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Inverness [FF, fantasy] - Part XI - Return (Epilogue)

Crimson Dragon

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(c) Copyright February 2001 - All Rights Reserved

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"I'll come by.  I promise," she promised the big man in a hushed
voice.

She waved to the bartender as he disappeared into the elevator.

As soon as the doorway clicked shut, she automatically slipped the
black gown from her body.  She stared at it, then down at her boots
that remained haphazard in the hallway where she'd kicked them; was it
only last night?

She ached, and despite having just slept in Inverness, she was
unbearably tired.  The streetlight provided dim illumination to the
apartment, its light reflecting off her bare skin as she padded into
her living room.  The two empty water glasses stood sentinel on her
carpet.

Carefully, she smoothed the fabric of the gown, her mind wandering
from a hayloft to a forest clearing so far away.

"Crimson, what have you done to me?" she asked no one in particular.

She placed the black gown down on the floor.  She padded out to the
kitchen, foregoing the light switch.  Dimly, she made out the flask
sitting on her sparse kitchen table.  She smiled, pulling out a wine
glass from a cupboard and filling it halfway with golden liquid.

Still naked, she settled into the corner of the sofa, sipping at the
familiar mead.  Her fingers fumbled at the control to her stereo.

The apartment remained so very empty, but suddenly it was all right. 
Equinox would be upon her faster than she might imagine.

Her fingers flipped on the stereo, cycling down the volume.

The familiar sounds of The Mamas and Papas filled her senses.  She
rose, moving to the armchair.  She shifted the chair's position until
it sat under the window.  Her toes brushed at the carpet as she idly
swung her legs, elbows resting inside the panes of glass, but upon the
windowsill.  Cold radiated off the window, chilling her bare breasts. 
She didn't notice the cold.

The moon floated overhead, full and bright.  She blinked, sure she'd
seen a figure winging in silhouette across the face.  When she
returned her eyes to the moon, the image was gone, a fleeting image,
perhaps magic.

The tenth track issued from the stereo.  Images of Mercury danced
across her closed lids.

I saw her.  I saw her.  I saw her again, last night.  And I know that
I shouldn't...

Equinox would be here soon.
