They are sitting next to each other on the bed, enduring yet another long moment of pregnant silence as Lilah tries to pick the right words to describe the line that she does not want to cross in her relationship with Killraven. But the words do not come.

Killraven has been patient. He already has the answer to his "question," but he is somewhat frustrated that Lilah seems unwilling to admit it to herself. So he does not wait for any more words and decides on a more direct approach.

"Do you want to kiss me?" he asks. His tone is dead-serious and his eyes have not dropped even a single degree of white-hot intensity.

"I was . . . thinking about it," Lilah replies, sitting next to him on the bed. Her tail twitches nervously.

She seems hesitant, as if she would add something to this statement. If she had another point to make, it does not pass her lips for Killraven presses his own newly reformed lips to hers.

Killraven lies as still as a statue on the pile of blankets on the floor of their room. Lilah is nestled into his right side, her head resting on the softer tissue between his bicep and his shoulder, her arms drawn up over her chest, her right leg entwined with his, and her tail threaded through his thighs.

His right hand rests on her hip. He leaves it there even though the pressure of her head on his arm has slowed circulation to his hand and is causing it to tingle. He savors the feeling -- yesterday he had no right hand.

He does not move. He stares at the ceiling and is simply content to be. He closes his left eye and looks out from his right. He listens to Lilah's measured breathing humming pleasantly in his right ear. He licks his lips. He takes a long deep breath through his nostrils. The air smells of sex.

He glances at Lilah. Her red hair is tossled over both of them and he cannot see her eyes through the tangles. She might be dozing, or just being still. This is the first time, he realizes, that he has ever held a woman this way -- that he has stayed beyond the time needed to finish the act to enjoy another sort of intimacy. He lets the warmth of her body seep into his. He smiles.

Briefly, he wonders if he looks like he did before Kalak poisoned him. He realizes that he does not know for sure. He has not looked in a looking glass since he emerged from the forge.

This is a change for him. In his former life, he had been seduced into thinking that he was what others believed him to be. As a result he had been cruel, vain, merciless, and proud. Now he was none of those things. He had found his beliefs in Sigil and now they have been forged to him with the force of his promise. When he emerged from the forge he felt like a newly made weapon -- complete in every way save one. And now, with Lilah . . .

"We should get going," Lilah murmers into his pectoral.

"I thought you were sleeping."

"MMmm - mmm. Just resting. You have a way of wearing a body out."

Killraven releases her hip and Lilah unwinds from him, her tail sending pleasant sensations up his thighs as she slips it free. She sits up and stretches. The unwanted and unresolved thoughts of earlier today, patient for so many hours, clamour again for her attention. She starts fiddling with her mussed hair hoping to keep the thougts at bay for a while longer. She realizes Killraven is staring at her.

She is used to men admiring her. Her lithe body is a weapon at times, a pleasure at other times, an inconvenience at others. Now, she inexplicably feels embarassed. The look in Killraven's eyes and on his face is not one of lust, nor one of triumph, nor any of the dozens of other expression she has seen on men after they have been with her. It is altogether different and it makes her blood burn through her skin with a fierce and unwanted blush.

Lilah scoops up a blanket and wraps herself, anxious to put something solid between her skin and his eyes. She starts looking around for her clothes.

Lilah's blush embarasses Killraven also. He wonders if he has done something to offend? He doesn't fully understand Lilah. Nor does he want to, he realizes. It is one of the things that attracts him to her, and yet it makes things difficult at times.

Killraven looks over at the bed. The front legs have broken and it sits now at an uncomfortable angle. He turns and picks it up, looking underneath, and then lets it drop back with a crash.

Lilah is watching him with a bemused expression. He meets her look. Although her charms are now concealed by her blanket her beauty is not. As their eyes touch they realize that are both thinking of the same thing and start to smile.

"How is it?" she asks. Some of her clothes are tucked under her arm.

"I'd say . . . a total loss," he answers, raising an eyebrow to indicate the unspoken "oh well".

Lilah beams at the still unexpected use of facial expression from Killraven. It is sooo different now . . . Then, she starts giggling, and then laughing. Killraven gives his half-smile, which turns into a full smile, and then, he too laughs. His croaking ghost-like voice is gone and his laughter is soft but pleasing.

Relieved that her discomfort has been dispelled, Lilah takes up her pack and heaves it onto the ruined bed. "I hope I brought some clean stuff . . ." she starts to pull it open one-handed (her other still holding the blanket).

Killraven picks up another blanket and drapes it around his waist. "Wait," he says. He goes to the door and opens it, looking both ways, then disappears for a moment.

"Hey . . . where do you think . . ." Lilah calls after him, but he is gone.

She steps behind the door and kicks it closed with her foot. "I've got to teach that basher some manners -- leaving me half-naked in a room with the door open as wide as the bone-box of some clueless berk . . ." But she smiles nonetheless, because it is just like him to do that.

He returns a few minutes later. Lilah is half dressed and is looking for a clean shirt.

"Take that off," Killraven says as he steps in and closes the door.

"Now wait a minute! Randy is one thing but this . . ."

"No." He smiles again. She is starting to like that smile. "I've got us baths. They'll be ready in about twenty minutes."

"You did?" she responds archly.

"Yes I DID, they are down the hall. And you don't need to be smart about it. Just because I only had one ear before didn't mean I couldn't hear you when you talked about the need for bathing, even if it is against the law on Athas unless you're a high-up." He goes over to a chair and starts to put his things together, letting his blanket fall to the floor. "Separate baths too. I don't want to risk breaking anything else around here."

Lilah suppresses a smile.

"If I'd have known in time the things a body'll when he's in love I'd of cut my heart out," he mumbles.

"I HEARD that, you berk," laughs Lilah, throwing her clothes at him. "And yes I DO have to be "smart" around you, seeing as you are now full of surprises. Even if you are still too much of a leatherhead to know that now that you have lips you mumble out loud."

This time it is Killraven's turn to blush. His copper skin deepens on his cheek and neck.

Lilah is pleased to finally have him on the defensive. She casually steps across the room to him and touches his heated cheek. The moment is interrupted by gurgling.

"What's that noise?" she whispers.

"My stomach," he says, further embarassed.

Lilah's eyes widen and the pupils crackle with heat. "I'll make you something special to eat after our baths."

He holds up some of the clothes she threw at him.

She does not take them. Instead, she lets go of her blanket.

"Now, what shall we do with our twenty minutes?" she whispers.

Calvin works quickly to wipe down the table. The common room had been busier than usual this evening and he did not want to get behind. He could stand it when his father scolded him for working too slowly, but he working Karyn's station tonight.

The crowd are mostly locals, coming in from their fields and forges. An ordinary evening meal sitting might handle fourty. There were easily thrice that this evening, coming to see the wonder their god had worked on one of the planewalkers staying upstairs. Calvin did not bother with such things and had not seen the berk himself. He is usually concerned with his work and with trying to catch a tumble with one of the serving girls.

Calvin finishes his work and Karyn immediatley brings over four husky sods from the fields for a seat. She flashes him a secretive smile and he winks back at her. So far, so good.

"Hey, have you seen the cutter, Cal? What's he like? The Bruce says he was a busted up mess with no face. What's the dark of it?" asks a farmer.

"Don't be a rube, Jarly. I haven't marked the basher, seeing as how he came back from the Forge at morning meal. You oughta just let the sod be, anyways. I think he'd have more on his mind than showing for sodding out-of- towners like us." Cal notes his father waving him into the kitchen. Probably has an order up or something.

The noise in the commons fades behind him as he enters the kitchen. His father is sweating and smiling, but it is a funny kind of smile. Peery now, Cal takes a careful look around. The kitchen is strangely quiet.

"Pa?"

"Cal, tell our regulars that we ain't servin' for a while. We gots a guest chef, and she's got the run of the kitchen 'till she's done."

"What?!!! This is the busiest we've been in a year . . ." Cal stops short as his father flashes two ladies in his hand. He looks over the kitchen again. The cook and her two assistants are standing quietly with their backs to the bread ovens, watching respectfully. A moment later, the object of their observations pops up from behind the stove brandishing a frying pan.

Cal's heart skips a full beat. She is slight and exotic looking with her red tresses and dark, sparkling eyes. Her black body suit leaves nothing to his imagination.

She drops the frying pan onto the stove and starts slicing the onions. She catches his eye. "Hi. Want to watch?"

Her voice is like a musical charm. "Oh YEAH. Sure . . ." Cal takes two quick steps toward the beautiful chef until his father catches his elbow and yanks him back.

"You stay AWAY from her boy," snarls his father.

Cal is taken aback at the intensity of his father's voice.

"I know you Cal. You've got an eye for the girls and the tongue to hook `em. But you stay well away from HER."

Cal arches an eyebrow, "How come. If she likes me . . ."

"I KNOW I didn't raise me a total berk idiot. Listen boy, and look. That there is one of them cutters from the Cage. I know her type and she can peel the skin right off of yer bones without you bein' none the wiser. Look at her knife work . . ."

For the first time Cal notes that the chef is finely slicing the vegetables -- with knives in both hands -- while talking to the kitchen staff and waving a spoon in her tail.

"AND she's a tiefling. She has wiles about her boy that'd take you another lifetime to figure."

Cal sighs as she watches the tiefling chef work with grace and ease. Her arms are slim and toned with muscle -- clearly she has more use for them than cutting vegetables. Cal follows the flow of muscles across her shoulders and to her chest. There his view lingers. She is simply the most wonderous woman he has ever laid eyes on.

"You ain't hard of hearin' boy, just barmy blind when it comes to a girl with a nice turn to her. Cal. Cal . . . LOOK AT ME!" his father grabs his face and pinches the cheeks.

"You're my only son and I ain't losin' you for no red-haired she-bitch from Sigil. And what's more, you ain't got all the chant. She's with the one that all the fuss is about -- that cutter what had no face till he went to the forge. After he got healed he and her had a wild tumble in the room upstairs. They had to move to the floor for pity's sake 'cause they busted me pine bed. Cal? Are you HEARIN' me lad? I seen that basher and you ain't. Heard o' him too. You make one bad step with that tiefling there and you're for the dead-book, plain and simple, and ain't no one here gonna be able to save your skinny sodding ass."

Cal relents under his father's assault. "Pike it, Pa. OK. I'll stay clear of the kitchen."

"Promise me boy."

"Promise."

"Good lad. Now, catch a nice table. The planewalker will be coming down shortly after the lady's had a chance to make him a proper meal, and I want him to be happy."

Cal backs out of the kitchen lost in his thoughts. "Well, I only said I'd stay out of the kitchen. She's gonna come out sooner or later . . ." he thinks.

A dark shape appears out of nowhere and hurtles toward his head. "WHAT THE . . .", he ducks so quickly he tips onto his backside. He wheels around to see what it was. A bird? It caws noisely as it wheels near the ceiling.

Having been startled onto his butt by nothing more potent than a bird, Calvin is angry and his pride is wounded.

"What BARMY, SODDING, BERK let that forge-be-blasted BIRD into MY dinning room!" he hollers, hoping to drown out the laughter he is sure is coming.

There is no laughter. Instead, the end of his tirade is punctuated by the slow cadence of heavy bootfalls on the stairs. Except for the sounds of the footsteps and the bird, the room is quiet.

Cal finds his feet and brushes off his leggings absently. He looks, as are the others in the room, toward the stairs where an impressive looking man is descending into the common room. He puckers in a silent whistle and then his heart nearly stops as the bird completes its circle of the room and lands on the man's right shoulder. "I guess that is the sodding, barmy, berk . . ." he thinks.

Cal notes the Baatoran green breastplate with the raven crest, and the pommel of a sword peeking above a bare shoulder that ripples with muscles and ligaments Cal did not even know existed, and the three axes tucked into a wide leather belt, and the MercyKiller boots, and the black dreadlocks that frame the determined jaw and steady, intense eyes. Those eyes, looking right at . . . him? "Write me in the dead book, Pa, I'm meat . . ."

The man stops at the bottom stairs. He looks slowly around the room.

The faces that he sees do not have the typical expressions -- there is no repulsion, disgust, terror, or skeptisim. They are serious and earnest, curious, and some even slightly smiling.

Killraven does not know what to say in response to such a reception. So he says what he feels. "I'm empty. Can a body peel a bite to eat here, or am I supposed to dance for it . . ."

Laughter ripples across the room and then a few of the brawnier bloods (ones wearing aprons) raise their mugs and make a toast. Killraven does not understand their language, but at the end nearly everyone in the room drinks, apparently to him.

Confused, he steps into the room. Strangers smile at him and some slap his back. He is directed toward a table where one of the workers from the forge sits, with a huge pitcher of ale and two mugs. The basher kicks out a chair and pours a tall one.

Killraven takes one more look around the room, then takes the offered seat. He looks his companion over .

"I am Race. Join me. We are drinking to the great work of our god and your continued health."

A young man elbows through the standing crowd. He has sandy brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, and obvious charm.

"I'm Calvin. My Pa owns this place.," he interjects. Hoping to forestall even a verbal tongue lashing, he adds quickly, "I didn't mean nothin' by what I said before, its just that your bird . . ."

"He's not my bird."

"Right. Okay," Calvin is confused, but tries not to show it. Thinking he is off the hook for his unintentional slur of the planewalker, he changes the subject. "Your food is on the stove right now. I can check on it. But my Pa wants to make sure that you're welcome here in every way. Can a body get you anything while you wait on you're dinner."

"Cal," interrupts Race, "give us some air. Everybody!! Give thanks to the Lord of the Forge and clear away and leave us in peace to enjoy his bounty!"

Lilah peeks out of the kitchen over the top of one of the swinging doors. She watches as Killraven comes down the stairs and takes a seat with one of the many local smithies. He looks so different now. Every step is confident and sure, every action deliberate. And there is still that unidentifiable something about him, apparent even more now that he is in a crowd. She is not the only one to sense it, as she can tell from the expressions on the faces of the locals. What is it?

"The oil's all aboiling Miss," calls one of the cooks , "what do we do?"

"Be there in a moment," Lilah calls over her shoulder.

She takes another look around the room, gauging the number of people. Then she lets her eyes wander back to the table where Killraven is now sitting and the young barboy is offering to serve them. Lilah cannot hear what is said, but she finds the vignette disturbing. Why?

She turns and heads back to the kitchen, suddenly cranky. She tries to categorize her feelings. "Jealousy? No. It just that I feel like I'm losing something." As she returns to her cooking and loads the vegetables into the oil, she puts her finger on it. With Killraven under the influence of the poison, she and the other Fivers never had to worry about competing for his attention. "A body just didn't go up and talk casually to the big basher (unless they were looking for a fight), and Killraven didn't go out of his way to talk to any strangers either. Now what? Bast! He'd better not turn nice and mushy on me now that he has a face that won't turn a stomach upside down."

Lilah finishes her cooking and daydreams of old times when Killraven had cleared a table with the most perfectly inappropriate remark or look.

Killraven's brow furrows as he looks at his table mate. Moc hops down on the table an pecks halfheartedly at some leftover crumbs. There is a long silence.

"Well?" asks Killraven finally.

"Well what?" replies Race.

"You kicked out the chair for me. You want something. Are you going to tell me, or shall we just glare at each other until supper."

Now it is Race's turn to frown. He had not thought this one would be surly. "Nothing. I ask for nothing. I am simply honoring you because you were chosen by Creidhne as worthy to receive the blessings of Goibhniu.. I am offering hospitality -- consider it a gesture of friendship." Race rubs his thick fingers through his stubble.

There is another long, awkward silence. Moc stops scavenging long enough to look hopefully at Race. He then returns to his work.

"I 'm not looking for any more friends.." Killraven states flatly.

Race is taken aback. "You can't be serious. It is not like I am asking for anything . . ."

"I am serious. I don't know you. I don't want to know you."

Race stares back dumbfounded.

"Look, I don't know what Criedne sees in you, and I don't care. You need a lesson in manners," he snaps.

The room falls silent again and the two men look unblinking at each other. Neither has made any move for a weapon.

"I've no use for manners. They get in the way of plain speaking," says Killraven

The smell of hot and well spiced foods fills the little kitchen of the inn in the Outlands. Lilah spoons a very large helping onto a platter, snapping up a few morsels in her quick fingers for a taste.

"Mmmmm," she says aloud. "Pretty good, considering . . . ."

'Considering what?" asks the nervous innkeeper.

[Considering that this is a backwater burg where "spicy" means butter on both sides of the toast?] "Oh nothing," she smiles.

She makes up a couple of plates, leaving a large quantity of food for the other patrons. "I'll need a hand for this stuff. How about that cute guy that you chased away?"

The innkeeper practically chokes on this. "I'm sure he's busy chasing around the waitstaff. . . ." he says, hoping to dim any prospects that the tiefling will eat his son.

"He'll be just perrrrfect," Lilah replies with just a dusting of seduction to it. [I'm entitled to a little fun so I won't be cranky all dinner . . .]

The innkeeper bustles out of the kitchen.

There are a few mumblings from the crowd at Killraven's comment.

"So you want plain speaking? Fine. Tell me, oh planewalker, why it is that you are so full of ingratitude that you will not share a table with a smith of Goibhnu, after the Great One has worked his miracle on your impertinent soul?" asks Race.

Killraven's eyes narrow at this. "Let me make this simple. I don't owe your god anything."

This provokes some cursing from the crowd and a look of astonishment from Race.

"How can you say that? I saw you before He reforged your body. You . . "

Killraven interrupts. "I have paid Goibhnu generously for his gift."

"Money? Jink? You are crass . . ."

Killraven swipes the mugs off of the table and leans across it. His hands grip the edges as he moves his face inches from Race.

"Pike your insults, smithy," he whispers hoarsly. "As a smith of Goibhnu, I am sure you are a man of honor. So mind what you say about how I have paid your god."

There is a whoosh in the room as dozens of weapons are drawn in anticipated defense of the smithy. But Race does not move and instead looks Killraven back directly eye to eye.

Race remembers now the gladiator's words in the forge. Yes, money had changed hands. But so had a promise. What was it? Honor and respect to those that deserve it, not those that demand it. Stand and fight wherever a man struggles to be free. And honor and defend until death your . . . friends. No wonder the basher would not share a drink!

Race relaxes slightly. "I apologize. I had forgotten your promise."

There are a few moments of tense silence. Many of the men in the commons room have stepped back from the furniture prepared for a fight.

"I . . . never . . . forget . . . a promise," replies the gladiator.

The innkeeper returns shortly with the cute boy with the blue eyes. Lilah smiles prettily at him and he nearly bursts.

"Pa said you need me?" he asks hopefully.

"Yes," says Lilah, giving him an appreciative eye. "Hold out your arms."

He complies. Lilah caresses his biceps. "Yes. You'll do."

"Lady, don't you do nothing to the boy. He . . ."

"Pike it, old man," she says, hefting the tray onto Calvin's outstretched arms, "I'm the chef, not the waitress. He'll do." She plucks up some of the spiced, fried vegetables.

Cal opens his mouth to protest, but before a word comes out Lilah has stuffed it with the food. She archly pinches his cheeks.

"You're a cute one, but I don't bother with . . . . boys, " she says, as she turns to lead him toward the swinging doors. And then, just for the benefit of the innkeeper and all of the others that think tieflings are no different than fiends, she adds, "they dry up much too quick . . ."

Race hears the intonation in Killraven's statement. It is meant to make a point that the gladiator WILL be making "payment" to Goibhnu on his promises for the rest of his life. Satisfied, Race pushes back his chair and stands up. "No offense taken?"

Killraven also stands. Seeing that they now understand each other, he replies accordingly. "None taken."

Lilah pops through the swinging doors into the hushed room. She sees drawn steel and Killraven staring down the smithy at his table. She catches the tail end of the conversation and the smithy stalks away. Slowly, the others in the room replace their weapons and sit down, trying their best to ignore the planewalkers.

Lilah suddenly feels good all over. Some things, it seems, are too good to change.

The large gladiator looks up as he hears the doors to the kitchen swing closed. He sees Lilah standing in the doorway, that irresistible grin lighting up her features, his own smile creeping across his face as he watches her saunter over to the table, the serving boy in tow. Killraven moves to seat himself again, his eyes never leaving the sway of her hips. Her arrival is accompanied by a wave of spices, the smell of the food she had prepared for him making him quickly forget of the smith's misunderstanding, and sending his stomach to raging.

"Hungry, Killraven?" The mirth dances in the tiefling's eyes, Killraven's growling stomach apparently reaching her perceptive ears. He nods in assention, his mouth beginning to water from the delicious odors of the food. He relishes the sensation, remembering just a short time ago when he was unable to enjoy these things. "Good," Lilah adds, "there is plenty to sate you." She motions for the serving boy, who up until now was standing sheepishly behind her, a bit at a loss at what to do, the comments of the tiefling running over and over through his mind. "Come on Cal, time to do your part of the job..." Lilah gives him a slight shove in the right direction, moving past him and taking her own seat at the table across from Killraven.

Cal, finally snapping back to duty, places the two plates in front of the planewalkers along with a large loaf of bread. He notices the pitcher of ale on the table and the absence of mugs to pour into. Quickly wanting to avoid the wrath of either of the two planewalkers, and to hopefully win a few points with the woman, he goes to the bar and fetches two mugs. Bringing them back to the table, he looks to the woman for approval. She finally notices him hanging around, and realizes he is waiting for something. "Oh, Cal, is it," she bats her eyelashes at him, "Thank you for being such a dear boy. You may go now. Your other customers are waiting. I'll let you know if we need anything else."

He hesistates a moment, her eyes holding his gaze. "Uh, yes, thank you." He manages to stammer out, and heads back to the kitchen.

Lilah watches in amusement as the boy bumps into a few chairs on his way. Her attention quickly returns to the man seated in front of her. His eyes are closed, and he is inhaling deeply over the plate of food in front of him. Lilah is worried for a moment but his eyes flutter open, and she sees a look of pure enjoyment.

"It smells good, Lilah" Killraven tells her. "I have not smelled anything in a very long time."

Lilah blushes, slightly embarrassed at his praise even before tasting the dish. "Well, don't make too many assumptions before you taste it, the kitchen was a bit limited, so I did the best I could. Luckily I had a few spices with me, to give it more flavor... if only I had a proper kitchen to work with... " She notices Killraven hungrily staring at his food, his spoon poised over the dish. "Go ahead and eat," she directs.

Waiting to see if the food is satisfactory, she places her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands, and watches with fascination as Killraven digs into the dish she made for him, his first few mouthfuls being savored like a first kiss. After a short time, her stomach reminds her of its demands, and she picks up her spoon and joins in the feasting.