Una’s reply followed her. ”You and I both know it was never that simple.” Left unsaid was what Demona suspected Una wanted to say: ’You could have fought harder for her.’

”As a matter of fact…” Demona let her mind wonder down the path Una had laid out for her. ”In the end Una, I think everything turns out to be just that simple… Yes or no, do or don’t… We fool ourselves into thinking it can be any other way, but our delusions never change our circumstances, do they?”

”…Perhaps they don’t.” Una seemed to concede the point. ”Do you know the simple truth in this though, or are you clinging to an illusion?” She challenged.

”…She will feel betrayed.” Demona finally conceded. She could understand that. Even sympathize. But, as she’d said, in the end, it didn’t change anything. She did not feel towards Obsidiana as she felt towards Elisa. By all rights, she should, but she simply didn’t. And her clan-mate had surely sensed it, had probably chosen to end things with them because she’d sensed it. Obsidiana had a child with Griff now, but they had never been a couple (in fact, Griff was Apollo’s mate), they’d only joined sexually to produce offspring. In the human world, that would perhaps be considered outside the norm (though less so in recent years, in parts of the world at least). Among her kind however, the norm was more the reverse. Choosing a mate of the same gender was more the common thing – where Una and Leo, she and Goliath, both instances were more the exceptions than the rules. Though, unlike in human societies, there were no social taboos against breaking with the average. In fact, Demona considered, perhaps, looking at it from a distance, someone might think that she had that as her type – Someone unique, someone unexpected. No one, not even she herself, had expected her and Goliath to fall in love either, after all. Actually, that wasn’t the only way Elisa reminded her of Goliath, come to think of it. It was more introspection than she wanted to indulge in right then however, to try to discern if there was any truth to that beyond coincidence.

Una came up behind her and held her from behind around her waist. She didn’t say anything, which Demona was grateful for. She simply stood there with her, taking in the view by her side. At last, Demona closed her eyes and found herself wondering… what would have happened if it had been Una and not Obsidiana who had been unattached in her new clan? Could she have fallen in love with her as she had seemingly been unable to do with Obsidiana? Or would her heart have been just as obstinate then as well? The truth was… when she and Obsidiana had been together, it had been increasingly frustrating for Demona, because Obsidiana was, by any measure her mind could formulate, a perfect prospect as a mate – Strong, beautiful, noble, good, easy to like and easy to be with, a beautiful lover. They’d rarely argued, and Obsidiana had even embraced her views, encouraged her in her ambitions against the humans. By every right, they should have been the perfect couple. Yet they had not been. When Obsidiana had looked at her, Demona could tell the other woman had true feelings for her. Perhaps Obsidiana had even fallen in love with her. Yet she herself had held back, had been unable to return those feelings like a mate should be able to. It still confounded her every time she thought about it, and she still had no good answer to tell herself, or Obsidiana for her that mater, as to why it had not worked with them. She’d thought at one point that perhaps she was only truly attracted to males, despite how little sense that made to her, but now she knew that obviously wasn’t the case at all… which was comforting in one way, but it still left her with precious few answers where her own heart was concerned… For someone as long lived as she, she often thought… she really should know herself better than she did.