The Bear and Barnacle

"My sister called me that. A monster." Cesare tiredly rubs his face with a cashmere sleeve. "Prego. I mean, seriously. Do I look like one?"

Shaking his head, he mutters under his breath, "When it was all for the best, really. But I, her own brother who loved her best. A monster."

The notion is ridiculous.

Xellos stands at the window, staring into the punishing grey skies, beating the pavement down and whipping the earth into submission, the drumroll of water elbowing other thoughts from his mind.

As though in a dream, he walks upstairs to the bedroom, takes off his boots, twitches back the curtains, and steps out into the nook below the roof. Instantly drenched, he turns his face up, hair plastered to his face and nearly black with water. Opening his mouth to drink down the heavens, he breathes in great gulps of fizzling, tangy ozone, guzzling down the air until he's lightheaded and it hums in his blood.

He climbs up onto the railing. Stands there a minute, arms spread wide. Then, in a whirling, gold-speckled explosion of purple-grey, he jumps.

When life gives you thunder, make love to the sky.