It was the last thing that she'd expected. The anger at that turned over in her stomach welled up and dispersed, her hands clenching and unclenching uselessly. To show anger shows that it matters. To not show anger is against her nature. Fingers eventually curl tight, decisive, knuckles white against white skin.

She hadn't expected having to run. The operation, the camp - it had been going fine, just fine, until some Dreamer had snuck in and Summoned Blandine, and then SHE had been called and they'd stared at each other across the distance between them, suddenly made small. And then the sounds of other Princes arriving - others who'd had their investment in it, of course. A few, three. Enough. It should have been enough - but wasn't. More angels had snuck in at some point and more Archangels showed up. She hadn't seen where Blandine had gone to, though Vapula had launched himself after her earlier. It hadn't mattered; when Michael turned and gritted his teeth at her in a grimace, Beleth had broken and run. Didn't care enough about the project to maintain it. Had found this domain, and its cave (abandoned, once an underhill home to the fair folk but emptied out by the angels and their clensing rituals). Had rolled the stone aside, stepped in, and rolled it back, all before turning around.

Blandine looked up at her, face pale and framed by dark hair, blue dress drifting around her. The Archangel was curled on the floor of the cave, her knees to her chest.

Beleth's hand clenched at her side, sparks of nightmare vision flaring in her fingers.

"Don't," Blandine said tiredly and, automatically, the curling horror vanished from Beleth's fingers.

She cursed, silently, hating her inability to disobey. She'd always been the weak one, always been the one ordered around, pale, thin, desperate for praise. "You?" she mocked. "Hiding here? Abandoning your flock?"

"No," Blandine said. "I've led Vapula off. He's sniffing around here, looking for me, and my Servitors are safe while he looks for me here instead of among them." She gave Beleth an uncertain, awkward smile. "It wouldn't be safe to go out there now. His ire's up."

Beleth snarled. She wanted to leave now, just to spite the Cherub. Wanted to lash out. She sank down, sitting against the rock, staring at Blandine as if she could drill holes in her.

Blandine closed her eyes and they sat like that for a while. In tableau. (Always in a damned tableau), Beleth thought. (Her dark-haired, dark-dress around her, knees to her chest. Me white-skinned, white-haired, still thin and pale but not weak now, hmm, bitch?)

After a while, Blandine opened her eyes again and smiled wanly again. Beleth bared her teeth back.

"Haven't you wanted this?" Beleth hissed. "A chance to question me, one on one? Ask me why?"

"Wh-"

"Because I hate you."

Blandine didn't even flinch, not anymore, just lowered her eyes to the cave floor, ran a hand lightly over her hair. "I'm sorry, sweetling."

"Don't call me that." Beleth could feel her teeth drying, her lips were that far from them. "Don't call me that."

"I wish you'd come back."

"Back?" The concept tore a laugh from Beleth's throat. "When you mock me - constantly?"

Blandine's gaze whipped up. "Mock you?"

"The light in your tower!"

"A light to guide you home."

Beleth spat at her, tense, feeling her entire self trembling with the effort don't care don't care don't care don't leap on her don't rip her apart. "Gabriel gave you his Heart and you display it in the tower for all the world to see. For all human dreamers to note. For every Ethereal that ever was to look up and see how you parade him in front of me."

She waited for Blandine to react and waited and waited. Watched confusion crawl across Blandine's face, leading to stunned realization and then horror. "It's not like that. He wasn't - she isn't... we aren't-"

"Weren't you?" Beleth asked. She laughed, feeling it burn and bubble inside her. She could almost imagine the flesh ripping up behind it. "He gave you his Heart and you hung it in the highest room in your tower because you have not turned from me to him?"

"Yes!" Blandine said, voice with a slight edge of panic. "I mean, no! I mean - it's not - it's a flame! Of inspiration, of guidance - because I needed guidance. Not for me, I mean - for you. A way to guide you home. Because he loved our love, because-"

Beleth snorted, watched the sound of it impact Blandine. "Sure," she said, in a tone that said how much she didn't believe it.

Blandine scrabbled closer, skirt tangling around her knees. "It's the truth!" She insisted, voice small. "All this time, you thought-"

"It's not like," Beleth said, selecting her words carefully, "you've ever had any hesitation in showing me how little you thought of me."

Blandine stopped, sat back on her heels. Beleth didn't want to look at her expression, did anyway. Shock, grief, something that resembled awe.

"You-" Blandine said, stopped, then started again. "Dreams. I'm Dreams... I live in constant hope, you know. Dreams are more than what happens at night. It's - the constant hope for the future. A dream of what could be. It's not quite Destiny, but..." she trailed off, then started up again. "You, though. You're Nightmares."

"Stop," Beleth said.

"Nightmares." It sounded like a revelation. "All you can see-"

"Stop," Beleth said again, a little louder.

"-is everything that you-"

It was like ringing in her ears. Her nails were biting into her flesh. She couldn't focus, but couldn't stop staring, gaze pinned on her opposite. Her once-lover. Her feet were clenched on the stone floor so that she could launch herself if she had to. "Stop."

"- fear the most." Silence hung between them, think and tangible enough to seem like the bubble of a dreamscape. "...but it's not real. You're just so afraid that you believe it anyway."

She couldn't stop it. It was inevitable. It wasn't her fault. Blandine made her do it. Her legs clenched and she was launching herself at the other, hand out, grasping at that column of neck and scrabbling, clawing more than squeezing. "Stop!" she wailed, could hear herself wailing from far away. "Stop stop stop stop stop-!"

Blandine's arms came around her.

Silence froze her again. Terror. There was no right move here. No way to win. She trembled, eyes focussing on the back wall. Don't care, she thought to herself. Don't care. Don't care.

"I still love you, sweetling," Blandine murmured.

"Do not."

"I do."

"Hate me. Use me."

"Never."

Beleth started struggling to get away, but not hard. It was hard to fight. Her muscles felt lethargic, sleepy. Her dress had risen enough to show her thighs, to show the spikes of bone that portruded from her flesh at her knees. "You left me."

"I didn't."

"You left me by being too good for me."

Blandine pulled her closer, warm and soft, just like Beleth remembered. "I was never too good for you, sweetling. And you were never too good for me. We were perfectly matched. Perfectly."

It hurt, it hurt. Beleth shoved weakly, uselessly at Blandine's arms. She found, when she drew in a breath to speak, that she was crying.

"All I ever wanted," Beleth sobbed, helplessly, "was just to be constantly remembered by everything I ever touched."

Blandine was silent at that and that hurt like victory, hurt like the tears that scalded her own cheeks. (Not got much to say now, do you?)

"I know," Blandine said, eventually. "I never forgot that."

"I wish you had," Beleth said, hating the tears in her voice, on her face. "Make me hate you more and more. It's better if I hate you. It doesn't hurt so-"

Blandine turned her head, slowly, and kissed the tears on Beleth's cheeks. "It does hurt, I know. I love you. I remember... it doesn't matter now."

"No," Beleth muttered, and let her face rest on Blandine's shoulder. "No, no, it doesn't matter at ALL anymore."

White fingers stroked white hair. "All I ever think of," Blandine said, "Is you."

Me too, Beleth thought but couldn't say. It caught in her throat and choked her. "And Gabriel?"

"You were wrong," Blandine's voice was gentle, coaxing. "If the flame he gave me was his Heart I never noticed. I was looking for you at the time."

"We can't start over," Beleth said. She tried to hold onto that, use it to reinforce her. "We've made our choices and have to play them out."

Blandine reached out, turned Beleth's face to hers. "No. You're wrong. Things can get better from here on in."

"They can't."

"They can."

Beleth was aching, aching. She raised her eyes to meet Blandine's and saw a light in there, dancing. Full of hope. So easy to go to that, she thought, muzzily. so easy to give in. She fought hard, but really, it was so easy.

"Things have changed too much," she whispered, after a long moment, trying to believe it even as she sank down to let her head rest in Blandine's lap. Trying to believe it even as Blandine stroked her hair.

"You fear that," Blandine said. "And things have changed. But - not too much. There is always a future."

Something was hurting inside, like a bubble inside her, in her chest, expanding. A sharp ache. She let it take her, overwhelm her, and her face started aching too, her features.

Beleth raised a hand to touch her face, not knowing why they'd be hurting, and found that she was smiling.

Smiling.

She let her hand fall again and clench in the fabric of Blandine's dress. The ache called her, like the light in Blandine's eyes. Wanted her to give in and believe, tumble into it and just be. To stop fighting. She'd been fighting for so long, could she ever stop fighting? Her knuckles were white on Blandine's dark dress.

"Yes," she said.