Part two of the last episode, which just got too damn big to make one chapter. This one explains why Old Man Witherell was so damn crotchety in the first episode, and shows us how damn bad thing've got all the hell over the place.

I've read books which excelled in creating no-win situations, where the best a body can hope for is survival. Some might notice I've been kicking them in the teeth of late, but you'll understand why in time. Just keep the faith.

The Heart of Gold doesn't belong to me. Pretty much everything else does, though.

Feedback: As much as possible.

In the Dust of the Day, Part 2

The woman squatted down on the sparse grass looked more like a child than the adult of more than twenty five years to those who stood around her. She was plucking at the flowers which still made a run at surviving, despite the dry weather of Silverhold. Jacob walked in that slow circle around her, glancing from time to time to the old man sitting not far away. He'd seen her in so many lights in the last two years. This was just another of them, he tried to tell himself. But that wasn't true.

This was something new. It was a regression, as Friday said. She was protecting herself by going to another time, distant in her past. It took him a long time to figure it, but it seemed more and more like the woman was sacrificing her mind to protect... what? Her soul? He wasn't sure if he even believed in that.

"Look at all the pretty daisies," she whispered, a smile on her features. It almost broke Jacob's heart.

Friday had finished with her examination of the delusional woman-child and had gone back for a towel not long ago. Anne still had her hand on her weapon. She didn't seem nearly willing to stand down. A bit rattled. More than a bit, truth be told.

"I'm sorry," Jacob said, at long last.

"For what?" Sylvia's aged father said. Jacob had heard the man was stone-deaf, but he still had a way of conversing.

"She was on my crew," he said. He watched the other man's eyes, so like Syl's. The elder was watch