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Behind the Dorms, Sunday Afternoon

Jonothon Evan Starsmore, the stunningly handsome and ridiculously wealthy rock-star descendant of the late Jack Starsmore, heir of the vast Starsmore Fortune, esteemed leader of the mighty and powerful Clan Akkaba, and wielder of Mysterious Powers of Which He Never Spoke, lifted his guitar and took a pleased look around at his surroundings. The stage was set. The band was ready (even if they were all nameless, faceless individuals. The focus wasn't on them, here.)

No, no, the focus was on Jonothon, his hair perfect, his face perfect, his chest? Dare I say it? Perfect, as if sculpted by the hand of God himself. It would have been a shame to put a shirt on it, in spite of the time of year. And anyhow, this particular corner of the island was unseasonably warm. It would be a shame to not take advantage of the sunny sky, the green of the grass and the leaves in the trees, the warmth the day had to offer... and other types of heat, at that. Perfect chests were for showing off, and Jonothon would like to encourage all of his audience to partake in that very same mindset.

But all of that hardly mattered. What really mattered, here, was that there was to be a concert today. And, perhaps afterwards, Jonothon would let his most avid admirers backstage for a personal tour.

[Open! So very, very open.]

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She didn't reach for his hand and even if she had, he wouldn't have found any softness in the touch. She didn't do softness anymore.

"I'm no one's love," she said, tilting her chin up as she met his eyes. Her ghost eyes were truly haunted now, the warmth that had once been in them for him had long since cooled down. "I found change to be inevitable. Even your music doesn't sound to me like it used to."

"Change might be inevitable, but there is no reason why it must be the herald to loneliness," Jonothon replied, his expression broken... No. Shattered. "And you seem lonely, Beka. You seem so very... very lonely."

She had been, but it mattered very little. Emotions were a distraction that she didn't need.

"And you think I'll be less if I were to roll in bed with you between your appointments with Cedric and Hilda?" she sneered.

"I can pencil you in between Mitch and Eli, if you prefer," Jonothon offered, his voice full to the brim with hope.

"I can be flexible."

Very flexible, did she remember?

"You really haven't changed," she realized and she drew in a breath. "I pity you. We all heard the end of your concert, do you think Mitch and Eli will keep their appointments when your sales go down?"

Jonothon drew in a sharp breath as though he'd been slapped, and he put a fist to his mouth and bit one knuckle in worry.

"There is always my inheritance," he attempted, though he realized that all was truly lost. "And the Clan Akkaba will always support me. They look after their own."

"Will they now?" she asked. "Do you really believe that? Your eyes, they tell it all. You don't. You know better than that."

For an instant there was sorrow in her features, but it died as quickly as it had come. She was far beyond sympathy. "Only change can save you, Jonothon Evan Starsmore, but I doubt you'll let change come to you."

"Change? I cannot change! I will not!" Jonothon was yelling now. He always sounded strangely American when he yelled. He blamed it on all of the business trips that he'd taken to Albuquerque with his father in his youth, before he had inherited Akkaba after that tragic dolphin-feeding accident that one fateful day in June...

"And how would you have me change, Beka? As you have? To grow to be cold and distance and dare I say it... Dead inside?"

"At least I'll not be remembered singing Legacy as my last action in this mortal world," she spat.

Was she truly dead inside? Perhaps, but her hands were steady and she woke knowing she'd done the right things in life. "I'll be remembered as a Dog worthy of carrying the title. I'll be buried amongst my fellow Dogs and they'll sing me to the Peaceful Realms when the time comes. Who'll do you that honor? Hilda? If you pay her enough."

"If ever I die, I will be ushered into the next world by a heavenly choir and all of the full respects that the Clan Akkaba can pay me," Jonothon replied, his tone desperate, his eyes uncertain. "If. If ever I die."

There was a sorrow in that phrase. Something deep and eternal and... and tortured. So very tortured.

"You're still looking for it then?" she realized. "I'd have thought you'd know better by now. There is no philospher's stone, Jonothon. There never had, never will be." She wanted to laugh, but there was nothing funny about it.

"Do you think Kora never told me how you slept with her to find your answers? Even my world couldn't bring you immortality. I was wrong, you did change. You've grown more desperate."

"My desperation is all I have, now," Jonothon yelled, once again sounding very, very American. Possibly from Brooklyn. It was difficult to tell, what with all of the yelling. "It has been taken from me, don't you see? My career, my talent! I've spent my inheritance on warm bodies to share my bed with, and soon the Clan will learn of that horrible mistake that I made in the Caribbean, and they will leave me as well! All I have now is my desperation!"

And the Mysterious Powers of Which he Never Spoke. But that was a given.

"All you have is the power to change!" Beka yelled back, wanting to get through to him.

Why did she even care? She didn't, but it was in her nature to protect, so the words came too. "But if you choose desperation over that, then you're lost forever!"

"Change?" Yes, that accent was definitely Brooklyn. "What am I expected to change to? I've already changed so very much! I'm tired, Beka! Tired of all of this change, from what I know to what I am, from what I am... where? What is there for me, now?"

"No one can answer that but you yourself, Jonothon," she said quietly. "Look within yourself. You can be so much more than just this."

Jonothon's gaze dropped to the floor. But only his eyes, because he had a very pretty chin, and to actually move his head in order to look downward might spoil the shot.

"I only wish I could see that which you see, Beka, dearest. Ever since that fateful day... Everything has felt so very hollow. You are not the only one who understands loneliness, I fear."

No, there was Dimitri, and Beka wondered if he still clung to his dead wife.

"You're only filling the emptiness with more emptiness, Jonothon. Can you not see that? You must feel it," she insisted.

"I do," Jonothon replied, his voice all but a wail, now. A very, very sultry sort of wail that was actually more purr than anything else. "There's so very much emptiness, it is as though the emptiness is all that I know."

On Saturday mornings, before Hilda.

"I... I must find something to fill that void with. I must... I must become a missionary!"

Beka breathed a sigh of relief. The solution had been obvious, how could she not have known this sooner?

"Yes," she said with such a great passion she hadn't felt since the last night she had kissed George Cooper, her sinfully loved half-brother. "Yes, Jonothon. It will save you. I know it will. Go now, leave this life behind and be free. Truly free!"

"I shall fly away to the Sahara desert, where I shall teach poor, hapless souls the importance of piracy and the way of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?), as only a devout Pastafarian possibly can!"

Doubtless, Clan Akkaba would have a few things to say about this decision. But they were mostly stuffy old farts with siamese cats on their laps and a weird penchant for putting ugly tattoos on people, and so Jonothon was not too broken up about the loss of that particular group.

"And don't forget the Evil Corporation Of Blinde Whales And Chubby Children's Choir Resort Camp," Beka insisted, because their evil was everywhere now.

She fought them once, along with her partner who had still been alive. They followed them down the deepest sewers of Port Caynn only to be ambushed by their Mad Dog Secret Ninja Pirates. They almost died there, but the flashback was too expensive to write out and so the short narrative would have to do as explanation.

The narrative was, indeed, very, very impressive.

"I shall convert people to see the one true way, and together, my league of newly branded pastafarians shall overthrow them, an army of truth, light, and meatballs!"

IT WAS THE ONLY WAY.

A rare smile played upon Beka's lips.

"I knew you'd find the way in the end, Jonothon," she spoke softly, but clearly. "I'm glad for you. May the Gods guide you on your path."

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Behind the Dorms, Sunday Afternoon

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