A Birth day

Ruby looked at Angus and Lya "That maybe so, but let me judge for myself " she said softly as she watched Angus sit back down then lay down to fal asleep she looked to Lya and Beau who moved to a seat not far from them and close his eyes too. She heard Lya and sighed " good becuse I feel very useless right now myself" she told her as she moved to sit nest to Angus on the sofa letting his head rest on her thighs as he slept her hand brushing his hair as she was soothing Caprice to sleep. Ruby accioed her cup and reheated the tea inside it to sip as she watched over Angus sleeping. " your lucky to have these abilitys , as far as I know I have none, no animagus, no seers abilitys nothing and it sucks."

Aria lay curled in bed the sheet spread over her as she drempt of fights and talking snakes that made her chuckle in her sleep but most of all Marcus stood with ehr side by side battling those who attacked her. rolling to her back she mumbled " beter watch that snake its one I need" she mumbled.

"You should be able to see the memory in the pensieve now," Iya told her. "It does not require any special abilities to do that. I do understand your fear for Angus. I would wonder about you if you didn't have some fear for him. However, he doesn't have any special gifts that he's trained in either. I think it is entirely possible that Angus might have just a tiny touch of seers' gifts, but if he does, I would guess its' because it is perhaps genetic in his family. I don't think he'd be comfortable with those gifts anyway. My feeling is that he is a strong fighter and he is looking forward to having you fighting with him when the real fight comes. And make no mistake. It will come, and it isn't going to be on any psychic plane. It will be right in front of you. I will be shutting down her access to Angus, and then she's going to have to come straight at him if she wants to fulfill her boss's contract. So, what can you tell me about this woman who hired her--beside the fact that she is your mother? Surely she can't hate him that much if she knows how happy he makes you, can she?"

Lying skin to skin with Aria, Marcus was awakened when she started to talk in her sleep. He was amused when she was talking about snakes, always at the ready, always ready to fight. He laid his arm over her so that, perhaps, she would feel a bit eased by having a strong companion with her, and he slipped back into a light sleep.

Ruby listened to Lya and noded " I think so too" she said then looked at Lya again as she spoke about a fight that would be face to face " I hope so too and as for my mother she has always hated when Jessie and I were happy, even as a child." she told her " I think at the end even my late father knew she hates her children, he actuly protected Angus once but yes I will happily fight at Angus side, my mother dosen't understand that I will give my life for him, thats how much I love this man." Ruby smiled and looked down at the sleeping Angus. Gently laying Angus's head on thr couch she stood up and walked over to Lya " okay so how does this work?" she asked her not having used one before.

Aria sighed feeling a warmth covering her, she moved back towards it and sighed deeply. Relax  as she drifted into a relaxed sleep for the first time with a large smile on her face.

Iya listened to Ruby's thoughts about why her mother hated Angus. She could see that perhaps her mother's hatred of children might be part of it, but she didn't believe that was all of it. She just nodded. Then Ruby asked her about how to use the pensieve.

"It's easy. Give the water just a gentle stir with the tip of your wand. It does not need to splash. Then, when the memory thread is ready, the waters will light up. All you need to do is sit and watch the memory play out, rather like a muggle movie. The thread can then be gathered up and deposited into a bottle for safe keeping," she told Ruby. "I believe this is an earlier memory. I think I saw a bit of a flash of quite a lot of fighting. Maybe this is the one where he got all those bruises. I'm not sure. He's fought these people a couple of times now. At any rate, since it is just a memory, they can't see you or hear you."

Marcus felt Aria relax when she felt him next to her, and it allowed him to slip into a slightly deeper sleep. He hadn't ever really relaxed when he had slept with Evelyn. He had relaxed with Ana, but this was different. With Ana, he had always feared she would leave him someday--and eventually she did. With Aria, he had no such anxieties. For now, it was alright to simply relax and be in the moment with her.

Ruby moved to the bowl of water and took out her wand gently stirring it she sat and waited once it glowed she lent over it and watched what she saw inside " yes it is, I belive thats Tom Gelding, they were fighting him before I met him" she said smiling as she saw an image of her and the girls and boys all laughing together with Caprice toddling infront of them " hes dreaming about us" she said smiling at the image infront of her , but then it changed to a darker one where darkness swept over us and pulled us away from him. Ruby loked to Lya as her mothers face apeared " a nightmare?" she asked as it passed and changed to the creole womans face grinning creepily up at them.

Aria stirred waking to find Marcus's arm around her she smiled as she turned to face him then move some of his hair off his face admiring his features , she could see he had been in some fights both pysicaly and mentaly she was just glad she could feel relaxed around him just as she saw he did with her. " you need a hair cut" she said softly letting some of his hair wrap around her finger.

"This impostor, Marie, is doing her best to torture him before she kills him. She wants him to have nightmares. She needs him to be afraid of her. Unfortunately for her, he isn't frightened of her. What he is, rightfully, unnerved by is that the sleeping potion prolongs the dreams for him because it is designed to keep him asleep for a full eight hours. And that means that if she comes at him in his sleep, he's stuck fighting, brawling with all these followers of hers and with her for a full eight hours before he can wake. Imagine if you were in a bar room brawl and you didn't have any prayer of stopping for a minimum of a full eight hours. That's exhausting, and it lowers ones odds of coming out of unscathed. That's what frightens him."

"You're right," Marcus laughed softly. "I do indeed. From where I am, I don't see a single thing that I'd change about you. And, just for the record, I think we are pretty darned good at keeping ourselves occupied. It won't be light yet for hours, though, so maybe we should sleep while we can. I'm sure tomorrow we're going to be looking for this voodoo impostor." He started to hear a noise, and it made him pause for a moment.

"Ah," he said, "Rain. We don't normally have very many tin roofs back home. I do like the sound of the rain on a tin roof though. I think it is really relaxing." He kissed her slowly. "I could like this a lot."

Ruby listened to Lya and then looked back at the pensive seeing Angus stood facing off against the woman " Yes I can understand that and I'm glad I'll meet her face to face now that I know what she looks like" she said watching as Angus defeated her making her disappear again. Looking over at Angus sleeping she could see the struggle on his face as he had battled her " Once shes gone he will sleep easy again" Ruby looked back into the reflective and sighed " is there no way I can help him while he sleeps?" she asked.

Aria chuckled hearing Marcus talk to her "Maybe a few fewer scars?" she said as she listend to him tlak again " yeah,its not right they have to go threw that, they should be enjoying their little one and the kids and maybe making more kids" she said heaing the rain above them " I want to shred that voodoo witch into tiny peices and feed her to the locals and I don't mean humans." she said. When he said the rain was therapitic she paused and looked at him then listened to the sound of it on the roof " yeah, it is rythmic on the tin isn't it." she said smiling

"Well, I don't know," Iya said. "Right now, Beau is with him, and I have no doubt at all that he will help Angus fight if that's what he needs. I suppose her followers might still be there even if Marie is not. I have heard some talk that there is a potion that helps someone enter someone else's dream state, but there are two issues with that. First, the potion is extremely rare and would take an expert potions maker to brew. And second, so far as I know, the longest it will let someone tag along is an hour maximum. No one has gotten it to last any longer than that. Beau and I can last longer because we have that gift. I think once we get Marie out of the picture, he will be able to sleep peacefully again.

"If you really want to help him," she continued, "I think you should focus your efforts on what you and he do during waking hours--focusing on helping the rest of the team to find not just where Marie takes him in his sleep but also where her base is. We don't know where she's living. We don't know her real identity. We could find out a good deal more about her if we knew who she really is. And, if we find out those things, we might well be able to find out what her real talents are at spellcasting. That would help us to find a way to capture her. If you really want to help him, that's how you really help him. Focus on working with the team to get her captured once and for all."

"Scars? Leave them," he told her. "I like you just as you are. And, every scar you have is a badge of success, a badge that you survived. Leave them just as they are. I like this one..." he began kissing her scars one by one, with a full intent to seduce her again. "And this one..."

Ruby listened to Lya and looked over at Angus again " your right , one of us should be fully rested to help the other" she said " tomorrow we'll go and chack out that place in the daylight " she looked back at the pensive seeing nothing but a calm image again and she smiled knowing Beau had helped him rest " your right my job is to ne right here in the waking days and at his side."

Aria chuckled at Marcus " yeah, each one has its own story to tell." she told him feeling his lips against her skin again "Ho, we feeling awake, Mr James?" she said brishing her fingers over his scar on his hip gently as he kissed another of her scars as she pulled the sheet over the pair of them. (fade to black..again)

"Get some sleep, Ruby," Iya told her. I think we should let Angus sleep rather than to try to wake him to send him back upstairs. He looks comfortable right where he is."

Iya went to the kitchen at around five and put on coffee and tea. She found the newspapers and the breakfast pastries from Stella in the milk box on the porch, and while everyone else slept, she made breakfast quietly and efficiently. The pastries that Stella brought were a peach streusel coffee cake and some fresh beignets. Iya made a large batch of scrambled eggs, some American style home fries with fresh onion and garlic, and some crispy bacon.

In the other house, Marcus had slid out from the sheet, wrapped his robe around himself, and he had found a strawberry streusel coffee cake in the box on their porch and the daily papers. He brewed coffee and made some eggs and bacon, keeping it simple, wanting to let her sleep in a little. He wasn't a chef like Angus, but he certainly could manage some good eggs. He plated two breakfast plates, covered them with pot lids as improvised cloaches and set warming spell in place to keep the food hot til Aria woke. Then he poured himself some of the coffee he'd brewed.

Beau exited out of the dream state, and he got up silently and stretched and yawned and headed to the kitchen.

"He's alright?" Iya asked him softly.

"Yes. He's done dreaming. He's just in a light sleep now," Beau said. "God, that smells good."

"It'll be ready in a minute," she said. "I'm just going to keep it warm til they wake up, but you and I can certainly eat. Did he do any more brawling last night?"

"Yeah, well, we didn't have a choice. Her followers were drunk, and they were angry that Marie's plan hadn't worked. He'll have some more bruises today, but he's a damned good brawler. If I'd had a lesson or two from him, I'd have won a few more bar brawls, that's for sure."

"If you'd have stayed out of the bars when you were younger, you wouldn't have had to learn in the first place," she teased.