"You don't need me to answer that question."

"And just what the hell do you mean by that?!"

"Exactly what I said."

The weather was deceptively calm; neither the reddening sky of sunset nor the soft breeze that touched the tops of the long grass could have given any sign of the intensity of the confrontation between the two women before him. It only added to the unreality of the sight before him; the sight of the two women, both with hoods thrown back and sleeves trembling gently in the breeze, staring daggers at each other from too-similar sapphire eyes. Eyes set in faces that seemed impossibly alike -- he almost wondered for a moment which was the mirror and which was real, which solid and which a reflected illusion. But a mirror's glassy surface would never have been able to achieve so perfect a reflection.

"That's just like you, isn't it?! Always talking in damned riddles. You--"

"Do not blame me for not answering questions with answers you already know! You know and I know that there's only one reason for me to be here, and--"

"Because of me. Is that right?"

"Yes."

He felt like a spectator, or less than a spectator; weirdly distanced from the vista before his eyes, from the playing out of another act of a conflict that was not his and which he did not yet understand. On one side, his longtime travelling companion stood, consuming fury clearly written across her face, one fist unconsciously clenched and white by her side; on the other side (now he was ascribing sides to an arbitrary arena) was the hooded figure who had blinked into existence not ten paces from them, her now-revealed face set in a cold expression, an almost-equivalent anger flaring in her familiar yet not familiar sapphire eyes. Neither had moved from where they had been standing when the second woman had first faded into view.

Beside him, Crowley shifted.

"You never change, do you?" This from the more familiar one. "In all these bloody years, you haven't changed one bit."

"It's not like you've changed a great deal, sister," the other woman replied, her already set expression tightening another fraction. "And I don't see how 'change' is relevant right now. Or ever."

His travelling companion re-ordered her expression into one matching her.. sister's?.. cold mask; only the slight bitter curl of her lips and the blaze in her eyes (eyes he knew as dark and deep and always a tired empty) could have possibly betrayed her true feelings. "That one time changed me more than enough,sister. But you're right, it's not relevant. So make whatever you wish to say quick, so you can just go away."

"Fine, then." The other woman's features seemed to tense even more, if that was possible. "Then I'll ask you this directly. Why do you still persist with this insanity of yours?"

"I could-- no, I should ask you the same question, sister.." A mocking twist of the lips. "..but you'd just answer me with another of your riddles. Wouldn't you?"

"You know the answer to that question as well." Stated with all the warmth of a chill winter storm.

"No. No, I actually don't. But no matter. It's your problem, and right until it becomes my problem, I don't want anything to do with it. Now goodbye, sister, and if I never see you again it'll be too damned soon." With that, she turned her back to her sister (her reflection, a corner of his mind insisted) and stalked off, stopping in front of him and Crowley. Met by their confused stares, her expression softened. When she spoke, the tremulousness of her voice betrayed the tension beneath.

"Mazus, Crowley... I'm sorry, I really am. This doesn't have anything to do with you two, or at least I hope it doesn't. I.. I hope the two of you will excuse me, but... I need to leave for a while, clear my head and such. I'm sorry again for leaving you two like this, but.." She closed her eyes and gave vent to a deep sigh. "...but I just have to. Maybe we'll meet again, sometime... but in the meantime.. please, please just remember--" Her eyes open and intense again. "--if the two of you ever, ever trusted me at all... Don't ever totally trust my sister. Please, remember that... and.. if you can find the time... remember me as well. I.. have too few friends as it is..." Something that might have been a tear. "...farewell."

And then she was gone.

Cold. Dark. Damp-bordering-on-wet.

As he fumbled towards wakefulness, he thought, for the first time, about the wisdom of spending so much of his time in caves. Sure, they were quiet (except for the ubiquitous echoes of dripping water) and afforded privacy (except for the omnipresent monsters that persistently shuffled, swooped, or otherwise moved around), but the cold and damp couldn't be doing him any good. He might not be getting any older, but he sure as hell wasn't getting any younger, either.

He'd fallen asleep standing up again. A small stream of water dribbling down the wall was soaking the corner of his heavy robe; he pulled the burgundy garment closer to his body, away from the offending liquid. It was a rather futile gesture, of course; these caverns were something of a natural catchment area for the rainfall over much of the surrounding mountain range. All of the rain from the violent storms that periodically spent their fury on the impervious stone peaks invariably ended up here. Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink, unless one felt like imbibing real "mineral" water. Just water to stain robes with.

Still leaning against the wall, he raised a hand straight out in front of him. A moment later, the fire rune emblazoned across the back of his hand began to glow with a ruddy red light. A few bats, startled by the light, squeaked in confusion as they fled to other reaches of the caverns, back into the comfort of familiar faint luminosity.

He chuckled softly to himself, a rough, unfamiliar sound. He hadn't really needed to do that to the poor bats... he could see quite well in the natural pale luminescence of the cave. But every now and then, he felt the urge to look at things in another light, in a literal sense. And the ember-red glow of a fire rune reminded him vaguely of campfires, in times very long past.

It was almost certainly the dream that had awoken this nostalgia in him. Dreams didn't always come with associations, but this particular dream was also a memory. And memories always had associations. Whether or not one wanted to think about them.

Now whatever made me think of *that* again..? He left his arm up, but half-closed his eyes; his idle musings meshed, in his mind, with a mental replay of a centuries-old event, taken from ancient memory rather than from recent dream. And somehow, like always, it managed to return with disturbing clarity. He had forgotten the passing of whole decades, had memories corroded by the years that his body never felt, yet this was one of those particular memories that never faded in even the slightest detail, that seemed etched in silvered steel in his mind. But of late, it was always one particular detail that always stood out to him.

Sighing softly, he pushed himself off the wall and fully to his feet. A distracted mental command extinguished the spell wrought with the fire rune; unmoving, he watched the lighting of the cavern wall return from the softly dying red glow to pale, unreal luminescence. For a few moments, he fancied he saw a familiar, ghostly face in the corpse-white glow.

A few bats fluttered in, reassured by the return of their natural order. They took up their previous positions with a surprising alacrity.

How long have I been in this cave, anyway? Truth be told, he wasn't sure; it was far too easy for him to lose track of the days and nights, far too easy for those days and nights to run into months and years. One time he'd emerged from his then-cavern of residence to find twenty years had passed while he wasn't quite paying attention. For all he knew, it might have been one year or twenty since the last time he'd walked the world outside. One year or twenty could have passed since Crowley had recounted a... friend's?.. final moments, and he'd never have known it.

That was one of the better things about living in a cave, really. Out of sight, out of mind.

Or maybe that wasn't quite right. Some things, he supposed, you just can't keep out of mind.

Caves're nice places, he idly thought.

After a while, he began to speak, a rough, sketchy sound that gradually strengthened into rumbling, vaguely melodic bass tones.

"Caves are quiet," he began conversationarily, "They're private, as well. And the dark's easy on the eyes, at least.

"But other places are like that too, no? Some house up in the mountains, perhaps. Or a grave, though that last's got rather serious drawbacks of it's own.

"No... the really nice thing about a cave would be simply that it's always there."

The bats, woken and sent into disarray by the sound of his voice, winged their ways down the connecting passageways. The sound of their frantic, confused squeals echoed down the depths of the tunnels.

He continued his monologue, oblivious. "A cave will always be there. It's old -- older than you are, certainly. It's very formation screams of age.. it takes decades, even centuries, for a complex of natural caverns to form. The stalactites above you took years to take shape. The underground pools have been there as long as there's been rain, and will be there as long as there is rain.

"A cave'll be there long after you're gone. Even if you are eternal."

He began to walk down a tunnel, each step crunching sandy gravel underfoot. Still he continued to speak. "So a cave might be the best place to go to lose some time. What better place to be to lose time than someplace where time means next to nothing? Caverns measureless to man..."

Step, step, step. "But a cavern will always be there, and you won't. You aren't meant to stay in caverns for too long. It's because they'll always be there, that you can't stay there forever; it'd be too much like hiding, wouldn't it? You can't lose all of time, even in a cavern."

He abruptly stopped. In the distance, he could hear the fading reverberations of his voice and his footsteps, and of many, many bats.

"Because not all 'caverns measureless' are made of rock and stone.. and you can't ever escape or ignore the echoes down those measureless depths.."

He tilted his head slightly upwards, as if addressing someone. "But do you think I should perhaps try anyway, cave-that-is-not-mine? Try to ignore those endlessly returning echoes?"

There was, of course, only silence, and unintelligible echoes.

"Thought not..." He raised a hand to the middle of his chest, feeling through his robe the almost eager thrumming of the thing that lay underneath. "I wonder what the old world's like now..."

A quick mental command later, the cavern and it's bats were alone.

..I did one thing you asked, at least.

I remember you. I cannot help but remember you; not only because of who you were, but also because of who I am. Who all of us were, and who all of us are.

He probably remembers you as well. Old bastard never forgets anything. Don't know about her. I remember you, but I don't think I ever really knew either of you. I wonder if you and her even really knew each other.

..I found the time, friend. I found the time to remember you, Windy. People like us can't ever forget.

...are you happy, Windy? Are your tired eyes at rest?

All I seem to know now are echoes...

He didn't dwell too much on it, though. She was dead, after all. And there generally didn't tend to be too damned much you could do for the dead.