"It's possible I'm wrong, but I think that's how the Browning makes Harry feel. It's a connection not with the gun as a weapon, but with himself...of all he's been, all he's seen, and all he's survived."

"Like a... symbol?"

"Aye, but still more than that. Like a... charm. A talisman."

Lilith and Vicfryn, 03/06/04


Harold tilted his head and looked at the docks, thoughtfully.

It had to be close by. Archie didn't have enough time, when Harold had been dropped back into the world of the living, to take it and hide it too far away. It had to be, at least, within shouting distance.

It had to be safe, dry and secure. It wasn't in the Maritime; Harold had spent enough time searching that place, and he knew it better than anyone. It wasn't in the cellar. That didn't leave all that many places that it would be safe, dry and secure in this area.

He eyed the docks, and then he eyed the Dream.

"Nothing of him that doth fade
"But doth suffer a sea-change
"Into something rich and strange."

Archie knew, better than anyone, that Harold would never willingly have stepped on the Midsummer Night's Dream again. Not because he hadn't loved that schooner; he had. It had been, once long ago, what Te Maru was now.

Hope. Escape. Freedom. The sea.

He had taught Pacey how to steer on that boat; had gone island hopping with the crew, had sailed through a storm with Archie. It had meant something wonderful to him once.

Then Archie disappeared. Somewhere, deep down, Harold blamed the schooner just as much as he did his best friend; what had once been hope and freedom had become a symbol for a hurt that went beyond words. The boat took his friend away. He never wanted to put his feet on her decks again; he almost didn't even want to look at her. She was yet another reminder of how much in his own life had gone horribly wrong.

He looked at her now, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

She had been a pretty boat; she still was, though the wear of years wasn't hard to see. God only knew where Kennedy had gone.

But, Harold had to admit, that the schooner and Archie had been what brought back Al Na'ir, and the barque, and the now blackened skeleton brig. And if not for the Al Na'ir, he would not now have Maia d'Thalia.

"What tangled webs," he thought, smirking internally, and didn't bother to finish the line to himself.

He was going to take the Dream with them. He wouldn't abandon her, even if she was a painful reminder of things he just didn't want to remember. He didn't have it in him to just leave her rot, or be picked up by someone else.

Right now, though, the symbol of lost youthful hopes could be the key to reclaiming a certain tangible reality.

He steeled himself, and then walked purposefully for the schooner.