Beautiful like a song

[Christine Daye]

"Grass. This is all getting a bit word association, isn't it? Katherine's really fond of that game. But she gets irritated with me playing it for some reason."

She shrugs.

"My mind doesn't work the way others do."

"Tell me... violin or viola?"

[Regulus Grey]

"Perhaps, I fear my own strands of logic would fail to keep up with yours Ms Melody."

He scratches his chin

"Hmm...Violin I think."

Regulus scans the area once more.

"Tell me, is it better to be wise or intelligent?"

[Christine Daye]

"Wisdom, for other things can be learned, or taught."

She frowns.

"...not that I have ever been wise..."

She brightens a little.

"Tell me... if you were not a wolf, what would you be?"

[Regulus Grey]

"A tiger, perhaps less of a social animal than the wolf but deadlier."

He hums

"Tell me, what is the difference between Justice and Revenge?"

[Christine Daye]

A snort of humour.

"...you are asking the wrong person.. ... lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man... lie there instead of me... for six pretty maidens hast thou a-drowned here... the seventh hath drown-ed thee.... the difference between justice and revenge is who is claiming it..."

"Tell me..."

Her eyes are bright, wildness lurking as she sings:

"How can there be a cherry... that has no stone...?"

[Regulus Grey]

"I presume you refer to a cherry blossom perhaps? I'm afraid flora was never my subject of expertise."

He muses, taps his chin.

"Would you still be you without your memories?"

[Christine Daye]

Christine bursts out laughing, long and hard, so much that she is soon gasping for breath and needing to hold onto a convenient wall for support. She laughs for far longer than is normal, long enough to suspect her of hysteria.

"...you... you... didn't... say... tell... me..." she gasps.

And still she laughs, the tone changing and her eyes squeezing shut to hold back the tears. And it's becoming harder and harder to tell if she's laughing or sobbing, or a strange, warped mixture of the two.

[Regulus Grey]

Regulus pauses, he goes to reach out to her-

-Javelins piercing his flesh, scales ripped away with tweezers-

-but his hand pauses.

"Ms Daye, are you well?"

[Christine Daye]

Her legs give way beneath her and she slowly crumples to the ground. She's obviously crying now, wiping bloody tears in smears across her cheeks, her lower lip bitten too, and bleeding.

For a long moment she hides her face in her hands and weeps, laughs, weeps again.

"...memories... who is Christine Daye? ... nothing... nothing but music... the music will end.... and so will she... music and rivers of pearls... silence.... the willow tree bended... the willow yields in the strongest wind.... but the oak tree tumbled... rent asunder limb from limb... and it feels like thunder... looks like rain... "

[Regulus Grey]

Regulus slowly lowers himself to his knees next to Christine, reaching out he gently rest one hand on her shoulder.

"In the short time I have known you, I have seen Christine Daye as a woman who knows herself. A incredibly talented musician who has the whole court hanging on each note."

His face is careful blank, softly reaching out and taking one of her hands in his.