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   'No.  No, its ok.  You can make memories with it as well.'  She smiled,   
   comforted by that.   
      
   'Daniel.'   
   'Yes, Lucy.'   
   'What was your childhood like?  Here in Cooma?'   
   Daniel sighed.  'That was a long time ago, now.  We're old, you know.  Longer   
   lived than most people.'   
   'Like Shelandragh,' said Lucy.  'She claims to be ancient.'   
   'She possibly is,' responded Daniel. 'But at 154 I really am starting to feel   
   it as well.  The length of days.  They say, all the time, genetic wonders   
   about those of us who keep on going.  Hardly aging.  Living so long.  A good 1   
   to 2 percent of the    
   world population, living extremely long lives.  Many say good diets, are good   
   attitudes on life, or lots of other things.  So much speculation on us.'   
   'And I can still have children,' she said, smiling.  'Replenishment.  This is   
   the third time as well.'   
   'But you haven't had any yet,' he commented, looking at her seriously.   
   'Not yet.  Oh, Enrique has often hinted that one day.  One day, when he has   
   ridden his dragon for the final time, we will finally settle down.  But,   
   before, when I passed 45 and the last of my bloodings came and went, he said   
   he would love me forever    
   anyway.  And when it started happening for the second time we got serious for   
   a while.  But it was only a few years and they were gone again.  But now - its   
   been 17, and the doctor says I have about 25 more years worth of them.'   
   'You had it checked?' he asked her.   
   'Yes,' she replied.  'I had to.  This time, I think.  For sure.  I don't want   
   to risk it again.  Even if we don't really appear to be aging much.'   
   'Oh.  I'm getting older,' he responded.  'I feel it.  In the mornings, the   
   creaking bones.  Even if I don't look it.'   
   'That is just life.  We are ready, normally, for the grave at our ages.  Heck,   
   well before our ages I suppose.  Its a strange long life.  So strange.'   
   He nodded, and reached for the wine bottle and poured himself another glass.    
   'Join me?' he asked her.   
   She nodded, and he poured her a glass.   
      
   Lucy stood and put on a Mozart piano concerto CD on the player, and as Elvira   
   Madigan played in the background, the two of them sat there, in silence,   
   reflecting.  On long years, of years of happiness and joy, and a seemingly   
   endless future before them,    
   still full of mystery, still full of wonder, still full of life.   
      
   The following morning Enrique was gone in the car, off on some adventure or   
   another, and Daniel sat in the back room, watching the scenery towards Crisp   
   Street, lost in memories.  Cooma was such an entrenched part of his heart.  So   
   much of his life lived    
   her and in this region.   
      
   Lucy Came in again.  Well,' she said.'   
   'Well what?'   
   'Your youth?  Your younger years?  Here in Cooma?  What were they like?'   
   Daniel smiled.  'I was not the holiest boy in youth, you know.  Not exactly.    
   I was Catholic, like the whole family, but at 16 I ventured into my own faith   
   in nothing really at all.  Just didn't care.  Didn't really believe in God.    
   Didn't really    
   disbelieve.  Just had no time for church.  There were friends back there, and   
   I remember the old pinball arcade, were I played games like Gauntlet 2 and   
   Space Ace and Hyper Olympics and others.  They were good times.  Fun times.    
   Full of life and    
   vitality.  We were bad boys, in a way, but never mean boys.  Pinching things   
   from shops, and playing cricket.  We even won an indoor cricket b grade   
   competition in my final year in Cooma before the family moved to Canberra.  I   
   got a trophy, but that is    
   long gone.'   
   'Were there any.  You know.  Girlfriends.'   
   He looked up at her.  'Oh.  Yes, you might want to know about such things.    
   Well, sort of.  Louise.  There was Louise.  But I liked Jenny Cheetham.  The   
   first girl I really loved.  She was English, like me, smart and pretty.  She   
   was a pentecostal, and I    
   met her again later on in life.'   
   'You never married,' said Lucy.   
   'No.  Not yet.  Haven't found the right girl yet.  Karaite Noahide faith   
   hasn't done anything, yet.  Apart from me and Aaron.  And you, I guess.  You   
   say that Karaite Noahidism is, in the end, were it is for you.'   
   'Yes.  Yes, I'm a Noahide.  Not the 7 laws.  I agree with you on the problems   
   with the Talmud.  Really, mainly just a Noahide rather than specifically a   
   Karaite one, but, yes, I do honour the scriptures, and I don't follow the 7   
   laws.  Its were I fit in    
   in the end.  But just me.  Just Lucy.  Just Noah's covenant.  Its what makes   
   me me.'   
   'Right,' he said nodding.  'I get that from some people.  Just being   
   themselves.  Just being who you are.  But for me the Tanakh is the main book,   
   as well as the Haven literature.  And while I hated religion once, it is what   
   grabs me.  It is what propels    
   me.  It is the information - the knowledge - which I thrive on.'   
   'Yes.  Yes, that is what you are like,' she said, smiling.   
   'And do you like what you see?' he asked softly.   
   'I wouldn't have you any other way, Daniel Daly.'  And he smiled at that.   
   'And what about your youth, Lucy Potter.'   
   'You know most of it.'   
   'You travelled, though.  Before coming to Chakola.'   
   'That was so long ago.  I can't even remember were, really.'  But that wasn't   
   completely true.  She did remember snippets, but nothing firm.  She was so   
   young.  But there was glimpse from very young, back in  England.  A glimpse.    
   Of' a room, with a    
   photograph on the wall.  A photograph of her father David.  She'd seen others   
   her mother had shown her of him, but David was gone to the family now.  Gone   
   forever.  Lost to the power of Voldemort.  Gone before she had ever really   
   known her father.   
   She thought on her father, and suddenly started sobbing.  'Oh, excuse me,' she   
   said, and sat there, in her house on Mittagong road, sobbing into a hankie,   
   thinking of the father she had never really known, with Daniel sitting   
   opposite her, trying to look    
   comforting, but nothing could comfort a hole in her heart that had never,   
   ever, really been filled.  Nothing.   
      
   After a while she sobered up, stopped crying, and looked at Daniel.  'Sorry.'   
   'What was the problem?'   
   'Daddy,' she said softly.   
   'You never met him.'   
   'No.  That, that, man.  Voldemort.  He took my father.'   
   'And you hate him, right.'   
   She nodded.  Then thought better of it. 'No.  No, I don't really hate   
   Voldemort.  He is just - evil.  It's just the way he is.  The way he chooses   
   to be.  I am not sure if he can really help the way he is.  Now.'   
   'We all make choices, Lucy Potter.  Even Voldemort made choices once, I   
   suppose.  From all that I have heard of him.'   
   'Then your right.  I hate him,' she said bitterly, standing and going into the   
   kitchen.  Daniel followed her in.   
   He looked at her with mercy, and thought on something he felt he wanted to   
   say.  'All the hating in the world won't bring David back.'   
   'No,' she said.  'It might make me feel better,' she said, slicing at a tomato   
   to make a cheese and tomato sandwich.   
   'It probably won't.  Evil takes the life of the possessor in the end.  The   
   scripture teaches us not to bear grudges.  No matter how evil the person has   
   been.  We are certainly sure to administer justice, and taking the life of a   
   wicked man is often    
   condoned by Torah.  And Voldemort is no exception to that.  But, in his   
   eternal destiny, even Voldemort's, there may, at some point, come that   
   silliest of things.  That silliest of things which makes him human in the end,   
   as well.'   
   'And what is that?' she asked defiantly.   
   'Love,' he said simply.   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)