I find it hard to explain how much of a loss this is, partly because it’s so hard to explain him as a director. He was one of the few anime directors who can make me sit back and digest his work for a few minutes after seeing it. He had an amazing sense of unity, of visual and narrative composure.

Try Magnetic Rose, for example, part of the Memories collection (someone has also uploaded it on youtube for your sampling pleasure). It’s only about forty minutes long, but he wrung out every second of it, and he left me feeling harder-hit, emotionally, than most directors can after entire two-hour movies. He was a consummate craftsman, always trying to push the bounds of his medium and of his own abilities. Even as he lay dying in a hospital bed, he couldn’t escape that instinct.

While my wife was running around getting things in place for my escape, I was pleading with doctors “If I can go home for even half a day, there are things I can still do!”, then waiting alone in the depressing hospital room for death. I was lonely, but this was what I was thinking.

“Maybe dying won’t be so bad.”

I didn’t have any reasons for it, and perhaps I needed to think like that, but I was surprisingly calm and relaxed.

However, there was just one thought that was gnawing away at me.

“I don’t want to die here…”

As I thought that, something moved out from the calendar on the wall and started to spread around the room.

“Oh dear, a line marching out from the calendar. My hallucinations aren’t at all original.”

Like so much else that he produced, I think that one moment says everything that it needed to say.

I’m sleeping. I know it. She is the girl in my dreams, for a long time the only one and even now the only one who stayed. Not a muse, she is my friend and I suppose my sometime lover, a private blessing born somewhere deep in my subconscious mind. It’s been nearly eight years since I last heard her voice aloud. Really it belongs to Evette, to the girl I loved in high-school, to the girl who taught me to love myself, but my girl-dream kept it for me and made it her own.

I turn my head a little in her lap, kissing at the palm of her hand before I open my eyes again. The summer has tanned her since I saw her last, but only just a shade, and the light brings out the dark, ruby fire in her auburn hair. “Tybalt doesn’t want to play today,” I murmur.

“I think you’re just happy right here,” she laughs, slipping her hands away, and her warm, black jeans press against my cheek. I don’t deny it, don’t even try, just make happy meowling noises up at her. Writing something means waking up, at least, leaving her behind again. She comes and goes as it pleases her; it might be months before I see her again. Part of me always worries that, one day, she might not come back.

She knows what I’m thinking, though, and she lifts my head, bending over me to press a kiss against my lips. “How long’ve you known me?”

“Seven years.”

“And I’m always here for you.”

“Not always.”

She looks hurt by the thought, and I regret it right away. “When you need me, I’m here.”

Sitting up, I turn and hold her back. ” . . . yes.” My fingers trace the soft channel of her spine, over and over, in silent apology, until she melts and forgives me, squeezing me tight.

“Kiss me, stupid. It’s been a long time.” she whispers, giggling, and I do, first her cheek, then her lips, then lower, letting her guide me down the long, fine tendons in her neck, to the ridge of her collar and the smeared, ink-black memories of something I wrote on her before. “Write something, okay?” She eases away, two fingers pressed at the edges of my teeth. “For me. I’ll wait right here.”

I nip at her fingertips and make her glare. “Promise?”

The crack of her smile tells me all I need to know.

Somewhere near Milpitas and not so long ago (either 2003 or 2004), there was a boy, I think, in love with the Mustang SVT Cobra. I imagine he was a boy, at least, but she may have been a girl; nobody needs a Y-chromosome to appreciate the Cobra’s beautiful, all-American brand of power and handling. Still, it suits my sense of aesthetics to believe that this was a boy, and so this is a story about a boy and a car.

The dealer, sadly, put too high a price on love, and the sticker on the Cobra weighed in at over $33,000, almost exactly an entire year’s wages for the average American man. This is a very old story, actually, at least as old as money and really as old as trade. Too frequently our wallets are too small to contain our hopes and dreams. I imagine him breathing deep in disappointment, but really this boy was still far from a pauper, modestly successful in his own right, and he let the dealer guide him around the lot, showing him less exotic breeds of pony. He might have seen the Mach 1, loud and brash as its name, and every dealer would have a few proud GTs, Gran Turismo cars built to run great long stretches of open American road.

Even these are expensive cars, though, and in time the dealer would have shown our boy the basic-model Mustangs. At $18,000 they were still badges of modest success, sports cars for those who refused to settle into the comfortable domesticity of Camrys and Accords. These, he could afford.

Still, he loved the Cobra, not the Mustang. Two hundred horsepower divided the two, to say nothing of the refinements in handling and trim. The Mustang is an American classic for its tunability, but the Special Vehicles Team had raised it to the level of art, and with the extra 800ccs of engine he could not hope to compete. Besides, the Cobra name brings a special, exclusive sort of cachet, and I am sure he dreamt of its effects on his circle of lady friends.

What would he do? He could tune the Mustang, of course, and even if it could not race the Cobra, he might well be able to match the Gran Turismo. That was a lot of work, though, a commitment to bury himself to the elbows in grease for months on end and pore over the tachometer’s wobbling like a scientist over his graphs, and he probably did not know how. The muscle-car gearhead is a dying breed. Perhaps he could drive a lesser car, something practical and boring, something economical that might let him save for a Cobra in five years’ time, but that was a desperate move. Like so many American boys, ours wanted his gratification now, when he was still young and full of flash.

No, none of these would be good enough. If this boy could not have his Cobra, he would make it.

Or fake it.

While I think that Teach For America’s mission is tremendously important, parts of the program do concern me. As one friend put it, a lot of the program’s teachers just want their requisite nonprofit time before moving on to Senate appointments, and it really does show. I’ve always been a bit more of a craftsman than a politician, personally, and I worry sometimes about whether students suffer as people for the sake of good-looking news stories. They talk about “dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children,” but one US News story they shared described an academy founded by former TFA teachers:

Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child’s attention strays, the teacher warns: “I’m missing one person’s eyes.”

This doesn’t feel like “connecting with children” to me; it feels like a show of force rather than compassion or outreach. The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you. The academy even spends the first week “KIPPnotizing” new students to behave that way. I almost expected the example student to snap to his feet, ramrod-straight, and shout “I am sorry, Mein Herr! It shall not happen again!” Discipline and academic rigor have their places, of course, and I’m an advocate of both, but too much of either can be a socially crippling thing.

We are more than our grades and test scores.

Saying this out loud was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Teach For America decided that I was best not left alone around developing young minds. If they hadn’t done that, my assignment would be winding down now, nearing completion, and I think it’s interesting to look back and think about that alternate self, the one who does get paid to help the underachievers.

He doesn’t get to pick his students. I would hate to find myself forced to deal with a year of this. On the other hand, he gets to devote more time to a noble cause, and he gets to give the Opening Talk.

The Opening Talk was supposed to be my first-day speech, a highlight of my general expectations and the material I planned to cover in the class. It was supposed to run bell-to-bell, or very close to it, an indulgence to my sense of the cinematic. I never finished it, but I do have the ending, and I’m still very proud of it.

I can hear you asking, “Why do I need to learn this? What does it matter? They’re only words.”

I will tell you.

Words have power. People will fight and die for words, in ways they wouldn’t dream for any lesser thing. How much money does it take to pay a man to jump on a grenade? There isn’t enough the world, but he’ll do it for his country, because words will stir him, to believe in Mom and apple pie, to remember Pearl Harbor or the Alamo. The greatest battles that the world has ever seen have been fought over the supremacy of words, when the immortal poetry of We the People of the United States of America and the stoic grandeur of God, Queen, and Country were set against the grim and unyeilding fury of Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.

Words will set the world on fire. Words will shape the minds of men.

Words are the most important tools that you will ever have.

Think about that.

Dismissed.

Sometimes I wonder if it would work the way I planned. Maybe I could have made a difference; maybe I’m better off out here.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University

Over a lifetime, the average college graduate makes a million dollars more than someone with only a high-school diploma. Many careers remain forever closed to people without degrees. I’ve heard it said that the first four years of college are worth ten in the field.

A university education is about more than job training, though: a good one forces you to digest so many different viewpoints, so many disciplines and ideas, that it’s almost about transformation. For me it was a chance to grow into myself, for me to find new directions and the things I really care about. It did wonders for my social consciousness. None of this would have ever happened if I hadn’t gone to Cal, and I doubt that 1000Gears would exist at all. I wouldn’t be half of the person I am now if I’d gone to an industry training program and called it done.

I think that’s what disappoints me most about my friend’s situation. I think she would grow from it, and her transformation would be a staggering thing to watch. First she has to go, though, and put herself through the mill.

I’m not about to lie. It’s hard and it’s not for everyone. More than once I pushed myself too hard and broke against my limits. Every year I could count on staying awake, grinding away at a project, until the sun rose over my shoulder. I learned a lot of things the hard way, by failing over and over again until I got them right.

That’s part of the process, though, part of life, part of becoming the people we would like to be. It takes a forge to make good steel.

Introduction: I’m not very good at poetry. It isn’t my medium; meter and rhyme don’t come naturally to me. Even more than my other writing, poetry feels like something given to me rather than something I create; at best I’m a transcriptionist for something lurking in my dreams. Even then I’m not very good at it, but it’s a profoundly moving experience, something magical and almost divine.

In the evening of Halloween 2004, I broke three months of writer’s block. I can tell you this day exactly because I spent the day with a girl named Teri, and for the next two months I gave her credit for every word that came. It was beautiful; I woke up almost every day with something new, something wonderful, some new and interesting turn of phrase to consider. The best part was the poetry, dozens of pages every week, scrawled in that fuzzy half-awareness between slumber and first light.

I believed it was all from her, and I wanted very badly to know her better.

Ultimately that didn’t work out. We haven’t spoken in years.

She is not the girl I dreamed, and I am not a kind of boy she understands. I burned most of it, trying to find a suitable goodbye to my fantasy. Some of it survived on my old website, but for quite a while I wasn’t sure if I should move it here. I’m proud of it, in my own small way, but it’s also a little badge of shame; it’s a testament of delusion as much as any skill.

Ultimately I think it’s better to be truthful. I’ve picked a few memories to share with you; the rest I’ll leave behind.

I’m reaching out, past the fuzzy edge of the world, to pull the dreams out of the ether, give them flesh. Maybe if I let her pour through my hands and onto the page, I can be happy, even when I know she isn’t mine. It’s not working very well. It’s starting to break up already, and I only remember pieces, fragments, slipping over my mind like some high-speed Hollywood preview, slick and formless and marvelously exciting.

I think I know I’m dreaming;
It’s too good to be real,
But somehow I’m enchanted
By how she makes me feel.

It’s less a premonition,
More a trust in fate,
*next two lines illegible*

Tell me now,
You wondrous girl,
What you think of me.
Stain not today
Those precious lips
With the filthy kiss of lies.

How do you forget a girl,
One part angel, one part Muse,
Who brought back to you a talent
You always feared you’d lose?

im willing to lern im only thirteen but i want to be a great author more than anything

I spent a lot of time wondering if I should write back. My day job cuts into my writing time enough as is, and I’m not really sure I believe that she wants to improve. Particularly in fan communities, many writers will praise each other and enjoy being praised, even if their work simply doesn’t measure up. Writing is less an end and more a means for growing closer. They write for community, because humans are storytellers by nature, because they enjoy sitting around the virtual campfire.

Basically it’s a circle-jerk of the ego.

It’s too bad that I’ve never really been friendly enough for that sort of thing.

I thought about it until she wrote to me again.

i went to ur website cuz i was interested in more of ur stuff cuz that first link you gave me was pretty cool im wondering if u care if i use ur stuff in some of my storys not published or anything like that im not that stupid ive seen ur copyright but as inspiration do you mind?

My answer that time was reflexive: I do care, and it bothers me quite a bit. While I admit to reading the Wulf Archives in my early teens, I can’t really endorse handing out shameless pornography to a thirteen-year-old, particularly one who can’t even write a coherent sentence. More than that, though, is the idea that someone could just “use ur stuff”; writing simply doesn’t work that way. It’s not like drawing, where you can develop muscle-memory in the process. Inspiration is one thing, but copying is quite another. Published or not, it doesn’t teach anything; it has no instructional value.

I closed out my reply with this thought: If you really want to improve, you could look at what you enjoy about my writing, and practice to achieve the same effect. It’s much more effort, but the work and the credit be yours, not mine, if you make something really worthwhile.

For a while that was enough, but later that night I sat down and wrote her a more complete explanation. She deserved that much, I thought, and ultimately it cost me nothing to sit down for an hour of downtime and try, one more time, to reach her. I’m actually rather proud of it.

> i want to be a great author more than anything

I’ve been trying to decide how to respond to this for a while now.

I can’t teach you to be a great author.

I can’t even teach you to be a great writer.

There is a subtle and important difference, and I hope you understand it. The way I’m going to use it here, an author, I think, is as much a matter of community as it is a matter of craft. An author is recognized by what he has accomplished; he has an audience and performs upon the stage of their expectations, both on and off the page. An author has a presence. By that measure, I am barely an author at all, let alone a great one.

So what am I, if I am not an author? I am a writer. I write. That is all. I claim no allegiance to any community, no responsibility to any fans. My loyalty is to the craft, to the endless pursuit of an aesthetic. To this end I am only an egg, unhatched. For the most part I have learned by doing, fumbling in the dark, and there is very little I know that isn’t taught in school.

Even if I were a great writer, I’m not sure that I could teach you, or that such a thing can even be taught. Almost by definition great writing transcends teaching. There are no magic pills, or even magic lessons; there is no list of things to learn that add up to greatness, at least not in any meaningful sense. “Bring your images to life.” “Omit needless words.” What do these things mean, really? What makes an image live? Which words are needless? I barely even know, and only then by the faint and painful whispers in the shadows of my dreams. Great writing has a certain sublime quality, a certain alchemical purity that I find hard to even quantify, let alone bottle up and teach.

I don’t think I can even teach you to write in my own style. It would be an empty lesson, a farce if not an insult. A style is so… so personal. I can step into Hemmingway’s style, for a few sentences, and it’s like stepping into his head, like seeing the stark cold lines of reality drawn and highlighted by his eyes, like feeling the hard, proud machismo pounding in his chest, and the weight of his existence upon his shoulders. It’s a profound experience, but it is also a profound wrongness; a style is like a man’s skin, like a suit cut for him and him alone. Wearing someone else’s bends you in places where you have no joints, or you wear out the fabric where a seam should have buttressed it. A style is like armor; if it is not yours, you will break it – and it will break you.

So what do I have to teach? I could, I think, teach you to write the same way I do, with the same process, but I ask you… is this really what you want? I don’t think you understand what that means. It is very simple. There are only two lessons:

1 – You must have the courage to see your mistakes, and the determination to find them all. What is a mistake? Everything that is not perfect is a mistake.

2 – You may never forgive yourself for any of them, ever again.

It’s that simple.

Writing is a slavery. I am a servant of my craft, an empty vessel for the words to fill. I suppose I am a good servant, or at least a competent one, but it is hard to tell; three or four years ago I would have been thrilled with what I’m writing today, but as you grow, so too does your understanding of perfection. You chase something that can never be caught, not in a thousand lifetimes of geniuses a thousand times better than you will ever be, but still you serve, because anything else would be unthinkable; you serve because anything else would tear away the piece of yourself that you’ve already poured into the craft. To write the way that I do is to sit trembling in the corner for hours, sifting your mind for the right word; to wake up gasping and desperate in the middle of the night, hunting for paper to catch the phrases before they fade; to beat your head on the shower wall, trying to make the words come; and to wish, at the same time, that you could stop, and that it would never end.

More than that, though, writing this way means that you will never again be happy with anything you ever make.

Is that what you really want?

Think about it.
-Adrian

I suspected that it would go over her head (to be perfectly truthful, I think basic sentence structure goes over her head), but maybe in five years she’ll open it again and understand what I’m trying to tell her. That’ll be worth it.

Realistically in five years I’ll be ‘that 1 meen guy who was 2 stuk up to help me’.

That’s a cross I’m willing to bear.

Forward to the Aftermath

This is a story about some email I got a few months ago, after I’d handed the link to Graveyard to a few people. The first one looked something like this (names excised to protect the dim):

Subject: i met u on gaia and love ur work
hi, i met u on gaia im g——— or on aim m————
after reading that link u sent me “graveyard” i really liked ur wrigting so i searched u on google and thats how i found ur site.
do u think u can help me with my writing?

Usually I’m thrilled when developing writers come to me and ask for some personal mentoring. I enjoy the opportunity to watch them develop and grow into themselves. I get to see myself make a difference, sometimes. One writer even told me that he hears me correcting him as he works. It’s quite a compliment, really, a vote of confidence, a reminder that someone out there thinks I know what I’m doing, and that I’m doing it well. I don’t get very many.

Sometimes I’m less enthusiastic. In general I like to believe that people with the benefits of computers and modern public education, for all the faults in both, ought to know the basic fundamentals of English usage. People who self-identify as writers, particularly, should have the discipline to avoid being outright idiots in that regard. I like to believe that writers coming to me for help are competent, or at least willing to meet me halfway and avoid wasting my time.

I tend to get a bit irritable when people work to undermine this basic faith.

On the other hand, I do try to give people the benefit of a doubt. As frustrating as they can be, the would-be writers who don’t grasp the fundamentals need help the most. A well-turned sentence can improve a good impression, but subliterate writing can make such a bad impression that nothing else will matter. My office regularly throws out résumés, unread, for laughable cover letters.

Part of me believes in salvation from ignorance and redemption from stupidity. Part of me believes that the effort is well-spent, that they really do want to improve. Part of me believes that, even if I don’t see any results, something I’ve said might click, a year or two later, and that I might make some small and important change.

Most of me knows that I’m a dreamer, but I still like to believe. It seems better than the alternative.

There’s plenty of time for mockery if things don’t work out.

Forward to Part 2

Somewhere out on the distant, fuzzy edges of the world, Tybalt, Prince of Cats, whose subjects were once as gods and have never forgotten, was begging for a bite of fruit. He made sad kitten faces up at the tall, delightfully boyish girl who held him pinned to the sand, kissing at her fingertips when she finally pressed the crisp white wedge of peach-flesh between his lips. She settled against him, letting his arm curl across the small of her back. They fed each other, stopping now and again to kiss and share the sweet, delicate aftertastes that lingered on their lips.

She kissed him a little harder, pressing her tongue against his own, sliding it along his smooth, pointed teeth. Then she was laughing and teasing, gone in an instant, running down the beach until he ran her down, bringing her to the sand and holding her as though he wished never to let her go.

Cool surf washed up around them, making the black silk of her dress gleam wet against her skin, like India ink against the finest porcelain. She kissed him again, scratching behind his ear, always amazed by the smooth, perfect blend of sleek black cat and golden-skinned youth. He closed his eyes, purring his contentment to her, and the world faded away.

The kisses felt different when the world returned, as light and timid as feather touches. Tybalt found himself in his bath, cradling a lithe little creature, not so much unlike himself. His name was Adam, he remembered, some priceless gift from human folly. His hair was white and pure as milk, and his eyes were sparkling, cobalt blue, bright and full of endless, perfect love. Tybalt smiled and held his subject tightly, pressing a kiss between his ears, remembering those early times. First like a child and then like a man, Adam had learned each day a new saintly virtue, and each night a sweet and secret sin. Most of all, Tybalt remembered the way Adam loved to snuggle close, sliding his naked, perfect skin against his prince’s own, first in innocence, then in desire. But then the angels had taken him away.

The angels had taken him away.

He bolted up in bed, panting heavily as his heart raced to bring him out of slumber. His sheets were damp with sweat, and no one slept beside him in the darkness. “Only a dream,” he breathed, over and over again, trying to calm himself. Adam had been lost to him for half of a thousand years, like the girl whose name he could still not bear to speak. The realization settled in, curling its icy coils deep in the pit of his stomach, and his eyes narrowed to slits. His roar echoed in the empty halls.

Tybalt stumbled aimlessly through the night, trying desperately to clear his head, searching for the peace his dreams had shattered. The hours slipped by, and he found himself before a heavy-grained oaken door, tracing his fingertips against the glyphs burnt into the wood. Chalam, the dreamer, lived there, sculpting the dreams of the poets and the lovers and the blind.

But he could make all the dreams he wanted. Even for the gods.

Tybalt’s suspicions flared, for a moment, and subsided almost as quickly. It must have been coincidence; an uninvited dream was unthinkable. Yes, it must have been a coincidence; Chalam’s dreams were powerful, staggering things. The poets would chase them for months, when he poured them across their minds, intoxicated by their beauty. As real, as powerful as it had felt, though, Tybalt was already calming; his breathing was even, now, and he could almost dismiss the last remnants of memory from his mind. He pressed his forehead against the cool, unforgiving wood, closing his eyes as he tried to soothe himself into some kind of calm.

Like a ghost out of a dream, a girl’s sweet breath – hers – caressed his lips, filling his mouth with its subtle, half-forgotten taste. He gasped in surprise, sucking it into his lungs, and the memory slammed into him again, with the strength of the centuries that had buried it away. Frustrated, he roared again, swinging at the door. He shattered its frame as he slammed it open, filling the room with the sounds of cracking wood and his furious, half-coherent growl. “Chalam! Stay out of my head!”

A small, sylph-bodied boy peered around a corner, studying Tybalt through amethyst-colored eyes full of some absurd blend of awe and expectation, innocence and martyred pain. “I really got to you, didn’t I?” he laughed.

Tybalt’s ears folded back, flat against his head, as his muscles tightened to steel-cable bundles beneath his skin. Ignoring his emerald, slit-eyed glare, Chalam slipped a little closer, his eyes growing wide in enchantment.

He reached out, tracing his tongue across his lips, and brushed his fingertips down the edge of Tybalt’s jaw and along the long tendons of his neck. “That’s so beautiful…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Tybalt’s anger exploded, like a striking cobra, and the prince threw him to the floor, sending him sprawling across the tiles of polished chrome and glossy black marble. “If you ever do it again, I’ll kill you, I swear.”

Chalam made a soft, whining noise as he sat up, reaching into a half-finished dream that lay nearby to pluck the head from a sparkling white rose that bloomed within. “I won’t,” he murmured, turning it over in his soft, long-fingered hands. “I only want one, that’s all.”
Tybalt silently traced his tongue across his lips, not understanding.

“There’s a reason you came here, and it’s more than your hour of sleep.”

“My reasons are my own, sculptor.”

Chalam licked his lips, thinking as he rolled the rose-blossom into a smooth, even ball, working with the slow, confident strokes of a sculptor in porcelain. “You loved them, didn’t you?”

Tybalt closed his eyes and turned his head away for a moment, unwilling to answer.

A flick of Chalam’s fingertips sent the tiny bit of dream flying, and it splattered against Tybalt’s skin, gleaming like mother-of-pearl against the soft-tanned gold, and flashes of memory seared themselves across his mind, one after another, until his knees buckled and he slid to the floor. Adam stretched out across the sheets and gingerly settled his hips on a pillow, looking back over his shoulder, eager and nervous beneath his prince’s hands. He tasted his tears against her cheek, the only ones he had ever shed. He remembered smiles and laughter and long, adoring kisses, sweet and pure and better than sex, all as clear as the moments he’d shared them, and just as freshly, he remembered the pain of their loss, pain that had taken centuries to lock away.

Chalam smiled again, smiled that absurd blend of emotions, as though it were all the explanation he needed.

Tybalt roared and lunged for Chalam, slamming him to the ground in a shower of jeweled dream-shards. “Stay. Out. Of. My. Head!” he growled, punctuating the words with the fury of a god, throwing heavy, savage punches across the sculptor’s face. Over and over he swung, sometimes missing and cracking the stone beneath, until even an immortal’s rage could burn no more, until his fists hurt and Chalam lay stunned beneath him, until one of those absurd purple eyes began to swell shut and the other stared emptily up at the ceiling. He sat there, keeping him pinned, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Chalam stirred, spitting blood across the floor. “That’s… that’s beautiful” he said, half to himself, as he watched the brilliant red pool against a mirrored tile. “Can’t you see why I chose you?”

“Damn it, no,” Tybalt growled, taking Chalam’s neck and slamming his head back against the tile once more. “And if you don’t tell me, I’m just going to kill you and leave.” His claws slid out of his fingertips, stiletto sharp against china-white skin.

Chalam started to roll his eyes, thinking better of it at a twitch from Tybalt’s hand. “Love, Tybalt. Hope. Fear. Lust. Despair. I’ve never felt them before, never felt those big and wonderful feelings, only little ones. I only want a little.”

“How would I give them?”

“I only want a dream, Tybalt.”

Tybalt’s eyes narrowed again, instantly suspicious. “You want me to make you a dream? Make one of your own.”

“I can’t.” He shook his head, as much as he could without tearing open his throat. “Those are the rules, Tybalt. That’s the way magic works. The maker of dreams has none of his own; the bringer of passion has a heart of stone.” His eyes closed, resigned to it. “Look at me, Tybalt. Closer.”

His skin was crossed with lacework scars, a million threads of starlight woven through the pristine white, down his face and chest and arms and belly, disappearing beneath the soft white pants he wore. Tybalt sheathed his claws and traced one, his curiosity caught by their delicate beauty.

“Every dream I make, Tybalt, every one that goes unfilled. Every one leaves a scar, mirrored from the soul I touched. But none of them are mine.” He opened his eyes again, meeting Tybalt’s gaze, and twisted, showing a long, angry scar across his back. “I left that on a poet,” he whispered, “But still he believes; still he comes back and pleads for more.”

A faint little smile cracked Tybalt’s glare. “That’s the power of kink, Chalam.”

The joke passed unnoticed. “That’s the power of love, Tybalt. He’ll adore her forever, but she will never know.” He was almost begging, now. “So this thing… these feelings… they must be truly beautiful, or why else would he come?”

Tybalt rose to his feet, turning to walk away, and Chalam scrambled behind him. “I’ll do this,” the prince growled. “Once. And then you’ll stay out of my head.”

Chalam had only just begun his thanks when Tybalt spun, throwing a vicious punch to his jaw, and faded the world to black.

Chalam heard the gentle wash of surf against the beach as he returned to the world, underlined by a low, rumbling purr. He was napping, with his head in a soft, warm lap and a soft-furred tail draped along his side.

“Wake up, little dreamer,” Tybalt purred to him, stroking his fingers gently along the spiderweb of scars. “Today your dreams come true.”

He snuggled a little closer to Tybalt’s thigh, pressing his cheek against the smooth, perfect skin beneath, wondering how long it might be, before the sun might kiss his own skin to that warm, golden color. How long could he stay there? Forever would have been too little, but Tybalt helped him up, and they walked along the edge of the surf, in silence. They shared no words, but didn’t need them; he slipped close against Tybalt’s side, content in the warm, mysterious pleasure of his touch, and everywhere the prince’s fingers roamed, the scars would fade away, as though the rules that bound him would never dare to touch the Prince of Cats.

It was magical.

He felt cleaner, stronger, more than he had in centuries, and maybe for all of time, like he could be happy walking this stretch of beach for eternity, melting a little inside, every time Tybalt flashed him another carefree smile, pearly-white and framed by the points of his long, feline teeth.

They passed a pair of footprints in the soft, wet sand, and the dying memories of the place where their owners had lain together in the sand, but Tybalt didn’t seem to notice. He slipped his arm around Chalam’s waist, holding him a little closer, and rose a deep blush in his cheeks with a single word, breathed against his ear. “Love.”

In time, they walked up to a beach-house, elegant and pristine in that long-dead plantation style. They found it filled with the music of sweet-voiced violins, somewhere far away, so they shared a dance, slow and deliciously sensual in its long, effortless spirals through its empty halls. It filled him with the indescribable ecstasy of Tybalt’s bare skin against his chest, and the shame that he was still clothed, hidden from the touch of that confident, naked beauty.

He chanced a kiss, a feather-light brush of his lips against Tybalt’s own. A fiery hunger answered it, a hard, full-mouthed kiss that sucked out his breath and filled his mouth with the slippery-rough caresses of a feline tongue, and strong, soft hands, holding him tight, sliding down the curves of his body until his pants fell away, and there was nothing, anymore, to hide him from the hot press of golden, supple flesh.

The kiss pressed him backwards through the halls, lost in pleasure, until he felt Tybalt lowering him into a deliciously hot bath. Then it broke, with much gasping for breath, and Tybalt slipped in behind him, holding him comfortably in place as he began to stroke him, tracing the lines of long, gentle muscle that hid beneath his pure white skin. He answered, of course, drunk on the pleasures of his touch and the gentle strength that overpowered him so very easily, and he squirmed in his prince’s arms, feeling himself harden in the hot, delicate caresses of the water.

He felt Tybalt harden, too, between his legs, and he blushed deep red, whispering a quiet prayer of desire into the steamy air as his hands slid down and caressed the thick, smooth flesh.

Tybalt whispered, too, a single word. “Hope.”

Lost in the smoothness of skin and the heat of water, they lay there, how long Chalam could neither tell nor care, until Tybalt whispered again, his voice slowly edging itself with steel. “Right here, Chalam, right here I remembered. Right here, I knew that you were in my head.”

Chalam’s eyes widened in horror as understood, watching Tybalt’s narrow to feral, angry slits.

“It’s time to pay your consequences, dreamer,” he growled, “It’s time to you to hurt. It’s time for you to fear.”

Even in the steaming-hot water, Chalam’s blood ran cold as Tybalt slid himself along his inner thigh, and then the crease of his rear, settling into the sensitive little pit at the base of his spine. “Tybalt… I’m sorry. Please…”

“Yes, please,” Tybalt laughed, toying with his prey. “I’m going to like this, Chalam. This is how much it hurt.” His hips thrust savagely, driving him deep into the tiny body beneath him, barely an inch at a time.

Chalam screamed. It was like being torn in half.

He tried to fight back, tried to push Tybalt away, but he was stronger, heavier, faster, angrier, but most of all he wanted it more, and thrashing and kicks only seemed to urge him on. Worse, though, his body answered the prince’s touch, slowly accepting him and turning every vicious, hateful thrust into a hot, fast burn of agony that exploded into pleasure as it began to pull away.

In time the pain began to wear away, softening at the edges until he could almost accept it, almost enjoy the hard, animal rhythm of it. Tybalt must have sensed it, must not have been satisfied in his revenge; he shoved him hard to the floor of the tub, deep beneath the water. He choked, looking back to see that beautiful, sadistic smile, and thrashed hard, desperate to get away, but Tybalt only slowed, savoring the feeling of the stretched-tight muscles playing against his skin.

His lungs burned. Surely Tybalt meant to kill him.

Then he could breathe again, clean, steamy air, pulled up for a single breath, a feeling so beautiful that nothing else mattered, not protest, not escape, not even the agonizing invasion of his body. It lasted for a moment before Tybalt shoved him down again. And again. And again.

Every time he was sure he would die; every time Tybalt held him down for a few moments more. Each gasp of air came sweeter than the last, more desperate, a moment’s respite from his burning lungs, the naked pleasure of life writ large and urgent, until there could be nothing else, and every tiny sensation, from the water in his hair to claw-marks in his skin, raced along his fraying nerves, a sacred, perfect reminder that he was alive, gloriously alive. Even Tybalt was pleasure, stretching him tight and moving deep within his body, smooth and perfect as he writhed upon him, pressing back, deliriously eager for it, as though his degradation were life itself.

The world began to dim around him as he choked, spasming hard as his body slipped from his control, just a slutty little plaything now, and far off in the distance, out on the edges of his mind, he felt Tybalt’s hot, savage climax, and, to his horror, his own, coiling around each other to explode in a brilliant silver light, wiping clean his sins and soul. He looked back, through the graying waters, as Tybalt pushed him further down, mouthing a single word: “Lust.”

And then there was only darkness.

Chalam bolted awake, sweating ice onto the cold stone floor, and sucked in the air with deep, starving gasps. It was only a dream, he told himself, but what a dream it had been, everything he could have imagined, and a thousand times more. He was terrified, he knew, but he’d loved it, too; the splatter of blood on his floor had been shot through with thick globs of white, and he felt a wet, sticky puddle beneath his hip.

He staggered to his feet, halfway between fear and longing, and stumbled to his work. What did it mean? Surely he could ask; surely Tybalt would not mind a harmless whisper in his sleep.

Or perhaps he would. It was pointless to ask; the prince had ruined the tools and sacred names that would let him know, burned and smashed them beyond repair. In the pile of ashes and broken wire, he’d left a single card, scribed with a single word: Despair.

Chalam took it, turning it in his hands, and found the note written on the back.

Maybe you’ll have a dream unrealized, or maybe dreams come true.
Stay out of my head, Chalam. You’ll learn soon enough.
Sweet dreams.

-T

As he sat there, reading, again and again, a long, red scar, jagged and angry with pain, etched itself above his heart.