Saturday, July 29, 2006.

Barcelona was beautiful in the summer. Then again, just about any place in Spain was beautiful at any time of the year. Tourists flocked in from all around the globe to investigate the beauty and grandeur that was Spain. They were the ones who noticed that sort of thing. The residents didn't seem to notice it much at all. After all, they had lived there all their lives. They were used to it. Carmine Enrique Molinero-Gonzalez had been born and raised in Barcelona, but he was still capable of seeing the beauty all around him. Probably because of how long it had been since he'd been home.

There wasn't much comfort to be home in his home city. He wondered why he had even bothered coming back here. Was there some sort of reconciliation he needed to confront before being fully capable of moving on with his life? All those people he could have reconciled with were long gone. His sister and his father were both dead. His mother had returned to her home town to escape from the world she knew. Carmine had no intention of visiting her. A visit would have been far too painful, for the both of them.

The tourists were what Carmine wanted to avoid, so he picked one of the lowest ranked restaurants he could find that Saturday for lunch: Antiga Casa Solé. As one online travel brochure explained it: Just two blocks from the sea side of the charming Plaça de Sant Miquel, Barceloneta's prettiest square, this traditional midday-Sunday pilgrimage site occupies a characteristic waterfront house and serves fresh, well-prepared, piping hot seafood. Whether it's lenguado a la plancha (grilled sole) or the exquisite arroç negre amb sepia en su tinta (black rice with squid in its ink), everything here comes loaded with taste. In winter try to get close to the open kitchen for the aromas, sights, sounds, and warmth.

It wasn't winter, so Carmine wasn't too concerned about getting too close to the kitchen. He requested an out-of-the-way table so that he could have his lunch in peace. But there really was no escaping the hustle and bustle of midday that plagued the city streets. Still, his choice of location and the fact that he was ordering lunch cooked by someone else were a testament to his mood. He was depressed. Had he made the right decision in leaving Dani? It hurt too much to think about, but he could think of nothing else.

"Is this seat taken?" Every word was asked in Spanish, but the accent wasn't appropriate. The woman who asked seemed to lack an accent entirely. Her voice was completely lacking inflection, and could have very well been mistaken for monotone. Only when Carmine looked up and blinked at the woman did he realize he had been fiddling with the tiny emerald jewel he wore around his neck on a silver chain.

The woman was a plain-looking woman. There was nothing remarkable about her at all. Not enough to call her beautiful nor ugly. She could have passed through a crowd of elbows without any set of eyes bothering to so much as glance at her. Her eyes were so dark a shade of brown that they could have been black. Her hair was brown as well, long and pulled back in a loose braid to keep it out of her face. The braid was tied off by a simple scrap of black fabric that she hadn't so much as bothered to form into a bow. She wore a long black dress with short sleeves and no other adornments. If Carmine had looked down he would have noticed that she wasn't even wearing any shoes, but he knew that about the woman already. "Faye," he said, quietly. He even managed to smile a little. "It is good to see you. Please, no. Have a seat." He gestured to the chair across from him and granted her permission to join him at his table.

She slid onto the seat with the grace of a queen, but said nothing at all. When the waitress came to get his order, she didn't even seem to notice that he suddenly had company. That was to be expected. If Faye didn't want to be seen then she wouldn't be. She watched him in stoic silence as he made his order. He waited for the waitress to take her leave before he looked back at her, before he spoke. Since she didn't seem as if she were going to speak, he might as well. "I am surprised to see you, my lady. Salvador must have told you."

"Salvador has told me nothing," she said, perhaps interrupting any further train of thought on the matter.

Carmine raised a brow at that confession. If her intent was dissuade him from speaking of their son, then she had failed at the attempt. "He hasn't?" (Remember, they were speaking Spanish. While such a language is devoid of contractions, some things are best translated that way. Carmine was more comfortable with his native language, after all.)

"No," Faye answered. Even she knew it was a rhetorical question, but confirming it again made the facts sink in a little deeper. She looked him directly in the eyes. "He has not spoken to me in quite some time." It did not matter what language Faye spoke in. She still maintained that tone of voice that was devoid of contractions herself. Always.

"Huh." The mercenary scratched his jaw. He was beginning to grow a beard, which was more to do with the lack of motivation to shave than anything else. "I get the feeling it's more than that," he told the woman.

It was not a question. She did not need to respond, but she did after a long moment of thoughtful pause nonetheless. "He has shut me out," she told him. "Completely. I am no more aware of his thoughts than he is of mine."

That was very odd. He could not recall Salvador telling him anything of the sort. Then again, his son kept a lot of secrets from him. It was better that way. There was a piece of feral disposition in the boy that made the mercenary uncomfortable at times. But his son had told him once that he and his mother shared no secrets. They knew everything about one another, knew what each other knew. Some small part of him was a little jealous of this fact. Or had been. He no longer had much reason to be envious. "For how long?"

"Since mid-April," the fae told him. He had asked a question, and she was bound to answer it. She explained nothing, however. That was all the answer she was required to give to fulfill her geas.

Faye never said anything more than she needed to say. That was the way of her kind. Carmine knew this well enough, but it still irritated him. He remembered saying something harsh to his son once. "There isn't much that does have meaning to them," he had said. And because of that he wondered. "Why are you here?" he asked the woman.

"You called for me," she answered. After a slow blink, her eyes tipped down to stare at a point on his chest.

Carmine looked down, wondering what she was looking at, and realized he was again fiddling with the emerald green Tear he wore. He was a little embarrassed to be caught doing that, and so let go of the pendant immediately. He settled his hands on the table in front of him and laced his fingers. At that point, his waitress returned with his glass of wine. He thanked her quietly. She smiled, nodded, and then turned away to go about her business. He must have been giving off that aura that said he really wasn't in the mood for company and false pleasantries. Then he looked back at Faye. The false pleasantries he didn't want to deal with, no, but he had wanted some company. Company that would not judge him. "I suppose ... I did," he murmured.

For a moment, it seemed as if the usually stoic woman seated across from him had smiled. Though it might have only been a trick of the eyes. As far as he was aware, Faye never smiled. "You are troubled," she told him. It chilled him a little to hear her state the obvious like that. "I gather from the fact that you are here and your mate is not that something has happened between you." That chilled him a little more. Was there ever anything the fae did not know?

"Yes," he whispered. He choked a little on his voice and had to clear his throat before continuing. The pain in his heart had almost smothered him completely. "Yes. I left him." Admitting as much didn't make the pain go away. In fact, it made it hurt more.

"This was a decision made of your own free will." Somehow she managed to make that both a statement and an inquiry all at once. Was this what confusion sounded like from her? Was he beginning to understand the woman a little more? When had they last talked? "I am confused, yes," she said. "Perhaps you are understanding me better."

He lifted a hand quickly, made a silent request for her not to continue speaking. She gleaned his thoughts so easily and it disturbed him. "Please. Please. You don't have to tell me when last we spoke. It's been years. I know." Carmine sighed and lowered his forehead into his hand to clear his thoughts.

"Forgive me," Faye said. "It was impolite of me to trespass upon your thoughts without asking."

"Don't worry about it, my lady." In some ways the fae reminded him of small children with their insatiable curiosity. They went to great lengths to solve the mysteries that confounded them. Faye was little different, except for her apathy and stoicism and interminable patience. Carmine lifted his head and smiled briefly, once more lowered his hands to the table. Now where were they? Ah yes. "Yes. This was a decision I made of my own free will," he confirmed. "It tears me apart that I did it, but I had to. I couldn't stand waiting anymore."

When it seemed as if he would say no more, Faye asked, "Waiting for what?" She tilted her head just slightly to one side, blinked slowly, and then made another observation. "You removed the ring from his finger," she said.

Carmine nodded with a frown. "Yes. I removed the ring." He looked her in the eyes for a long moment. It was stupid of him to expect judgment from her. "You didn't tell me what it would do to him," he said, a little accusingly.

"You did not ask," she responded. Though she maintained that tremendous amount of calm, he thought perhaps he heard a hint of a challenging note in her words.

"I shouldn't have had to ask," he said irritably. How very like the fae to remain so cold and aloof, to deny the possibility that she had done something wrong. It chilled him to the very core to be faced with this much apathy. He almost toppled his glass of wine by thumping a fist down on the table like that, but he was more at risk of having people eye him strangely than he was of spilling his wine.

Faye remained calm and stoic still. She tipped her head back upright and blinked once at him in that lethargic manner of hers. Perhaps she was taking her time in thinking up a proper response, for there was a long silence between them before she spoke. "You wished for your mate's empathy to be better controlled. I granted that wish for you, despite the fact that you did not state it as a wish." No. The only wish he had ever asked of her directly was to mate with him to create a child. Of this they both knew. "You did not specify how to accomplish this goal."

"The ring tore his soul apart, Faye." He was only vaguely aware of his voice trembling, dropping to a whisper, and even less aware of the sting in his eyes that hinted at a chance of tears. "He told me. That's what it felt like. Every time he felt someone else's' feelings, their wants and needs, and started to give in, he said he felt his soul being torn apart."

Again, the woman seemed as if she would say nothing at all. She blinked again, just as slowly as ever, and waited.

Carmine grew impatient, however. "Did you know it would do that?" He didn't wait for her to answer. He only accused. "You did know, didn't you. You knew what the ring would do to him, but you made it anyway. From my own tear, Faye! Part of me was tearing his soul apart the entire time!" He pressed his face into his hands then and finally let the tears spill freely. The mercenary had never been one to express his emotions so openly, but he couldn't fight the urge anymore. "It's my fault," he sobbed into his palms.

The waitress arrived with his meal and politely coughed. She asked him if he was all right. He insisted everything was fine, please leave his plate, he'd be fine. The girl only shrugged and did as he asked. However, she also left him a few extra napkins before leaving his table, just in case.

Silence lingered. Carmine took up one of the extra napkins and pressed it between his palms and his face. His muted sobbing was the only sound between them for several moments. At last, Faye decided to speak. "Clearly you do not understand empathy at all," she said.

This accusation, if it could be classified as an accusation at all, confused the mercenary. He stopped crying abruptly and looked up with a startled blink. "What?"

Faye seemed to sigh. She did shake her head for certain, albeit slowly, but she also seemed to sigh, which was strange. "Webster's Dictionary defines empathy as: one, the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it; and two, the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Also, the capacity for this."

The mercenary could only blink and gape at the woman. He had to remember that this wasn't a human woman sitting across from him at all. Still, it was astounding that she had memorized that precise excerpt from the dictionary. He had an urge to go to the library, find an unabridged English dictionary, and look it up just to see for himself.

"It is so much more than a simple dictionary definition, however," Faye went on to say. "Empathy is essentially a metaphysical ability dormant in most humans that allows one to feel the emotions of another person or group of peoples. In most cases, a subject is completely unaware of this capability. The emotions of others feel like their own emotions. Emotion itself is tightly knitted to the soul. The weaker the empath, the less likely he or she is capable of differentiating between his or her own emotions and the emotions of others. Only the strongest and most consciously aware empaths are capable of differentiating."

This dissertation boggled Carmine's mind a little. Faye spoke as if she were quoting from a textbook. Though it was more likely that she was explaining centuries worth of observation and research. She likely could have written a book on the very subject, if she were ever compelled to do so. Was there anything the woman didn't know? "What does all that mean?" He felt stupid for having to ask, but that had been something of an information overload.

Faye hesitated in her reply. Again she seemed to be thinking of the best way to answer the question. Not every question had an easy answer, after all. After a long moment, she finally said, "Emotions are a weakness."

Carmine frowned. What a typically inhuman thing for the fae to say. "What a load of shit," he grumbled. It was just enough of an absurd notion for him to pull his plate closer and glower at his lunch. Suddenly, he realized, he didn't have much of an appetite.

"Is it?" she challenged.

At first, he thought to ask her again what she meant, but as soon as he looked up to look her in the eyes he didn't have to. He could see the intention in her eyes. He even managed to catch a glimpse of dusty silver pass over her too dark irises. There seemed to be words written in those passing clouds. She said nothing more, but she didn't need to. Those two simple, challenging words had been a suggestion. Think on it, she seemed to be telling him. So Carmine thought on it.

In all their long years together, Dris had never kept secrets from the mercenary. The bard had told him once that Carmine was the only one who knew so much about him, and his songbird so loved to tell stories. The mercenary knew about how Dris had lost his virginity. They had tackled that story the first night they had dared experiencing sexual intimacy with each other together. Dris had always been more experienced at sex than Carmine had. They could count the number of partners Dris had slept with in his entire lifetime on both of their hands. Carmine could only count his own experience on one of his own hands.

He remembered so many adventures they had shared together. Often they had stayed in local hostels, drinking too much wine and scotch, and more often than not he had watched the bard venture off to someone else's room instead of the one they shared together. Sometimes there had never been any drinking involved at all. Though he'd kept it to himself for many years, it always hurt to watch his companion and lover leave him behind in order to enjoy a little debauchery in someone else's bed. Dris always told him stories about those activities as if it were a perfectly acceptable and commonplace thing to engage in. He never saw the pieces of the mercenary's heart breaking away, because Carmine kept himself too well-guarded. He wondered just how well-guarded he had been all these years.

"Salvador gets that aspect from you," Faye said, interrupting his thoughts. He blinked and looked at her, having almost forgotten that she was sitting across from him. For a moment he thought he saw an expression, perhaps something apologetic, on her usually stoic face. Without saying anything at all, she was apologizing for taking a glimpse into his mind. He just as silently informed her that it was quite all right.

Since he did not have any comment of his own at the moment, Faye continued. "In some ways you are empathic yourself, Carmine. Only yours is of a different sort entirely. Subconsciously, you are aware of empathy. More specifically, you are aware of others trying to sense you, consciously or subconsciously, aware or unaware, through their empathic capabilities. Inside you is an ability to construct a barrier to ward against it. Empaths cannot feel you as easily as they can feel others."

This revelation did not come as quite the surprise he thought that it should. "I think," he began to say. Carmine sighed and lowered his gaze to stare at his plate of food once more. "I think I've always known this," he said, quietly. "In some small way."

"Oh yes," the fae reassured him. "You have been aware of it in some small way. Just as you have been aware of your mate always trying to reach out with his limited senses to feel what you feel. Sometimes you let him in, but other times ... you shut him out."

Those last four words had been spoken deliberately apart from the rest of her sentence. They were weighted with meaning that Carmine was only now beginning to comprehend. "Just as Salvador has shut you out," he said.

Faye only nodded, only once. Though Carmine didn't see her nod, he had a sense of it, as if he could feel it. Or perhaps her silence acted as a nod as well. He was only vaguely aware that he mimicked that gesture on his own and nodded too. After a moment, he felt he was ready to smile. Once he got to that, he also managed to chuckle. "He is like me after all, no?"

"He is the son you have always wanted," she said. "And he is the youngling I have always considered creating." He was pretty sure he heard a small amount of emotion backing that statement. Maybe it was pride. Even more, maybe it was love. If it was that, however, it was a pretty damn skewed aspect of such a remarkable emotion. When he looked up, he noticed that Faye was smiling. It was a startling expression to see. Faye never smiled, as far as he knew, but there it was. A very faint twist of her lips upward into something both feral and kind at the same time. As soon as he blinked, the expression was gone.

Finally, Carmine sighed wearily. And finally, he picked up his fork to consider eating his lunch after all. "I'm tired, my lady," he told her. "I'm getting old." Despite the fact that Anna had reduced his physical years, his soul was still old. There was no disputing that. "Dani needs to be free. I can't keep shutting him out and in forever, can I?"

The Linewalker was again faced with a difficult answer to a complicated question. There was evidence enough of that in the amount of time it took for her to respond. "That is not a question I can answer for you," she said.

Carmine looked up and into those too dark eyes. He knew enough of the woman to know, as well as others who knew her as well, that she was bound to answer any and all questions asked of her. If she couldn't answer, then that meant something more powerful than She Who Tends the Dead had commanded her not to. For a brief moment, he wondered who or what could possibly be more powerful than the spirit of entropy and decay. Then all that Catholic upbringing came pouring into his mind, out of a slew of repressed memories, and he smiled as faintly as she had moments ago. "That's all right," he said with a chuckle. "I didn't expect you to have the answer anyway." He looked back down at his plate and this time took a bite of his food.

"Yes," Faye said. "You are more alike than you know." When Carmine looked up that time, she was gone. If he didn't know any better, he might have said she had never been there at all. To be honest, he actually felt much better after talking to the fae. His appetite had returned shortly before she had taken her leave.

"Forgive me, songbird," he said to his lunch. "This is best. For both of us." Then he resumed eating. He felt much better about returning to his apartment in Barcelona that afternoon, alone. It was the first time he had felt good about it in an entire week.