The litany that flooded the temple was delicate and simple. Short words that floated in the air charged with mystical energy and need after a long time of waiting. The red flames of the fire pile were now a deep orange, like Arash's eyes.

"Will this be enough?" Shirin asked moving away from the centre of the prayers to approach her husband.

Her hair had ceased to be black over the weeks and months, and was now completely white, like Arash's and the rest of the villagers chanting in the temple.

"We can only wait and see what the day after the storm will be like."

"The people have waited for a whole year, Arash," she reproached him. "You asked, and they trusted you. I waited."

"And trust always brings rewards."

Arash cupped his wife's face with one hand, and she clung tightly to him.

"It has to work," she murmured, and Arash felt her lips kiss his hand. "I don't know what would happen to me if I lost you too..."

Arash, touched by her gesture and her words, smiled with the tenderness of a child, despite having a white beard that reached his chest.

"My beautiful Shirin, I promise to seek you out when this body is no more, so we can be together again in a new life."

The woman denied vehemently.

"There is no use in looking for me in another life if I won't be able to remember you," she murmured with a sad smile. "How? I won't be able to recognise your face in the crowd."

"You might not remember me, but I might never be able to forget these eyes."

Carefully, Arash leaned down to kiss Shirin's eyes before she enveloped him in an affectionate embrace.

"If only you had made more than one arrow," she protested.

He laughed at the childish comment as he felt his wife's heart pounding against his chest and hugged her tighter.

"That would not have been possible even with all the mystical splendour of the Camarilla..."

"Is the devil that strong?"

"Yes, to our misfortune, it is."

"Then how can a single arrow be enough?" Shirin asked breaking away from Arash to look into his eyes with her face bathed in tears. "How do you plan to win with just one arrow?"

"Because this won't be just any arrow" replied Arash calmly wiping his tears with his thumbs. "This is a special arrow..."

And saying that, Arash took a lock of his wife's white hair between his hands feeling some guilt for the first time.

"It is my fault that it's no longer black as night," he lamented.

"No, now it's silver like the moon, so I can always take care of you in the dark," Shirin said before hugging him again.

Arash smiled.

"I'm counting on it" he replied with a chuckle, and his eyes lit up as he landed on the black arrow in the middle of the orange flames.

The flames exploded in a huge flash that startled everyone, even Arash, who knew this was the moment he had been waiting for.

"You've finally arrived," he spoke mentally, as he could feel the throbbing of the arrow vibrating through his body.

Then the snow began to fall.

「 心 」

Xin's body shivered slightly as his mind left the cold of the snow falling in his sleep. Dishi was sitting next to him and kept glaring at him.

"You were talking in your sleep again," he said to break the tension, considering they were in a public place, and Xin had blushed.

"Did I say something interesting?"

Xin looked around for his backpack and noticed that Dishi had it on his lap. He always found it amazing that his boyfriend had the ability to preempt his thoughts:

"You were talking about a campfire and an arrow" Dishi mused before replying; Xin felt his heart skip a beat. "Though perhaps you could also have been talking about roast pork, it's not clear to me."

Dishi's final comment made Xin smile.

The two looked at each other for a second longer than usual, before Xin and his blush broke the connection between their gazes.

"You're probably just hungry," Xin said as he retrieved his backpack discreetly.

But Dishi's hands were quicker and more discreet and clutched at Xin's delicate fingers as if unnoticed, from behind the backpack where no one could notice.

"Do you really have to go?"

The question was a plea, and the softly spoken words a caress that Xin didn't know how to reciprocate.

Not in the middle of an airport full of people who might see them. Not far from the security he felt every time he and Dishi walked through the door of his flat.

"I already bought the tickets, didn't I?" replied Xin evasively and nervously.

Dishi's fingers kept caressing the skin of his hands. Holding Dishi's gaze without feeling hopelessly enveloped by his scent and intimacy was a monumental task.

"That's enough...," Xin thought nervously and excitedly at the same time.

There, amidst the antiseptic and impersonal of Hong Kong airport, Xin recognised once again all the things he loved about Dishi: his long black eyelashes, his neat and clean hair, his loving black eyes, the sound of his voice and the warmth of his skin. Compared to all that, the white, symmetrical airport was cold and metallic. Suddenly a woman passed by and stared at them with curiosity and silent reproach. Xin quickly released Dishi's grip and pulled away from him.

An entire minute without talking passed. They both wanted to say things and, at the same time, wanted to stay quiet until everybody around them would just disappear as if in a miracle.

"I hate this," Dishi complained in annoyance. "I hate that things have to be like this..."

"Are you talking about the trip, or about us?"

"Is there really an us, Xin?" he questioned him with the saddest look Xin had ever seen him. "What are we?"

"We are..."

"Please, if I mean anything to you, don't say we're just friends," the request was a desperate plea. "If that's what you're going to say, don't say it..."

Xin reproached Dishi with his gaze:

"You knew this would all be too complicated, Shinzu" Xin said sadly; the only times he called his boyfriend by his real name was when they were arguing. "We both knew..."

The last was a mumble and a claim to himself. Of all the things he wanted at that moment, fighting with Dishi was the most bitter and unnecessary, the thing he wanted the least.

But the silence grew between the two boys, and Xin knew nothing else to do but flee. His eyes searched with frantic need for his ticket and passport, and he went over and over the information in them.

"I still don't understand what you have to do in Iran," Dishi commented after a while, breaking the ice again, as he too looked at the documents Xin held in his hands.

Xin hadn't told him about the dreams with Arash because he didn't know how he would take it, so telling the truth behind the trip wasn't an option.

"Nothing special. I just want to clear my head a bit," he said with a shrug.

When Xin's eyes met Dishi's again, they both smiled. Neither could last long in annoyance with the other. Neither.

"We could both escape, you know," Dishi commented after looking in all directions to check that no one was watching them, before approaching Xin.

The flush on Xin's cheeks was unmistakable. He was afraid. So all he did was stand back and shake his head.

"You know we can't," he said at last. "I can't leave my mum alone, and you can't just abandon your family."

"For you, I would find a way," Dishi replied earnestly.

Xin knew at once that he was serious.

"I could buy a ticket to accompany you to Iran, and then, perhaps, when you're feeling better, we could continue the journey and go to live, I don't know, in Australia, for example..."

"Passengers bound for Tehran, please proceed to the boarding gate," said a female voice over the intercom repeating the same message three times.

"I have to go now," said Xin standing up. "But promise me that when I come back, you'll have come to your senses."

There was affection in his words, and Dishi sensed it. He stood up immediately and Xin held out a hand to bid him farewell. Dishi ignored the gesture and simply hugged him, there... in front of everyone... in the middle of the airport.

"Only if you promise to do the same..."

Dishi's words were a whisper, a promise thrown forcefully into the air, into his ear, a silent yet urgent plea for bravery that only Xin could hear before walking ahead.

「 心 」

The fire of the bonfire was so intense that the altar could hardly contain it any longer after the passage of a solar year. It looked like a great bud of life waiting to blossom.

"Let it be so, Great Sage... and guide me with your merciful hands..."

Arash raised his prayer in solitude. The flames covered him instantly. Even as he felt its heat, his skin did not burn amidst the tongues of that orange fire, which gradually turned into a brilliant blue.

Reverently, like a consecrated devotee, Arash walked barefoot through the flames and looked closely at the fruit of his spirit about to ripen; at that moment he felt again like a peasant admiring the love of nature, and the reward of his labour at the time of harvest.

"Arash," interjected the voice of a young man behind him. "I hope you can excuse us..."

Arash appeared from the flames of the bonfire to welcome his visitors to the temple. They were two young boys, identical twins; the magic sealed in their veins was strong, and necessary in these times of war. They were the last living descendants of Kaveh the Blacksmith, who two centuries ago had faced the same demon that his children's children and Arash were facing today.

"Did you boys complete the Kurdalægon?"

"Yes, here it is with us," said the second of the siblings, raising his hands in Arash's direction.

He, the great hunter, turned to see them, emerging once and for all from his shelter of flame, and took the bronze tip of the boy's hand, and felt for himself and for the first time the magic pulsing between his fingertips.

"Isat, Freni," Arash called to them proudly. "It is time to mark the Derafsh Kaviani on the obsidian of the arrow..."

Both boys raised their faces and Arash could see their glowing golden eyes, sacred and powerful, like no one else's in the region.

"This that I hold in my hands is the greatest gift the sons of our people have ever possessed," he told them before placing the tip of the arrow in front of them and stroking their faces affectionately. "I know your father would be proud of you. I promise you I will let him know myself soon... How his sons saved our people."

Both boys nodded humbly at his words.

"And if only the gods were not so capricious, it would be you, not I, who would complete the spell..."

Arash sighed heavily, self-absorbed in his melancholy. Suddenly, a timeless sigh was reflected in Xin, who was sleeping peacefully at the time, and was flying over some vague place in the middle of the Turkish sky, heading for Iran.