After several tense hours of waiting, Moonstone found himself pacing the small space in his hovel. There was no way he would allow himself to hope about Dmitri coming back to him, but with every round of the room he made, the cold lump in his chest that had started roughly the size of a pea had grown. And with every round, it got colder and heavier…his eyes seemed to have problems focusing, as everything had a tendancy to blur on occasion, particularly when he glanced at the door and no one came.

"Damn you," he whispered, giving the curtained entrance one last glance before settling down in his bed for the night, scrubbing at his stinging eyes. "I believed you…Dmitri, you bastard…"

"And that certainly wasn't very nice to say," a voice purred from beside him among the pillows and cushions. "After all I went through to get here and I even brought you come clothes…"

"Dmitri!" Moonstone gasped, sitting upright with a start. "How did you..? Where did you..?"

"Shhh!" the gypsy laughed quietly, placing a hand over the other boy's mouth. "You don't want to attract a bunch of attention, do you?"

"How in the Four Realms did you get in here?" the slave asked, finally making out the dark form without lighting any of the lanterns. "Are you crazy?"

"There's tunnels everywhere," Dmitri told him, leaning forward slightly. "It didn't take too long to figure all of it out after a while. I got lost for a little while, but there's one that leads right outside only a few feet from here."

Moonstone felt his eyes widen. The thought of freedom having been so close all that time and not knowing about it… He wanted to curse himself for the ignorance, but he knew it wouldn't do any good; he wouldn't have had any of the other necessary parts to have gotten away.

"And you know, I was thinking," Dmitri added, settling into the soft warmth next to the smaller boy. "There isn't anyone around here that looks like you, but I know I've seen people with your coloring before…"

"Where?" the blonde demanded, grasping the muscular shoulders beside him, turning so he was facing Dmitri. There were others that looked like him? He'd always been told that there was no one else like him…that he was different. And now, there was a bit of hope lying in the thought of not only getting out, but possibly finding other people where he could look like everyone else. To be just a plain, ordinary person, and not a slave for men with appetites for small, young-looking boys.

"Up to the North," the sable-eyed boy told him. "There are people that live in the Bitterlands… they have pale skin and hair like you. I don't rightly remember any with your eyes, but that could be something I never noticed in any of them before."

"Like me." Moonstone felt his eyes sting again and there was an ache inside him that felt so different from anything he'd ever experienced before. "I'm not the only one…" There was a mixture of relief and disappointment in those words.

"Oh, I wouldn't say they're exactly like you," Dmitri told him. "But then again, I've never seen any of them angry; maybe that's why you're such a fierce thing…"

"I'm not the…not alone…" the Key choked. His eyes were burning again, and the lump in his chest that had dissolved with Dmitri's unexpected appearance had come back with a vengence, making it hard to breathe. He didn't want to believe what the Gypsy was telling him, but the temptation of the knowledge that he wasn't the freak he had always felt he was…it was all too much for him to handle.

"Hey…" Dmitri started cautiously, reaching out to the other boy. "You…you're…" The slave half-heartedly swatted at his hands for a moment before he managed to get through and gently wiped at the streak of moisture on one pale cheek. If there was anything he'd been expecting, tears certainly weren't it. "Are you feeling okay?" he questioned warily.

After discovering that he was apparently crying, Moonstone thought about his answer before giving it. Taking in a deep breath, he looked at the taller boy and let out a wail. "No I'm not!" he half- snapped, trying to take a swing at Dmitri. "I'm not okay…I'm crying! I just found out that I'm not alone and there's people like me in the world, even though that fucker told me there wasn't all these years! There was an escape so close to me all this time, and I didn't even know! And now I won't ever have to do any of this disgusting shit ever again and I can't stop myself from being…being… *something*!"

Dmitri set his jaw and caught the near-hysterical boy by the wrists and held him fast before any damage could be done. He listened patiently to Moonstone's rant and did the only thing he could think of; the only thing that Martika had done when they told him that his father had gone to join his long-dead mother in the Second Realm, leaving him alone. He folded the lovely, pale creature into his arms and began rocking gently, letting Moonstone struggle slightly before giving in to the tears. Letting the boy cry his heart out, he sat rocking and stroking his hair, murmuring soft words and crooning disjointed tunes, trying to ease the pain and shock.

After several long moments of quiet sobs and hitching shoulders, Moonstone finally calmed enough to shove Dmitri away. The sheer embarassment of doing something so childish, something that was usually left to the women, was unbearable. "Stop touching me," he hissed, squirming in the darker boy's grasp.

Dmitri smirked and refused the order. "No."