The setting is the ancient but tiny City of Ripon in North Yorkshire, a City only by virtue of its cathedral church, it is a warm June day and just ar...und four in the afternoon and I am seated in the old Gents lavatory serving the car parks for the town square and what passes for the bus station.. I am idly resting back on the old fashioned flush down pipe, my shorts around my feet and wanking to the various drawings, descriptions of encounters and invitations for similar when I heard someone. The air was cool on my skin as I leaned over his dresser to the window. The spot against the curb was empty. He couldn't have been long gone. I looked along the street just as the tail of a red car disappeared around the corner at the lights. I didn't know automobiles enough to know if it was his or not.I didn't need to go to work; the world would keep spinning about its axis without me; I could have gone back to bed and sleep. Standing, though, had shifted the weight of my bladder. I decided. "Do you like to swim?" She asked. " Yes I do. " I responded. "It's so hot today, I think we should go swimming." She said. " Sound fun? " "Yes, but I wish S was here so we all could go." I said . "Well, this is a place thats special to me." She said. " Ok. " I said. We got dressed and made a picnic lunch. Mrs. L got some folding chairs and we loaded the car. We set of and drove for almost an hour up in to the mountains. We were in the middle of nowhere when she pulled off in a rest area. We. I kept catching glimpses of her as she darted through the canopies, a growing pile of sticks and twigs clutched to her breasts while her mirth sang out through the woods.“What do you want, Radiant?” Ealaín asked.I blinked at the abruptness of her question. “What?”“What do you want?” she asked again. “With your life?”I gave my muse a furrowed look, struggling to think through the leaden exhaustion pressing down on my thoughts. “Well, to kill Prince Meinard, and to get rid of this Las cursed.