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They harmonized on the battlefield as well. Each time The Odds rushed into the fray, villains and bystanders were likely to witness a dark blur at the center of the group. The blur being a masked cowgirl driving a midnight black motorcycle with a ninja in an armored bodysuit riding behind her, hand cannons blazing.

The motorcycle had been a gift to Quincy (from Centennia this time) to address her regret at not having a means of transport on the caliber of those of her teammates. Several of The Odds could fly, and those that couldn't had other means, like Captain Evening's sky cycle. In the old days, she had had her amazing equine partner, the stallion she named Shade, but Quincy knew that having a horse in the city was just impractical, not to mention inhumane. Enter Centennia and Professor Madison, The Odds' scientific and technical advisor, who collaborated on creating this motorcycle. It had a completely silent engine, armored, puncture-proof tires, sophisticated navigation and tracking abilities and even banks, forward and aft, of mini-missiles. As amazing a gift as it undeniably was, and as touched as she was by the gesture, Quincy was a little reticent about accepting the bike. Mostly because she was still so new to this century that she had never driven a motorized vehicle in her life. What followed was a wobbly few months of training, but Quincy's great natural intelligence and equilibrium quickly brought her up to speed, literally, and soon enough she was an adept rider. One who could, as long as she was in physical contact with the bike she had started calling Shade II, drive through any obstacle in her path.

It was Taki's idea to ride double on Shade II, taking advantage of the accompanying intangibility to gain an added battlefield advantage - one that suited her ninja skills and sensibility.

This strategy proved most effective in a tense police standoff with a handful of desperate would-be bank robbers who had taken an entire lobby full of tellers and customers hostage, threatening to slaughter every one of them if they detected any aggressive moves by the SWAT teams assembled around the building. To prove they meant business, they'd shoved the bulletriddled security guard's body out of the bank's front doors. They'd planned for most contingencies - or believed they had anyway - but what they never saw coming was the ghostly motorcycle driving through the vaults and teller's windows at forty miles an hour, coming to a perfect stop without a sound behind them. They never heard the dark armored woman vault from the back of the bike, somersault in midair and effectively decapitate two of the bank robbers with a graceful sweep of the two katanas in her hands.

The remaining members of the gang only became aware of the Phantom Pistoleer and Battle Angel's presence when their buddies dropped to the floor minus their heads. They were just making their first startled sounds and raising their weapons when a round of bullets, lightning fast and true, blasted their hands to bloody pulp and sent their guns to the bank's marble floor. The Pistoleer blew the smoke from her Colts as Battle Angel slid her twin swords into the crossed scabbards across her back.

"It'd be in your best interests t' drop to your knees an' reach for th' sky," Quincy hissed in her lowered Pistoleer voice, "Whatever'll keep my friend from using her cutlery again."

Between the blood coursing from their shattered hands and the sight of their associates' dissociated heads staring blankly at them from the floor, the robbers didn't need much convincing. They dropped to their knees, ashen-faced and trembling. Within moments, the SWAT team received the "all clear" and the grateful, if traumatized, civilians were led from the bank. There was a window of quiet after the wounded-but-living robbers were taken into custody. The place was emptied and the detectives and forensics team were on their way in when Taki turned to Quincy. Her expression had softened, The Killer In The Veil had slipped back into the place in her mind where she waited and watched, and on her face was one of her wonderful smiles.

"'Cutlery?'" was all she said and Quincy sputtered out a laugh. It kept going and it was joined by Taki's own surprisingly sweet giggle that she tried to hide behind a hand.

Quincy marveled at her as they shared that moment...and then she did something spontaneous and utterly unlike her. She moved in close and kissed Taki, a move that surprised the instigator as much as the recipient. Equally unpredictable was the response.

Taki froze. The ninja with the inhuman reflexes locked into place, her shoulders high and her arms fused to her side. Quincy yanked back instantly, a blush burning through her freckles, her eyes full of confusion, shame and humiliation. Taki's were unreadable. All Quincy could muster, was a stuttered, "T-Taki, I-" before the doors opened and the next pack of cops entered the bank, eyeing the pair with mild voyeuristic interest. They knew they had interrupted something. Quincy was actually glad for the interruption. But during the course of giving a statement to the police detective, she turned to indicate her partner only to find...nothing. Taki's ninja skills had allowed her to vanish even more effectively than Quincy's limbo side-step.

That day passed and Quincy tried not to dwell on what she could only assume was a major faux pas, a complete misread of the connection she had with Taki. She tried not to dwell on it, but unsuccessfully. And it wasn't helped by a completely unprompted encounter with Kate Five later in the Fortress of Evening.

The tall, muscular Welsh woman was exiting the gym, completely nude and glistening with sweat, a stunning raven-haired beauty. Upon spotting Quincy, she nodded her head in a manner to call her over. "Quincy, do you have a mo'?"

Quincy walked over to her and tried to pay no attention to the rivulets of water slipping down Kate's large, perfectly-formed breasts. She absently crossed her arms in front of her own much less prominent bust as she replied, "Sure, Kate, what's up?"

"I've been watching you with Taki."

Quincy swallowed, "Watching? But there's nothing-"

"I think it's wonderful," Kate rushed to assure. "It may not seem like it in the mad hubbub of Cen and I getting together, but I still deeply care for Taki. She - she means the world to me. Don't get me wrong; I'm deliriously happy, but-" She paused and took a heaving breath, "It pains me to know that she's hurting; even worse to know that my happiness is the very thing that is hurting her. Maybe - maybe one day we'll be the kind of friends we once were but, until then..." Kate reached for Quincy's hands and held them with emphasis, "I was afraid I would never see her smile again, but then I saw her with you. Thank you. Thank you for making her smile."

Quincy was thunderstruck by the emotions that were rising to the surface. She could only quietly respond, "She's become very important to me, too, but I - I-" Her eyes began to water and she pulled away from Kate, "Excuse me..."

She rushed off to her room leaving the sweaty, nude, and now very confused superheroine in her wake.

Quincy felt horrible. Worse, she felt stupid. Had she been able to frame the situation more objectively, been a little more charitable towards herself, she might have reasoned that, despite the grim but thrilling experiences she had accumulated as The Phantom Pistoleer and despite the hundred some-odd years she had spent in limbo, she was still just a woman in her twenties who had only loved one other person in her young life. She was a romantic neophyte and she was painfully aware of this. That she had clearly overstepped some emotional boundary with Taki was bad enough, but the possibility that she had endangered their friendship was almost unbearable. She spent the rest of the day hiding away in her room, not wanting to chance any encounter with Taki. She needn't have worried about that, as Taki wasn't seen by anyone around the Fortress that evening...or for the next few days.

This wasn't in and of itself all that rare, Taki's comings and goings were usually as mysterious and unannounced as befits one of the ninja. But privately Quincy felt she knew the cause of this disappearance. An uninvited kiss, a false note.

It was late and it was quiet in the Fortress of Evening. The Odds had been invited to a very special private event at The Bleeding Rose, a notorious goth nightclub operated by Marcus, a vampiric ally of the team. Despite, or perhaps due to the promised decadence of the outing, the men and women of the team all eagerly agreed to go. Even Centennia who, dressed in a surprisingly out-of-character outfit of leather and torn fishnet stockings, personally inquired if Quincy would be joining them. Quincy graciously demurred and watched as the whole group similarly attired in dark and sexy goth drag made their way cheerily out the door. With one last wave from a very mascaraed Jung-La, they were gone and Quincy had the the whole two story penthouse to herself.

After making and listlessly picking at a late night snack of cheese and crackers, she wandered into the study and found herself once more at the baby grand. She was distracted and troubled and therefor was doing Chopin's Nocturne no. 20 no real justice. Her fingers made the correct moves of their own accord but this wasn't the trance-like autonomy of the inspired, but simple muscle memory; her mind and spirit were disconnected from the process. Elsewhere. In fact, she was just about to abandon the piece in mid-phrase, when she heard the most unexpected sound.

Softly but sharply, sweetly, the doubling voice of a violin had joined the melody. Quincy kept playing, nearly falling off the beat but managing somehow to keep the tempo as she swiveled her head to see a vision in the doorway that caused the breath to catch in her chest. Taki stood there, dressed only in an emerald satin robe cinched at her waist, the Japanese crane motifs brocaded in golden thread across the garment shimmering in the low light as she danced the bow across the strings of the beautiful violin under her chin. Her eyes were shut serenely, her silky black hair, loose, straight and unbound, fanning across her face and sweeping back again. Her eyes remained closed until she and Quincy mutually reached the end of the piece.

"I have not touched a violin in years," Taki said. "Not since the Yakuza took me."

Quincy struggled to think of the rights words - or any words at all - but was interrupted by Taki who cast the briefest of glances her way.

"Do you know this one?" And she began to play.

Quincy did know it. Mozart's Violin Sonata in G. She joined, finding her way clumsily at first, until they were in perfect sync. Their lines blended and broke apart, at once both playful and sinuous. Neither led the way, each would surge forward in turn while the other followed and then they would reverse. As they played, Quincy found a respite from the worries and the questions of the past few days and, instead, she was buoyed by the music. This was its own bliss for her, a part of herself that had helped her through the emotional dark place she'd found herself in after she'd begun her career as The Phantom Pistoleer and the literal dark place she'd been trapped in for decades as prisoner of an ethereal limbo; she had filled that endless, black void with the music she could recall in her mind. To Quincy, it was if Taki and she were singing together, entwining their deepest, truest selves through the medium of this shared music. She felt, in this moment, that she could never be closer to another human being.

And then the piece ended.

She turned on the piano bench to face Taki, but while she had lowered the violin, she would not meet Quincy's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Taki," Quincy started, getting the most important thought out of the way. But Taki only raised a gentle hand in dismissal.

"Hear me out," Quincy insisted, building steam. "I had no place. Knowing you like I think I do - knowin' what you been through - I just had no place at all makin' such a blamed fool move on you like that. It's not what you deserve and - and obviously not what you want-"

"Quincy-chan," Taki interrupted quietly but firmly, the change in honorific completely missed by the earnest young American woman, "if that is what you think, then you do not know me as well as you believe." She set the violin down. "The Killer in the Veil has watched you, Consequence Burden. She knows you to be fierce and brilliant and, at times, far too compassionate. But she respects you, trusts your arm and eye and judgment. And she likes you very, very much."

Taki's hands, equally capable of delivering brutal death and coaxing beautiful tones from a violin, reached for Quincy's, holding them and gently stroking their backs with her thumbs. "The Girl in the Cage has watched you as well. She has seen you smile through your pain and bravely walk into an unknown world with no falter in your step. She believes in your heart and your spirit. And she also likes you very, very much." Taki's eyes finally met Quincy's and that, in itself, was a breathtaking move, so direct and focused was her gaze. "We have both, The Girl and The Killer, been hurt deeply by one who we loved. But we do not hurt when we are with you. We do not live in that past betrayal when we are with you. We feel free and so happy when we are with you and, if it is what you wish, that is where we would like to stay. With you."

Only now did Taki glance down once more, "This was difficult to admit to myself and difficult for me to s-"

Once again, Quincy moved in to kiss Taki, but the reaction this time was quite different. Their lips met with an equal intensity and need, their tongues entwining. Trembling, they broke apart for a hasty breath.

"Sweet sarsaparilla," Quincy exclaimed in a shaky whisper before they resumed.

The two women pressed into each other, as if seeking some molecular fusion, trying frantically to become one flesh in the manner of all new lovers. Tears glistened at the corners of their eyes, lids shut and fluttering. They breathed into each other and moved in a tight, improvisational dance, arms clutching and wrapping around each other, hands stroking and grasping, hips grinding together.

Quincy felt her body responding in a way she hadn't felt since her cherished days with Thirsty Faun - a way she hadn't been sure she would ever feel again. She was on fire and so hungry. Her hands sought out the tantalizing mounds of Taki's breasts, warm and pliant and hidden only by one thin layer of satin. Taki gasped at her touch and responded by clutching at Quincy's ass. Their breathing became heavier and both were beginning to softly moan into each other's mouths. Their desire was only building and Quincy could finally take it no longer. As Taki watched, her chest heaving, Quincy unfastened the sash of the emerald robe and pulled it down, dropping it free of Taki and letting it collect on the floor. Quincy marveled at the sight of Taki's naked body, absorbing the totality of her taut, radiant beauty.

She put her hands on Taki's shoulders, then turned her and sat her on the piano bench. Taki, with a feverish smile, offered no resistance to Quincy's manipulations and allowed her to part her legs. Eyes half-lidded with lust, her mind fogged and her thoughts far, far removed from the hot Texas nights of a century ago, Quincy knelt before this strange, powerful and complex woman that she felt blessed to have met, and she dipped her head to kiss her.

Deeply...and again...and again.

And so it came to pass, in an odd place and time for both of these wounded, wandering souls, that a kind of healing began and these two women, an unlikely pair of fighters and survivors, sang together a new song, straining and wet-mouthed, gasping and sighing in harmony. A song for no one but themselves. A duet for loners.

THE END

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

They harmonized on the battlefield as well. Each time The Odds rushed into the fray, villains and bystanders were likely to witness a dark blur at the center of the group. The blur being a masked cowgirl driving a midnight black motorcycle with a ninja in an armored bodysuit riding behind her, hand cannons blazing.

The motorcycle had been a gift to Quincy (from Centennia this time) to address her regret at not having a means of transport on the caliber of those of her teammates. Several of The Odds could fly, and those that couldn't had other means, like Captain Evening's sky cycle. In the old days, she had had her amazing equine partner, the stallion she named Shade, but Quincy knew that having a horse in the city was just impractical, not to mention inhumane. Enter Centennia and Professor Madison, The Odds' scientific and technical advisor, who collaborated on creating this motorcycle. It had a completely silent engine, armored, puncture-proof tires, sophisticated navigation and tracking abilities and even banks, forward and aft, of mini-missiles. As amazing a gift as it undeniably was, and as touched as she was by the gesture, Quincy was a little reticent about accepting the bike. Mostly because she was still so new to this century that she had never driven a motorized vehicle in her life. What followed was a wobbly few months of training, but Quincy's great natural intelligence and equilibrium quickly brought her up to speed, literally, and soon enough she was an adept rider. One who could, as long as she was in physical contact with the bike she had started calling Shade II, drive through any obstacle in her path.

It was Taki's idea to ride double on Shade II, taking advantage of the accompanying intangibility to gain an added battlefield advantage - one that suited her ninja skills and sensibility.

This strategy proved most effective in a tense police standoff with a handful of desperate would-be bank robbers who had taken an entire lobby full of tellers and customers hostage, threatening to slaughter every one of them if they detected any aggressive moves by the SWAT teams assembled around the building. To prove they meant business, they'd shoved the bulletriddled security guard's body out of the bank's front doors. They'd planned for most contingencies - or believed they had anyway - but what they never saw coming was the ghostly motorcycle driving through the vaults and teller's windows at forty miles an hour, coming to a perfect stop without a sound behind them. They never heard the dark armored woman vault from the back of the bike, somersault in midair and effectively decapitate two of the bank robbers with a graceful sweep of the two katanas in her hands.

The remaining members of the gang only became aware of the Phantom Pistoleer and Battle Angel's presence when their buddies dropped to the floor minus their heads. They were just making their first startled sounds and raising their weapons when a round of bullets, lightning fast and true, blasted their hands to bloody pulp and sent their guns to the bank's marble floor. The Pistoleer blew the smoke from her Colts as Battle Angel slid her twin swords into the crossed scabbards across her back.

"It'd be in your best interests t' drop to your knees an' reach for th' sky," Quincy hissed in her lowered Pistoleer voice, "Whatever'll keep my friend from using her cutlery again."

Between the blood coursing from their shattered hands and the sight of their associates' dissociated heads staring blankly at them from the floor, the robbers didn't need much convincing. They dropped to their knees, ashen-faced and trembling. Within moments, the SWAT team received the "all clear" and the grateful, if traumatized, civilians were led from the bank. There was a window of quiet after the wounded-but-living robbers were taken into custody. The place was emptied and the detectives and forensics team were on their way in when Taki turned to Quincy. Her expression had softened, The Killer In The Veil had slipped back into the place in her mind where she waited and watched, and on her face was one of her wonderful smiles.

"'Cutlery?'" was all she said and Quincy sputtered out a laugh. It kept going and it was joined by Taki's own surprisingly sweet giggle that she tried to hide behind a hand.

Quincy marveled at her as they shared that moment...and then she did something spontaneous and utterly unlike her. She moved in close and kissed Taki, a move that surprised the instigator as much as the recipient. Equally unpredictable was the response.

Taki froze. The ninja with the inhuman reflexes locked into place, her shoulders high and her arms fused to her side. Quincy yanked back instantly, a blush burning through her freckles, her eyes full of confusion, shame and humiliation. Taki's were unreadable. All Quincy could muster, was a stuttered, "T-Taki, I-" before the doors opened and the next pack of cops entered the bank, eyeing the pair with mild voyeuristic interest. They knew they had interrupted something. Quincy was actually glad for the interruption. But during the course of giving a statement to the police detective, she turned to indicate her partner only to find...nothing. Taki's ninja skills had allowed her to vanish even more effectively than Quincy's limbo side-step.

That day passed and Quincy tried not to dwell on what she could only assume was a major faux pas, a complete misread of the connection she had with Taki. She tried not to dwell on it, but unsuccessfully. And it wasn't helped by a completely unprompted encounter with Kate Five later in the Fortress of Evening.

The tall, muscular Welsh woman was exiting the gym, completely nude and glistening with sweat, a stunning raven-haired beauty. Upon spotting Quincy, she nodded her head in a manner to call her over. "Quincy, do you have a mo'?"

Quincy walked over to her and tried to pay no attention to the rivulets of water slipping down Kate's large, perfectly-formed breasts. She absently crossed her arms in front of her own much less prominent bust as she replied, "Sure, Kate, what's up?"

"I've been watching you with Taki."

Quincy swallowed, "Watching? But there's nothing-"

"I think it's wonderful," Kate rushed to assure. "It may not seem like it in the mad hubbub of Cen and I getting together, but I still deeply care for Taki. She - she means the world to me. Don't get me wrong; I'm deliriously happy, but-" She paused and took a heaving breath, "It pains me to know that she's hurting; even worse to know that my happiness is the very thing that is hurting her. Maybe - maybe one day we'll be the kind of friends we once were but, until then..." Kate reached for Quincy's hands and held them with emphasis, "I was afraid I would never see her smile again, but then I saw her with you. Thank you. Thank you for making her smile."

Quincy was thunderstruck by the emotions that were rising to the surface. She could only quietly respond, "She's become very important to me, too, but I - I-" Her eyes began to water and she pulled away from Kate, "Excuse me..."

She rushed off to her room leaving the sweaty, nude, and now very confused superheroine in her wake.

Quincy felt horrible. Worse, she felt stupid. Had she been able to frame the situation more objectively, been a little more charitable towards herself, she might have reasoned that, despite the grim but thrilling experiences she had accumulated as The Phantom Pistoleer and despite the hundred some-odd years she had spent in limbo, she was still just a woman in her twenties who had only loved one other person in her young life. She was a romantic neophyte and she was painfully aware of this. That she had clearly overstepped some emotional boundary with Taki was bad enough, but the possibility that she had endangered their friendship was almost unbearable. She spent the rest of the day hiding away in her room, not wanting to chance any encounter with Taki. She needn't have worried about that, as Taki wasn't seen by anyone around the Fortress that evening...or for the next few days.

This wasn't in and of itself all that rare, Taki's comings and goings were usually as mysterious and unannounced as befits one of the ninja. But privately Quincy felt she knew the cause of this disappearance. An uninvited kiss, a false note.

It was late and it was quiet in the Fortress of Evening. The Odds had been invited to a very special private event at The Bleeding Rose, a notorious goth nightclub operated by Marcus, a vampiric ally of the team. Despite, or perhaps due to the promised decadence of the outing, the men and women of the team all eagerly agreed to go. Even Centennia who, dressed in a surprisingly out-of-character outfit of leather and torn fishnet stockings, personally inquired if Quincy would be joining them. Quincy graciously demurred and watched as the whole group similarly attired in dark and sexy goth drag made their way cheerily out the door. With one last wave from a very mascaraed Jung-La, they were gone and Quincy had the the whole two story penthouse to herself.

After making and listlessly picking at a late night snack of cheese and crackers, she wandered into the study and found herself once more at the baby grand. She was distracted and troubled and therefor was doing Chopin's Nocturne no. 20 no real justice. Her fingers made the correct moves of their own accord but this wasn't the trance-like autonomy of the inspired, but simple muscle memory; her mind and spirit were disconnected from the process. Elsewhere. In fact, she was just about to abandon the piece in mid-phrase, when she heard the most unexpected sound.

Softly but sharply, sweetly, the doubling voice of a violin had joined the melody. Quincy kept playing, nearly falling off the beat but managing somehow to keep the tempo as she swiveled her head to see a vision in the doorway that caused the breath to catch in her chest. Taki stood there, dressed only in an emerald satin robe cinched at her waist, the Japanese crane motifs brocaded in golden thread across the garment shimmering in the low light as she danced the bow across the strings of the beautiful violin under her chin. Her eyes were shut serenely, her silky black hair, loose, straight and unbound, fanning across her face and sweeping back again. Her eyes remained closed until she and Quincy mutually reached the end of the piece.

"I have not touched a violin in years," Taki said. "Not since the Yakuza took me."

Quincy struggled to think of the rights words - or any words at all - but was interrupted by Taki who cast the briefest of glances her way.

"Do you know this one?" And she began to play.

Quincy did know it. Mozart's Violin Sonata in G. She joined, finding her way clumsily at first, until they were in perfect sync. Their lines blended and broke apart, at once both playful and sinuous. Neither led the way, each would surge forward in turn while the other followed and then they would reverse. As they played, Quincy found a respite from the worries and the questions of the past few days and, instead, she was buoyed by the music. This was its own bliss for her, a part of herself that had helped her through the emotional dark place she'd found herself in after she'd begun her career as The Phantom Pistoleer and the literal dark place she'd been trapped in for decades as prisoner of an ethereal limbo; she had filled that endless, black void with the music she could recall in her mind. To Quincy, it was if Taki and she were singing together, entwining their deepest, truest selves through the medium of this shared music. She felt, in this moment, that she could never be closer to another human being.

And then the piece ended.

She turned on the piano bench to face Taki, but while she had lowered the violin, she would not meet Quincy's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Taki," Quincy started, getting the most important thought out of the way. But Taki only raised a gentle hand in dismissal.

"Hear me out," Quincy insisted, building steam. "I had no place. Knowing you like I think I do - knowin' what you been through - I just had no place at all makin' such a blamed fool move on you like that. It's not what you deserve and - and obviously not what you want-"

"Quincy-chan," Taki interrupted quietly but firmly, the change in honorific completely missed by the earnest young American woman, "if that is what you think, then you do not know me as well as you believe." She set the violin down. "The Killer in the Veil has watched you, Consequence Burden. She knows you to be fierce and brilliant and, at times, far too compassionate. But she respects you, trusts your arm and eye and judgment. And she likes you very, very much."

Taki's hands, equally capable of delivering brutal death and coaxing beautiful tones from a violin, reached for Quincy's, holding them and gently stroking their backs with her thumbs. "The Girl in the Cage has watched you as well. She has seen you smile through your pain and bravely walk into an unknown world with no falter in your step. She believes in your heart and your spirit. And she also likes you very, very much." Taki's eyes finally met Quincy's and that, in itself, was a breathtaking move, so direct and focused was her gaze. "We have both, The Girl and The Killer, been hurt deeply by one who we loved. But we do not hurt when we are with you. We do not live in that past betrayal when we are with you. We feel free and so happy when we are with you and, if it is what you wish, that is where we would like to stay. With you."

Only now did Taki glance down once more, "This was difficult to admit to myself and difficult for me to s-"

Once again, Quincy moved in to kiss Taki, but the reaction this time was quite different. Their lips met with an equal intensity and need, their tongues entwining. Trembling, they broke apart for a hasty breath.

"Sweet sarsaparilla," Quincy exclaimed in a shaky whisper before they resumed.

The two women pressed into each other, as if seeking some molecular fusion, trying frantically to become one flesh in the manner of all new lovers. Tears glistened at the corners of their eyes, lids shut and fluttering. They breathed into each other and moved in a tight, improvisational dance, arms clutching and wrapping around each other, hands stroking and grasping, hips grinding together.

Quincy felt her body responding in a way she hadn't felt since her cherished days with Thirsty Faun - a way she hadn't been sure she would ever feel again. She was on fire and so hungry. Her hands sought out the tantalizing mounds of Taki's breasts, warm and pliant and hidden only by one thin layer of satin. Taki gasped at her touch and responded by clutching at Quincy's ass. Their breathing became heavier and both were beginning to softly moan into each other's mouths. Their desire was only building and Quincy could finally take it no longer. As Taki watched, her chest heaving, Quincy unfastened the sash of the emerald robe and pulled it down, dropping it free of Taki and letting it collect on the floor. Quincy marveled at the sight of Taki's naked body, absorbing the totality of her taut, radiant beauty.

She put her hands on Taki's shoulders, then turned her and sat her on the piano bench. Taki, with a feverish smile, offered no resistance to Quincy's manipulations and allowed her to part her legs. Eyes half-lidded with lust, her mind fogged and her thoughts far, far removed from the hot Texas nights of a century ago, Quincy knelt before this strange, powerful and complex woman that she felt blessed to have met, and she dipped her head to kiss her.

Deeply...and again...and again.

And so it came to pass, in an odd place and time for both of these wounded, wandering souls, that a kind of healing began and these two women, an unlikely pair of fighters and survivors, sang together a new song, straining and wet-mouthed, gasping and sighing in harmony. A song for no one but themselves. A duet for loners.

THE END