"Accept." Midona's tone was scornful, "You accept it? After everything they've done to you? To us? To all those mortals? Even knowing that they were probably the ones who killed your dam-" Midona had taken to using the mannerisms of the nakama even outside that world, which had earned her more than a few strange looks in the club, with Tony's friends. "Your mother, I mean." She said, by way of explanation.

Gabriel gave a shadow-and-temptation laugh at that particularly callous comment, "I do not know what befell the boy's parents but I assure my court had nothing to do with it. Wel..." he smirked, "At the very least, it was not at my behest."

Gabriel watched the girl try and fail to find words. Like many gancanagh, she was beautiful -stunning- in the way lightning is when it darts across the sky in the pitch black of night. And probably just as dangerous.

She was barefoot, clad in only a short, dark blue tunic, with a moon and star emblem across the chest, red hair freed from it's restrained. That's...strange. He had heard that she was head of the ishari court now. Well, 'heard' might be an understatement. My little gancanagh has made quite an impression on those fools. hisd lips quirked into a smirk at that thought.

Nonetheless, it was unusual. Demons were traditionalists, their queens usually cloistered and corseted. Honour before reasson. It was a path which, for all her insistence on adhering to it, didn't suit Midona.

Anna moved aside as Terry all but snarled at Gabriel and stepped forward, sheilding Blake behind him.

"Regardless of whether or not the fate of Blake's parents had anything to do with you, his past treatment here did!" His eyes flashed dangerously. "You hurt him. You let him be hurt!" he spat, towering over Gabriel.

"I am head of this court." Gabriel's words were careful, measured. He might rule part of the world of temptation, sin, and impulses, but that did not mean he could not be practical. He had dealt with Terry before.

The kind looked from Terry to Midona, who held aa blade in one hand and a small ball of demonic energy in the other, "I thought you would know by now that flashy displays of power don't intimidate me, gancanagh."

Midona lowered her blade, let the magick seep back into her skin, and looked at Gabriel in a way that was torn between faerie-cunning, incubi-tempting, and mortal-innocence. The halfing tended to go for words over violence if an option was present.

"How does you being king change things?"

"Because I must put what is best for my people first. Regardless if mortals die. Regardless of..." he caught Balke's eye, just for a second, so that if Midona hadn't been watching them she wouldn't have seen, "Personal affection."

Terry was inwardly fuming.

"Personal affection? You do not know the meaning of the word. If you felt any affection towards Blake, you would not have let him suffer!"

"A good regent makes desisions which will benifit their people, not them themselves. I allowed them to hurt to hurt Blake for the same reason I allow all of this-" he gestured to the dead, dying, and insane creatures around them, which included the faerie girl and Deidara- "Because it is what they are. I will not ask them to change their very nature merely for the sake of one person, whatever I may feel towards him. It would appear weak, and weak regents do not last long, my gancanagh friend."

Midona couldn't help but wonder at the meaning behind his emphasis on the word gancanagh. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You forget, you and Blake. Pretend you are not like us."

"We aren't like you." Midona all but growled the words. She was a friend of the wild hunt, and it showed.

"Oh, really? I've seen it, gancanagh. The mortals you leave addicted and sickened on your touch, and pass on for my court's amusement. That girl the other few moons..." Gabriel shook his head sadly, "She was a pretty one. So full of life, as well. It's tragic really. Her name was Tsubaki, was it not?"

Okay, that was a low blow.

"My Ahniha..." Midona whispered.

"Yes. Now, pray tell how that is so different from what I did to Blake?"

"I am a gancanagh." Midona whispered, "I had no choice."

"There are always choices, child."

Midona plunged the dagger Kyra had given her -Elissa's dagger, the one she had once sworn to not use- hilt-deep in Gabriel's chest.

"Why?" Gabriel blinked up at her, looking far more innocent than she knew him to be. It's a ruse, like everything he does. "You could have ruled my court someday, gancanagh..."

"Because I am not your kind, Gabriel. I will follow my own path. I might be known as the halfling queen, but I have no intention of making a habit of ruling courts not-mine." she paused for a fraction, "And because my first loyalty is to the nakama. I consider Blake part of that, even if Kyra did not. I consider Anthony and-" she glared at him pointedly- "Deidara part of it as well, mortal though they may be. And, hells, I probably consider Anna and Terry part of it with all that's happened. They are mine to keep safe. Didn't your momma ever tell you not to damage other people's things?" she looked dispassionatley down at Gabriel's wound and twisted the knife a little more, before retrieving it. "That blade was poison. I have nullified most of the curse with Elissa's death, but residual poison remained. For once, I am glad of her existence." She paused, "Left hand for venom. You will die soon, Gabe."

Blake felt an irrational urge to run to Gabriel's side, to hurt Gabriel himself, to stay, to run. He could do none of those things, so pressed his face to Terry's chest and allowed himself to be held, as though the other male was all that was holding him together. He didn't want to think about how close that was to the truth as the twisted king he had once loved and lived for lay dying.

Midona gave voice to the question none of them wanted to acknowledge, "Now what happens?"