Plans for the Future
Well, with my own personal identity crisis settled down, things are looking pretty good around here. Not that there aren't various causes for concern, as well as various good and potentially good things too.
Top of the list is the strange encounter Desdemona, Brooklyn, and I had. Robyn Canmore, Yama from the Ishmuran Clan, Dingo and Matrix, and now quite possibly Fang, judging by how eager they were to get their hands on him. What the heck's going on there? Why on Earth would people with nothing in common other other than having encountered the Clan, be working together? Robyn voluntarily turned herself into the police, after the Hunter's Moon affair. Yama was misguided, but he's no criminal. And Dingo and Matrix were supposed to be bringing law and order to Australia. And Fang? Fang's a pretty thug at the best of times. Something really strange is going on.
Next on the list, we're still having sporadic encounters with the Pack. Who they're working for or what they're up to is a mystery, though several times now it seems as though their intention was to capture a Gargoyle (or, mistakenly, a Gargoyle-like being). What makes it more interesting, however, is the addition of three new members. A new armor-wearing Coyote, a man with a robotic dog called Hound, and a new Fox, a female mutate using fox-dna as the base instead of feline. All of which points to Sevarius, who hasn't been seen since we were able to liberate the egg that hatched into Hope from his clutches. He'd be the only one with a real interest in further experimenting on Gargoyles. And, more importantly, the only one capable of creating more mutates. But Sevarius is rarely the sole party in anything. He's worked for Xanatos and Demona before. Who's he working for now?
Third on the list, we have new enemies in the form of Prospero and Caliban. One's an apparently immortal sorcerer with magic strong enough to turn a stolen moment of someone's life into a flawless individual life, the other's a hulking brute even stronger than Goliath. He knows who we are, knows where we live, and has a serious desire to capture and control both Puck and Alexander. Further, Brooklyn says he encountered Prospero several times during his timedancing days, each time foiling some scheme or another to gain additional power. And yes, this is the Prospero and Caliban we're talking about here. Just like Puck and Oberon and all the rest of the Shakespearian stuff that seems to infect our lives. But we're beaten powerful wizards before, and it takes more than strength to really fight. We'll get past this too.
Haven't heard a peep from Thailog in ages. No telling what he's up to, despite our best efforts. Which means when we least expect it, there'll be trouble.
In slightly more domestic news, Maggie is pregnant. About four months along now. On the one hand, I'm absolutely thrilled for her and Derek. On the other, it's turning into a nightmare on a more personal level. Simply put, the Labyrinth, while they do have a couple doctors there now and reasonable medical facilities, this is the first child to be born of people who've had their dna fundamentally altered. There's no telling what might go wrong, and they're just not set up to deal with that. What I'd really like is for Maggie to come move to the castle for the rest of her pregnancy, but Derek's flat out against it. He's generally peeved enough that I live under the same roof as Xanatos. Understandably so. I mean, the man did some truly terrible things. But I also know that he's changed. Maggie wouldn't be in any danger here, and it's also one of the safest and best equipped places in the world.
In happier news, Hope's started talking. Just Mama and Dada for now, but she's correctly applying those to me and Goliath, so we're on the right track.
This being 1998, all over the world, the Gargoyle population's going to get bigger come spring. Any eggs laid in 1988 will be hatching. We've only got one of our own, Bear's little brother/sister, but it's still an important date time for us Gargs. Especially for the Mayan Clan. They had at least twenty eggs that miraculously survived the rest of the Clan's destruction, though there's only four remaining adults in that Clan to raise them.
Which dovetails nicely with my next point, namely that Goliath and I have given serious though to trying to bring the Clans of the world together for some kind of summit, forging more than informal connections. We've got irregular e-mail contact with the Labyrinth, London, and Ishmuran Clans, but the Mayan, Avalon, and New Olympian Clans would be significantly harder to get in touch with. And, based on what we've pieced together from Brooklyn's time traveling and old stories of Hudson's, there may still be a Clan at Loch Ness, and Clans in Pukhan, Korea and Xanadu, China. So no matter what, it'll be a big investment in time and effort. But the more thought we give it, the more likely it seems that if we're going to have any chance as a species, all of us are going to need to pull together.
Rating on the Gargoyles: Live TV show are actually pretty decent. Whether or not people are just turning in for the novelty or are actually getting the message that we're just like them, for the most part, I don't know. And that's not even factoring in the people watching for ammunition to use against us.
So that's what's going on with us right now.