The word hangs unspoken between us. He made his choice and I cannot bear to belittle his sacrifice. And yet, this is our home. We will not run.

"I will tell the elders," I say gently. "I will give them your warning. Now go back to your people, my brother. Go back to the blue coats before they find that you have left."

"I want to stay with you," he begs.

"You cannot. They may let *us* run, but your father would follow *you*. You would bring danger to the tribe. You are the son of a great General. We will be safer without you by our side."

"Oh God," he sobs, his face buried now in his palms as he accepts the truth of my lie.

Lie it is, for we will not run. This is our home.

"Go," I tell him. "Go back to your people. The time for play is past. We are no longer children, we are men. Our paths have divided."

"You said we were forever," he whispers.

"We are," I promise, and then shudder as a low roll of distant thunder punctuates my words as though the spirits themselves bear witness to the breaking of my heart. "We'll meet again," I tell him, and again the thunder takes my words and echoes my oath throughout the valley.

"I'm cold," he whimpers.

Indeed, his skin has a bluish caste despite the camp fires that flicker around us, haloing his hair with the red-gold of the dancing flames. It is late October, too cold for anyone to stand for long wearing no more than the hemp ropes that bind his arms and legs.

"Soon," I promise. 

Not surprisingly, he is not comforted by my words.

"Your people are barbarians," he says bravely, his eyes flickering with distaste at the assembled chieftains. He shudders at the rotting, decapitated heads that dangle from their sword belts. "My father was right, after all," he adds, in a pained whisper.

"Why? Because our customs are not yours? Because we are different?"

"Because you are savages," he hisses.

"Forcing captured warriors to fight each other to the death for entertainment is not savage?" I counter. "Letting wild beasts rip us apart for your pleasure is not barbaric? And tell me, *master*," I drawl, "did your mother not find her life as your father's whore to be a savage form of slavery?" 

He looks ill, as always he does when I mention his half-breed blood and turns his face away from me, his fine features twisting with confused anger.

"Why do you hate me so?" he asks finally, and although he turns back to face me, his eyes cannot rise to meet mine. "Did I not save you from that place? Did I not bring you home? Did I not give you your freedom?"

"Almost," I agree. 

Finally his bewildered eyes meet my own and although he doesn't speak, I answer the question in his face.

"I must cleanse the taint of your touch from my spirit," I reply. "When your life ends, mine will begin again."

"Then you really mean to do it?" he gasps, his eyes widening as though he has only just truly realized that this is not some bizarre joke. That I am not teasing him. That I truly have betrayed him.

I soothe his trembling flanks, running my hands down his bound arms, rubbing my chest against his bare flesh.

"I must. It is our way. It is the only way. In your death, I will be reborn into my freedom and will be able to rejoin my clan."

"You..you lied to me," he whispers, and his voice is as brittle as a dried-up leaf.

"No," I say, cupping his beautiful face in my palm tenderly. "You said you could not bear to be parted from me, that you wished to abandon your own people and follow me home. You said you had no desire to live without me. I promised you would never have to."

"But…but I love you," he whispers. "I always have. Since the first time I saw you in that filthy hole. I saved you. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Even if my love means nothing, can you really take my life when I've done you no harm?"

I reach forward and crush his trembling lips with my own, bruising them black with my kiss, biting the soft flesh and tasting the coppery bitterness of his life force.

"I do love you, little Roman," I whisper, and he shudders as I nip the pale flesh of his neck and swirl my tongue lightly over the tiny wounds I inflict. "I will love you forever."

And with that promise, I thrust my blade into his heart.

A fresh breeze trickles through the budding trees. Its low voice a  rising chorus of whispered promises, an ululating song of new, vibrant life. I see the bright green of an early leaf and pause to watch it spinning and twisting on the end of one thin branch. Its lonely dance bravely defies the echoes of frost that still cling to the winds of spring.

Beneath my feet the frost charred grass is also speckled, here and there, with the bright green of fresh growth and on the edge of the clearing there is a wolf pup cavorting playfully as she gambols through the early grass. The sun is low in the sky but still casts a halo of red-gold over her lush pelt.

It is time, perhaps.

"Are you my guide?" I ask her.

/Of course. I'm *always* your guide/

She sighs at my confusion and returns to chasing her tail.

I kneel on the ground and watch her play, awed by her beauty, feeling alive, feeling strangely at home although this is my first ever spirit walk.

"We've got to go after him," I insist, although the pain in my chest is so intense that I can barely draw the breath to speak.

"We don't have a chance," Seska replies. "There's too many of them. He's gone. Forget about him. He's just a casualty of war."

"She's right," Ayala says quietly. 

"Besides, he'll be okay. Daddy's hardly going to let them throw the book at him," Dalby purrs nastily.

I surge to my feet, my hands clenching into fists, and I step forward to strike him.

Only to stop, mid-stride, and instead bring the heels of my hands up to rub my stinging eye sockets.

Dalby's right.

We're probably better off without Tom, and he's surely a hell of a lot better off without us.

I've done what I could for him. I've cleaned him up, dried him out and have inadvertently sent him home.

He's not my problem anymore and, as Dalby has so kindly pointed out, Tom Paris is the son of an Admiral. The only prison time he's likely to do is being grounded for a couple of months in his parent's palatial home.

I've been thinking with my dick for too long. It's time to face reality.

"I say good riddance," Seska snarls. "He's supposed to be some hot-shot pilot and he fucks up his very first mission."

"Yeah," I say, and give the order to move back to the safety of the badlands.

"STOP."

Just a single word, but it is barked with such arrogant fury that the foreman flinches and straightens.

I shudder and tremble. I had been braced for the lash to fall once more and the sudden absence of pain makes me giddy with shock and confusion.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the stranger demands.

Kato bristles and turns to face him with barely disguised fury.

"It's my job to discipline the slaves," he snarls, as though he has completely forgotten that he is nothing more than a slave himself.

The young white man slides down from his mount, an expression of distaste in his clear sky-colored eyes. 

"It is your *job* to keep order on the plantation, not to ruin a valuable property."

His eyes are cold as he stares at the welts that cover my back. He gestures impatiently at several of the gathered field hands.

"Take him and have his wounds tended. My father will be most displeased to see a strong worker like this permanently maimed."

"Your father wants…" Kato begins.

The young white man strikes Kato across the face.

"Never presume to tell me what my father wants," he snarls. "Get back to work."

It is hot in the dark hut, and although it is agonizing to reach out and dip my mug into the bucket of water next to my sleeping pallet, I am glad to have the liquid to quench my thirst.

Just as I am grateful for the cool salve that has been plastered over the suppurating welts that criss-cross my back. 

I am even grateful for the company, although I have no idea what my young master intends to achieve with his strange acts of kindness.

"I hear you're a trouble maker," he says.

I stiffen, although I can detect no malice in his tone. If I were not well-versed in the unpredictable cruelty of white men, I might even imagine that his tone is slightly approving.

"I am not an animal," I snarl.

"Did I say that you were?" he answers lightly. "You are a man, as I am a man. You are also, apparently a trouble-maker, and in my father's eyes, so am I. Except for the color of our skin, we are more brothers than enemies."

/Brothers/

For some reason, the word causes my heart to clench with a strange feeling that is as much excitement as dread, although my overall feeling is angry confusion.

"I am your father's slave," I remind him bitterly. "His property."

The youth laughs, but the sound is brittle and sad.

"Oh believe me," he sighs. "So am I."

As the new sun rises and bathes the plains with its warm, golden haze, we are ready. Our ponies prance restlessly, too well-trained to break from the circle yet their breath raises like smoke plumes from their flaring nostrils and they stamp and shake their manes with impatience.

A bird call pierces the morning mist as a sentry signals the approach of the blue coats.

I shiver with anticipation and dread. Anticipation that I will die blade in hand and take my place in the hunting grounds of my ancestors, dread that I will see the massacre of my tribe.

I have no illusions that we can emerge from this battle with our lives. My only real sorrow is that the Elders refused my plea to allow the women and children to flee.

Yet, I know in my bones that their wisdom is true in this matter. We cannot spare a single brave to accompany them into the mountains and without warriors to protect and feed them they will die a long, lingering death with the blue coats nipping at their heels. Better that it ends now and we all travel together into the spirit plane.

As the soldiers come within sight, their numbers so great that they surround us easily like wolves circling certain prey, I see him.

White faced, stiff in his saddle, the horror of what he is being forced to participate in so great that he can barely keep himself on his mount. 

As boys we played on these hills. We chased buffalo together before his people drove the herds away with their savage greed, we swam in the lake together when the fort that is now his home was pretending to house friendly neighbors rather than greedy thieves who would murder us simply for the wealth of our land.

He has eaten in my mother's tepee. He has slept in my bed. He has blended his blood with mine and become my brother.

He cannot, surely, raise his hands against us.

I am right.

As they begin their charge, I see his rifle slip from numb fingers and tumble to the grass beneath him and he enters the battle unarmed and defenseless.

He intends to join us on the Spirit Plane today.

And despite my sorrow, I feel joy that he has not betrayed us, has not betrayed *me*.

I see an arrow bury itself in his shoulder, mere inches above his heart, and his pain-filled face twists towards mine, his eyes as blue and empty as a summer sky.

I see one of his people grab the reins of his mount and begin to drag him back towards safety, as he lolls over his pony's mount, swaying with shock, and he looks at me again in complete despair.

"Please," he screams at me, reaching out his arms towards me in supplication. "Brother!"

And so I raise my rifle, with its few precious bullets, and I fire.

His face explodes, as does my heart, and then a bullet strikes my forehead and I am falling, falling, down into a pit of darkness, my arms outstretched as though I can fall directly into his embrace on the other side.

It is several weeks before I wake up in the hospital of the prison camp and realize that I sent him to the Spirit Plane alone.

A cool wind whispers insidiously through the foliage of the trees. Its edge of chill hinting of the winter to come. Bronze, red and gold the leaves ripple on their branches like a curtain of living flame. 

The landscape is rich with vibrant color, yet its falseness disturbs me. The hues of life are an illusion. The flame will burn out and leave behind only charred destruction as the approaching frosts wither the leaves to dull, desiccated husks.

I sit cross-legged in the yellowing grass, and feel the first twinges of encroaching age.

Perhaps I have come here too late.

Perhaps there is no message for me here except that I have wasted the summer of my life. Maybe there is no more than this dreaming of opportunities lost and promises unkept.

But then there is movement through the tree trunks, a flash of silvery gray like a tiny storm cloud.

I blink, not trusting my vision, and when I reopen my eyes, she is there.

Her muzzle is a little white. Her eyes a little weary, perhaps. But she is beautiful. As vibrant in her body as the surrounding leaves. She is in that flush of strength before the onset of old age.

"Are you my guide?" I ask her.

She opens her mouth into a wide grin.

/At last/

"At last?"

/I had almost given up on you *this* time/ she says.

I frown in confusion.

"*Are* you my guide?"

/I am always your guide/ she chides.

And although I do not understand her, I find myself laughing with relief that I have truly found my own spirit guide on this, my first ever spirit walk.

I see the fist lash out to strike me.

His arm moves so fast I cannot avoid the blow and yet, somehow, I see the whole event happen in slow motion.

I feel every second of the strange agony that pieces my heart like a hot blade, as he refuses my offer to help him. As he spurns me with one simple act of outrageous violence.

I fall.

Not heavily, more of a stumble than a fall. A hiccup, perhaps. Just a momentary loss of balance. The universe makes a tiny, gut-churning back flip as I am blinded by an onslaught of visions.

Although I cannot see, cannot even begin to put my finger on what my body is trying to say to me in that endless split-second, I know the instant he touches me that I *remember* this happening before.

The clash of knuckles against fragile flesh is an old and familiar dance that we have played with one another.

He has never struck me before. 

I know that.

Yet, I remember the feel of our flesh connecting in violence. In passion. 

I *know* him.

I *remember* him.

Too stunned, bewildered, dazed, to even blurt out the madness of my sudden bizarre self-revelation, I am silent as he is dragged off the bridge.

"Are you alright?" Kathryn asks me quietly.

No.

*Nothing* is alright.

Perhaps it is a symptom of my confusion that I see layers of secrets swirling beneath the depths of her concerned blue eyes, moving like deep currents that run under the mirrored surface of a quiet lake in a shady dream forest. 

"CHAKOTAY?"

Her panicked tone pulls me back to reality and I am standing on the bridge, blinking helplessly before a pair of concerned blue eyes.

The dreams are coming more frequently now.

No longer satisfied to dominate the hours of my sleep, they are beginning to encroach on my waking world.

Strange, terrible dreams full of violence, passion and heat. 

I cannot even escape them by fleeing to the spirit plane.  They lurk in wait for me there, bizarre images that haunt me like the ghosts of lives I have never lived.

It is not chaotic space that has awoken my dormant gene of madness this time.

It is the impossible memory of blue eyes, like twin pools, forever dwelling under the watchful gaze of my spirit guide.

I have pleaded with her to explain the meaning of my dreams, my visions, but she just looks at me with sorrow and turns her back upon me as though my ignorance is too hurtful to witness.

I am lost.

Drowning in water as clear as the sky of my visions. Choking on the cold, frigid water that swirls with agitation whenever I approach. Burning in red-gold flames as fine and fragile as strands of hair. Bleeding from the memory of a thousand invisible wounds.

I ache constantly, a bone-deep echo of half-remembered pains that drain the vitality from my limbs and the sanity from my mind.

I am unraveling, thread by thread. My life is ripping apart into a tangled web as I lose the ability to distinguish between reality and dream.

Madness.

Beneath the surface of my skin, my whole body crawls with its incipient arrival.

I hide it well, beneath a granite-face and flint-hard eyes, beneath calm words and a peaceful smile. Except for the ever deepening shadows beneath my eye sockets, I allow no external evidence of my growing disquiet.

Madness.

There is no other explanation for my wild, disjointed waking dreams. Dreams all different and yet the same. Dreams as vivid as memories. Dreams of lifetime after lifetime after lifetime of pain and betrayal and sky-blue eyes.

"Past life experiences," Kathryn says.

I shake my head and smile softly at her comment.

"I don't believe in such things," I tell her. "I believe in an immortal spirit, but not one that returns again and again to the mortal plane."

"Neither do I," she chuckles, and takes a sip of her wine.

I'm less uncomfortable than I had expected, telling her of my visions. Perhaps it is the good food and the wine we have shared, or simply the relief of finally unburdening myself to a friend.

"Well then," I reply, with a rueful shrug.

"Still," she says thoughtfully, "it's not really relevant whether your visions are true memories or not, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"The real question is what is your subconscious trying to say to you? What is the common theme of all of your dreams?"

I take a mouthful of wine to swill away the bitter taste that clogs my throat at her words. I think I swallow it a little too quickly because I choke and tears sting my eyes.

"That Tom Paris is seriously bad news," I finally whisper.

Kathryn glares at me. I can feel her scorn washing over me like a shower of sharp needles and my skin prickles and burns under her gaze.

I sink a little wretchedly into the couch as she springs to her feet and paces angrily, circling me with flashing, oddly-familiar eyes.

"You never learn, do you?" she snarls.

I shiver, feeling chastised and frightened

And then I wake alone in my quarters and understand that this was yet again just another dream.

I shiver and draw my arms around my chest, assailed by the chilly wind that slithers through the naked trees. A low mist rolls in from the surface of the lake, rising into the air like the frigid breath of a slumbering beast. It creeps around my feet, swirling over the withered grass. Its foggy tendrils trailing over the bleached corpses of flowers that lie crushed in this graveyard of summers past and long forgotten.

"Akoochimoyah, I have traveled far from the bones of my ancestors," I begin, as I huddle at the lake's edge and see the silvery rippling across its surface. 

There is movement through the tree trunks, a flash of silvery gray like a tiny storm cloud and she is there, her eyes surprisingly kind in this cold, unwelcoming place.

"Help me," I beg her.

She opens her mouth into a wide grin.

/I am not here to give you answers, Chakotay/ she reminds me gently. /You must find those for yourself/

"But you'll guide me?"

/Always/ she promises. /Forever/

Forever.

The word echoes through my consciousness, whipping me like a scourge, as a thousand, thousand images rain down on me.

"He's always there," I say slowly, trying to be calm, forcing myself to think it through.

/He is/ she agrees.

"He always betrays me."

/Does he?/

I duck my head away from her sudden glare.

"No," I admit reluctantly. "Sometimes I betray him."

/Indeed/ she replies blandly.

I blink and look at her suspiciously. She sounds so much like Tuvok for a moment that I am momentarily confused whether this is dream or spirit walk.

Then I wonder whether there is even a difference.

"So we just aren't meant to be together," I conclude bitterly.

Her mouth curls into a snarl and she huffs in obvious disgust.

She makes me feel ashamed, and in that shame a flare of anger is born.

"DAMMIT," I roar. "What else am I supposed to believe? Every time we've touched each other's lives we've destroyed each other."

She just nods patiently and waits.

"Whether these are memories of real lives we've lived before or just dreams that are my mind's way of trying to make sense of my emotions, there's no hope in them, is there? We're just forever repeating the same circle of betrayal and death. What's the point of even trying if we're destined to destroy one another?"

I shrug helplessly, the pain of my confusion squeezing my heart so tightly that I can barely breathe, let alone think coherently.

She takes pity on me.

/So what have you learned?/

"Learned?"

This time she doesn't help me. She just sits and glares at me with her unblinking, demanding eyes until I sigh and try again.

"He's always the same. Trapped in a life he doesn't want to live, dominated by a father who tries desperately to break his spirit."

She nods encouragingly.

"He always wants me. Always...always loves me from the first moment he sees me, even when I refuse to acknowledge his interest. He always fights against the odds to be with me. Circumstances always force him into a situation where he has to choose between his heritage and his relationship with me. I never...I never trust him."

I look up at her suddenly. my eyes widening with understanding.

"I love him, but I never truly trust him, do I? I find it easier to hate him than to love him. I turn my back upon him until he's sometimes so hurt that he *does* betray me, and then...and then I tell myself his betrayal was inevitable anyway, just to avoid my own guilt."

/And?/ she encourages.

"And...and sometimes I betray *him*. Because it hurts less that way. Hurts less to spurn him first than wait for his rejection."

/So?/ she asks.

But I am too lost in my realization of a pertinent fact to answer. Instead, I grasp upon that illusive thought and ask the question that is burning me.

"He loves me? Tom Paris loves me?"

It cannot be true. It just isn't possible, not given our history, not after all the years of bitterness and sarcastic words.

He betrayed me. He joined Voyager simply to hand me into the Federation's arms. His father's arms. 

He betrayed me.

"I am your father's slave, his property," he laughs, but the sound is brittle and sad. "Oh believe me," he sighs. "So am I."

He betrayed me.

I could not believe that he would do nothing to save me. That after all the years of defying his father over our relationship, he would now step back and let me be taken. Our eyes met, and I saw fear, pain, anguish and resignation. He dipped his gaze from mine, his cheeks flushing with shame, and then, and then…he just turned away.

He betrayed me.

"You'd rather die than let me be the one who saves you."

He...he saved me.

"I say good riddance," Seska snarls. "He's supposed to be some hot-shot pilot and he fucks up his very first mission."

"Yeah," I say, and give the order to move back to the safety of the badlands.

I betrayed *him*.

I reach forward and crush his trembling lips with my own, bruising them black with my kiss, biting the soft flesh and tasting the coppery bitterness of his life force.

"I do love you, little Roman," I whisper, and he shudders as I nip the pale flesh of his neck and swirl my tongue lightly over the tiny wounds I inflict. "I will love you forever."

And with that promise, I thrust my blade into his heart.

I betrayed him.

"Give me your hand," he says, scrambling over the precarious ledge and reaching a hand out towards me.

He...

He...

He loves me.

"He loves me," I tell the wolf.

And she finally smiles.

"Tom?"

I see a flash of wary surprise in his eyes at my informal tone, then he quickly adjusts his face into a mask of polite indifference.

"Commander?"

His eyes are lifeless pools, their sheen dulled by the dusty years of rejection.

"Could we talk?" I ask him quietly, although my courage is tested when a brief expression of dread momentarily causes his whole aura to dim still further. I feel shame that my past behavior has taught him to fear my attention.

"About what?" he snaps, then quickly composes his features into an insincere smile as though he is afraid that his flash of temper has betrayed the emotions that lurk beneath his cool exterior. Emotions that I now realize were always there, except that until this moment I have been too blind to see them.

I place an arm casually over his rigid shoulders. He shivers but then regains his composure. He pretends that my gesture of friendship is not completely unexpected and allows me to guide him out of the corridor into the privacy of the abandoned observation lounge.

Once inside, however, he quickly breaks free of me and strolls to the window, where he stares out as though fascinated by the stars that rush past us.

"Tom?"

"What did you want to talk about?" he mutters, careful to keep face averted from me although I can see his reflection carefully watching me from the darkened force field.

I quietly step up to him and place my right hand gently against the small of his back.

He shivers at my unexpected touch and I can feel him tensing as though he is preparing to bolt.

So I trap him between my arms by pressing my hands against the force field on either side of him. Then I look over his shoulder at the stars.

"It's strange, isn't it?" I murmur, my breath tickling the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "A thousand, thousand years from now those stars will still exist. I wonder how many people will stare at them, as we are doing? How many lovers will look up into the night sky and make wishes beneath these stars?"

"Who cares?" he scoffs, and I watch his reflection twist into an expression of bitterness. "They're just stars. Just like all the other damned stars we pass every day. There's nothing special about them."

"You're wrong," I tell him. "Every one of them is special. Just as every person is special."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

"Just like *you're* special," I whisper.

"Special?" he demands incredulously. "What kind of special are you talking about, Commander? A special kind of fuck-up? A special kind of traitor? A special kind of *whore*?"

"Whore?" I repeat, wishing I didn't understand him.

"You still wondering what my price is, Commander?" he snarls. "What was is you asked me? Oh yes, it was whether I betrayed you for Latinum or for my freedom from prison, wasn't it? You still wondering about that?"

"No," I whisper, feeling ashamed. "I was out of line. I was angry. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry," he hisses bitterly. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say."

"No," I repeat. "I *am* sorry. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I should at least have asked you why you were on Voyager instead of assuming the worst."

"Yeah, you should have," he agrees, then shrugs. "No biggie. It's old news, Commander. Water under the bridge. Is that all you wanted to talk about? Because I'm late, so if you don't mind..."

"I do."

"Then what *do* you want?" he demands, and I see a shiver rack his body once more as I refuse to release him.

"I want *you*."

He twists in my arms, his face panicked, his chest heaving, his icy features shattering.

"You what?"

"I want you," I repeat softly.

For a brief second I see a spark of hope within his eyes, but then it dims, extinguished by the bitterness of the memories we share.

"You don't like me," he reminds me bluntly.

"Not all the time," I say, careful to ease the sting of my words with a rueful smile and a slight shrug.

"Fine," he hisses.

"No it's not," I correct him. "That's why I want to get to know you better. I want to understand you, Tom. I've spent too long seeing who I *thought* you were, instead of opening my eyes and really seeing you. I've never even tried to like you. I want to change that. I *want* to like you."

"Like me? You don't even trust me," he hisses bitterly.

"I don't," I admit.

He stiffens.

"But I now realize that I should," I add.

He looks confused, a little hopeful, a lot scared.

"Because I ought to trust the man I love."

He staggers as though I have struck him and tries to break free.

"Don't," he snaps. His face crumbles, he fights for control of his features, gasps for breath, twists to face the window and sinks his forehead against the force field. I don't think he realizes that I can see the reflection of his tears.

"Don't do this to me," he whispers. "I don't...don't deserve this."

"Deserve what?" I demand softly.

"Your mockery," he replies bitterly. "I don't know who told you and...and I guess you think this is funny, but it's not. Leave me alone...please. Just go away. Please."

"You're right," I tell him. "You don't deserve my mockery. You do deserve my apology..."

"Forget it," he chokes.

"..for all the years I've spend pretending that I *don't* love you," I continue, as though he hadn't interrupted.

"What?"

"Look at me."

He stiffens and attempts to huddle into the force field.

"Please, Tom, just turn around and look at me."

He turns, stiffly, reluctantly. It seems to take him a mammoth effort just to meet my eyes.

And surely whatever pain he feels is reflected in my own face because he gasps slightly and then allows me to pull him tight against my chest.

"I love you, Tom," I promise. "I've loved you forever."

"I...I never betrayed you," he whispers.

"I know," I tell him and, as I say the words, I finally understand that it's the truth.

The End