What is so important to you that without it, life would not be worth living? Why?

Hope. However dark it gets, there must always be hope. Every time...I had hope for the next. Pain and loss and anguish, but underneath it, hope.

Without hope, there would be no reason to go on. Without a belief that things could change, be better, why keep living?

If there is no hope of winning the fight, why fight? No hope of making a difference, why try? No hope of finding love, why look?

Why seek? Why search? Why strive? Why learn? Why grow?

If you have no hope, there is no motivation.

No dream.

No fire.

No reason not to close your eyes and reach for the darkness.

(no subject)

From here.

He's been watching all night, painfully aware of her, wanting her, but staying away. Watching her dance with the boy. With Soren. Watching her flirt with the pirate. Smile and laugh and all without him. He's slid through the party, a dance here, a kiss there, just playing. And watching. Only one lapse, with the boy, and the Lady had intervened in time. He won't lose control again, but he can't just watch.

He sees her standing across the room, watching the dancers and sipping champagne. He moves closer, heart hammering. Her eyes meet his while he's still half the floor away, and the world narrows to just them.

Keelia looks back, trapped by the intensity in his eyes. A soft sigh. She's known it was inevitable from the time she saw him when they arrived. Michael seems to have slipped away, as has Soren. She was going to seek the Lady, see if she knew, but the thought skitters away as he moves toward her.

His throat is too dry to speak, so he just holds out his hand. She sets her glass down. Her hand trembles just slightly as she takes his.

Leather and silk and her little black dress. Both of them all in black, and so fair. They draw eyes and murmurs as he leads her to the floor. Neither of them notice. Her hand on his shoulder. His on her waist. Fingers intertwining as they move through the steps of the dance without thought. The music softens, drawing them in. They swirl around the floor, moving through the crowd without seeing it, sliding through them with ease.

No words. Nothing to say. Just this. Just now. Moment out of time, suspended and still. Old tune. New beat. Doesn't matter. Nothing else. Love. Passion. Need. Desire. No fear in this, no pain. Only the sense of rightness. Of things sliding into place and clinging to the silver threads.

The moment lasts for a millenia, but is over in a heartbeat.

They stand in the center of the floor, eyes and fingers holding. He bends his head as she lifts hers. Just a brush of a kiss, soft, but firm and sharp with restrained passion. A claiming as sure as if he took her in front of them all.

And then he melts away into the crowd, leaving her standing there.