The words echoed in her mind, slowly reaching her in her stone-like state. 'It's time to
get up, this is the cowards way out and you know it.'  She knew that voice, she hated
that voice...or did she love it...she was no longer clear on that.  She didn't think she
was capible of the second anymore.  Not after all this time.  So hate it was.  She
blinked and growled, finally waking, but he was long gone.  She knew exactly where to
find him however,  the Isle of the Dead.  And so she did.

He didn't notice her enter, but then, only the gods could when she wished it. She stood
for some time watching him, he was different now, yet so much the same.  Different
enough?  Similar enough?  Did it matter?  She couldn't quite say just then.

Finally Jvahr took notice of the change in the room, looking he soon spotted the
demoness and raised an eyebrow at her.

Lilith returned the questioning look perfectly, almost mockingly.

Jvahr asked, 'So you are done being a statue?'.

'That's the question isn't it,' She made no movement as she spoke. 'But you knew I would
get up, it was all but a challenge.'

The ruler of the Isle of the Death smirked and said to her. 'The other demon challenges
you and you stay, but this liche who you have disregarded challenges you and you come'

Lilith slowly moved her wings to rest over her shoulders as if the movement were hard
for her.  Indeed it seemed all movement was not the sidhe-like grace she had always
carried with her. 'The other demon just sends servents for me to kill.  She's no more
worth my time then a fly.' Her contempt for the young demoness who thought herself
worthy of the Dark Lady's time showed in her tone.

'She thinks of herself more then that.' Jvahr replied almost offhandedly.

'Does she now.' The words were dry, stating a fact she already knew and found
distasteful.

Jvahr said so in words what she did in tone. 'But you already knew that.'

She shrugged slightly, showing it was of no concern to her either way.  Lilith then
looked around before looking back at him, eyes sharp and wary. 'Why now?'

Jvahr returned the sharp look. 'Because there is a place for you again.' He seemed to be
looking for something. 'You were worthless where you were, and there has been a call to
arms that would suite you.'

Lilith folded her hands behind her back and tilted her head to the side slightly like a
bird might. 'So you came only to try to join me to some cause.'  Her words held no trace
of bitterness that they might have otherwise conveyed, merely stating what she had
already suspected.

Jvahr eyed her like she were an idiot.  'No, followers are easy to find, I came to offer
you a chance to live again, which is more then you ever were willing to give me.' He
didn't pause to see it the barb hit it's mark or not before going on. 'You've had
nothing to stand for far too long, time to stand up again.'

Lilith lips slowly curled into a sneer. 'And standing for things have gotten me so far.
But I suppose I derserve that.' She conceeded to the barb.

'Yes you did.' It wasn't agreence, just fact.  Jvahr then asked. 'So, now what do you
want to do? Do you want to feel blood rush through your veins again? Or do you want to
go back to nothingnesss?'

'As if it matters either way.  But one has to wonder, why are you offering.  As you
said, I never offered the same to you, quite the opposite.  So what is in it for you?'
She arched a brow at him suspiciously.  Once she would have followed him anywhere
unquestioningly.  But that was long ago.

Jvahr smirked a little and eyed her a moment before saying, 'That my dear is something
that you will either have to find out on your own, or not, the choice is yours.'

She narrowed her eyes and they glinted dangerously. 'Indeed.' Her lips twitched as if
wanting to display her teeth in a snarl but didn't. 'What is it you're offering exactly.'

Taking a medallion from around his neck, he held it out to her, upon it she saw the
words Tarkin and his name, Jvahr below it. 'I'm offering you one of these.' he
explained. 'It's what Caliga should have been, and this time even the gods themselves
can't take it away from me.'

Lilith surprised herself as she made a move as if to laugh but merely smiled in
amusement. 'A clan?  I would ask if you were joking, but I know you better.  I have
nothing to offer a clan anymore then it does me.'  There had been two clans she would
have once given her very soul to protect.  Both lost to her, one to the sands of time,
the other to corruption beyond repair.  Caliga and Valkyries.  But she no longer wished
anything to do with any clan now.

He nodded almost acceptingly. 'She told me you would take the cowards way out, that you
would not be up to it, I spit in her eye, perhaps I missjudged you.' Jvahr placed the
medallion back over his head, ignoring her suddenly flaming slitted eyes. He
thoughtlessly turned his back to her. 'You have no fight left in you.'

'She, what, is the little demon your new companion?' Anger flared at the thought, hate,
love, either way, she'd be damned to see anyone else take what she could never have.  As
he turned his back, anger turned to rage. Lilith unfolded her wings with the sharp snap
of leather. 'Do not turn your back on me Pariah.'

Jvahr spoke to the wall, back still carelessly to her. 'I did not say who "she" was.'

'Or I will show you just how much fight there is left in me.' She warned him, hands
curling and uncurling, claws nearly impaling her palms several times.

Jvahr rotated his head 180 degrees back without turning his body to smirk at the
demon. 'Fight? Do you even know what the word means anymore?' He then turned his body to
catch up to his head keeping his eyes on Lilith the whole time with a slight smirk. 'Or
are you a washed up hasbeen? A peice of the past?'

Lilith's eyes flared and her lips twitched up to bare her teeth for a moment. 'I doubt
you'd want to find that out right now, even in my state I know I am stronger then you in
yours.'  But then reason returned and she let her face return to a blank mask. 'But
then, maybe that is exactly that you want, me to lash out at you.  Why else would you
stand there so smugly and try to provoke me.'

Jvahr raised his arms almost as if nailed to a cross.  'This is a sacred place, bless by
Arawn, you can not harm me here, do not make idle threats, they do not become you.'

She smirked coldly. 'You have to leave sometime.  It was not idle, you should well know
that.'

'I do not fear you, but I see the fear in you, fear of the world, fear of standing up
for anything worth standing up for, and fear of believing that anyone would come back
for you.' His words were simple.  But as she knew best, simple truth could hurt the most.

Lilith's head backed up as if slapped at the last part, too long away she reacted to it
without thought, giving too much away.  Too late she realized it, too late to cover it.

Jvahr steped forward, he'd seen it, been waiting for it. The show of weakness he knew
was always there, had always been there, perhaps, always would be.  'You have no power
over me, never have, never will, so don't act like you do. Now, we can continue to
bicker, or you can go back to hiding, or you can wake up and be real again.' He verbally
shrugged. 'It is your choice.  There is a place for you at my side, hunting and ravaging
the world once more, the time soon comes for the old mortal gods to walk again.' 

Lilith clentched her jaw, merely staring at him for a long moment before answering,
fighting some internal battle with herself.  His words had an effect on her she hated,
and she knew it at once, weakness.  She dispised weakness. 'No, I never did have power
over you.  But you alway had it over me and you knew it.  I fail to see why I should
willingly allow you to again.'

Jvahr reached an arm out for Lilith ignoring her question with his eyes glowing red with
passion. 'Join me, and together we will rule the world.'

The demon backed up her head to the side to peer at Jvahr sideways as if unable to look
right at him or trying to see some hidden angle of the offer. That she was even
considering it bothered her, but still she did.

Jvahr steped closer pressing his face inches from hers, so close the smell of death
filled her nostrils, any other being most surely would have backed away from it quickly,
but she didn't back down. 'You belong with me, you always have, you always will, we are
ment to be together forever, you've always known it, so have I.'

Lilith's eyes flickered before the fire died down to reveal ordinary, unglowing crimson
eyes, the eyes she wore as a sidhe. 'Perhaps.' She was unwilling to admit that outright,
but the truth of it was somehow undeniable to her just then.

He spoke without removing his face from hers. 'There is no perhaps, perhaps is you not
admiting it to yourself, it is time to face the truth, and this is it.'

She didn't know what she hated more, that it was true, or that part of her had always
admitted it if she liked it or not.  Sometimes she wondered if Arawn had somehow
engineered it all.

Reaching up, Jvahr put a hand gently on either side of her head, turning it until they
were eye to eye. 'Completly, forever.'

Her hands jerked up in instant reaction to lock around him wrists as if to pull him
hands away or just to rip them off his arms but then made no further movement. 'In so
many ways I hate you.'  Flat and cold were how the words came out.  And that's how it
was, part of her hated with rage that wanted to burn all to ashes, part was cold,
distant and dead.  But another was something else, something ancient, something that had
once loved two men more then life.  A paladin and a necromancer.  One stood before her
right then.

Jvahr responded the same, he spoke coldly, unflinching. 'I know.'

The demoness shook her head slightly, not understanding his reason. 'If you know then
why?' She demanded of him.

'Because it is ment to be.' Was all he said.

'Ment to be, or because you know you can.  Because you know no matter how much I wanted
to, I couldn't kill you.' Self hatred this time she knew, clear as day she knew.  She
didn't hate him, she hated herself because she couldn't hate him.

'They are the same question. You can not kill me because we are ment to be together, and
you know it, deep inside you know it.' 

Lilith shook her head as if in denile of it before she released his wrists and moved to
back away from him.

Jvahr stepped forward, closing the gap created, keeping his eyes on her face.

'Do you plan to follow me to the end of the world Pariah?' The question was a double-
edged sword.  Part threat that she wouldn't stop until then, part pray that he would say
yes.

Jvahr walked forward until he backed her to the wall. 'I won't have to, if I stop
following you will return to me, just as all others are destined to die, we are destined
to live together forever.'

Lilith's eyes looked to the back and side as she hit and wall, a look of shock on her
face as she realized that she had still been backing away. She looked quickly back with
a flash of anger in her eyes to cover the shock.

Jvahr steps in pressing close almost pressing his body against hers but not touching,
face so close to the demons that she can feel the cold, lips so close they are nearly
touching. 'Stop fighting it, Sarilis tried to seperate us, the gods tried to seperate
us, your fears tried to seperate us, they all failed, it is time to live up to your
destiny.'

Again she wondered of Arawn, of his 'blessing' of his never visiting her as he must
visit all mortals in time.  Did it have more to do with Jvahr, his favored Priest, once
High Priest then it had her. Lilith shook her head slightly, more at herself this time
then him and let out a deep sigh that seemed to deflate her and she slouched back
against the wall, looking defeated.  Never had she conceeded defeat, not ever to Arawn,
but here she'd found the battle she could not win.

Jvahr reached out to support Lilith's weight and scoop her up to him as one might a
child.

She lifted a hand as if to ward him off but just lets it drop, giving up it would
seem. 'I should have killed you when I had the chance.' And she heart and soul ment it,
she knew as long as he was alive, or undead, in this realm, she would always be nothing
but weak.

Jvahr whispered to her, perhaps with a slight hint of amusement, she couldn't quite
tell. 'Thats the point, you never had the chance, it never would of happened.' She made
to sigh but was silence as her leaned in to press his lips to hers, kissing her 
passionately. 


Tensing up for just a second, the response to strike out automatic before she leaned
in.  How long since she'd been close to him, close to anyone, so very long she knew.

If Jvahr had any of the same thoughts it didn't show as  her pulled her in close and
wrapped his arms around her.

Large dragon-like wings dropped to fold around both forms like a cloak, drapping them
both.  She let herself be mindless for a time, to drown in memories of who and what she
had been once, and somewhere deep inside a sidhe woman weeped for it all.  So much that
could have been, that never was and could never be now, so much lost.  Nothing left now.

Jvahr relaxed as he seemed to realizing that they had slid down the wall to the floor
and rolled to lay beside her without releasing his lips.

The memoried fled her just then, and there was no more tautha warrior, there was no more
sidhe boy, or fledgling shifter promising it would be different this time.  There was no
more silent quickling, watching it all, being strong for her when it all went wrong
again.  Lilith pulled back in surprise as they did, as she realized just where she
really was and what she was doing.  Her mind screamed in protest, different voices.
Fool, idiot, weak coward.

He wasn't ready to let her go just yet and reached forward, grabbing her to pull the
demoness back into the moment.

Lilith pulled back again holding her hand up, fingers lightly pressed against his lips.
Mind still raging with itself.  Too late, too soon.  Too many voices.  Surely she felt
she would go mad again, it had happened before.

Jvahr waited as a statue only the eyes alive, and filled with the patiance that can only
be had by one who has lived thousands of years in wait already.

'You have had time to think of this, but I haven't.  All we have is time, give me
that.'  Time, she'd had so much of that, too much, and she had til the end of time left
to her.  But could she change any of it now?  If she'd been asked that morning she would
have said no, she wouldn't even have tried. Now?  Damned if she knew, and she almost
laughed at that thought, she was damned even if she did.

'Time is easy, but only on the condition that the time is not spent in hiding, but
instead spent refinding a familiar comfort with the hunt and life.' He waited for her to
say it, to bind herself to it.

Lilith looked down at one of her hands as if trying to recall the last time she'd ripped
anything apart with them.  She found she couldn't, it was all a grey blur, who or what
had been the last thing she'd killed?  Lilith couldn't have said even if Arawn had
demanded the answer in return for letting her finally die.

Jvahr smiled knowingly at the look. 'Go, kill something, you will feel better, rip flesh
from bones, it will clear you mind.' He then stood up and stepped to the side as if to
make way to let her do what she must do.

'Perhaps the one who pointed and laughed at me earlier.  I've become a joke to them you
know.  As soon as they spotted me one ask for a spell and they all laughed.  Perhaps it
is time to show them how much there is to laugh about.'  Her anger came back to the
surface, along with the cold control she'd always taken pride in, somewhere even a
little sadistic humor bubbled up with it.

He nodded. 'Tt is time to be real again, no longer a myth.'

'Very well.  It's agreed, I will remain for now.' She nodded slightly, agreeing with
herself and not him.

'I will give you time to gain your barings, and when you are ready we will stand before
Arawn in his tower and finish what was started so many years ago.' Jvahr seemed to
intone the words like a religious passage in a prophacy.

She frowned slightly and warned. 'I promise nothing more then that I will remain.'

'I didn't assume you made a promise, I just know the path we are on.' Again speaking
with complete assurence of the outcome of all of it.

'We will see.' Came her ominious answer from the shadows as she vanished.

Lilith sneaks out.