(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

more and no... know..." Ravel paused, her eyes dimming. "No more than I
know the nature of ANY man. Crossed pasts have we... a man tainted with
un-death, still feeling the pangs of separation, and an old withered crone,
now all-imprisoned."
"Crossed Pasts?"
"Seems it that we are a-meeting for the first time? No, no, not, not... knot?"
Ravel seemed confused for a moment, then shuddered, as if throwing off a
weight. "Knot at all. An echo of a future meeting this is... or a past meeting,
depending on which way time is facing."
"So this... this meeting echoes a meeting in the past?"
"The now and then - very... similar? So tangled the now-and-then is, both
mirrored in each other... once and again, you come a-fore me with a
problem, to challenge me for a solution to an IMPOSSIBILITY." Ravel hissed
at me, and her eyes blazed. "Beautiful, ungrateful, beloved man!"
"What was this impossibility I asked you to solve?"
Ravel didn't seem to hear me - she still seemed to be in the past, for her
eyes dimmed, as if looking far away. "Such fire in your eyes, enough to stir a
Gray Lady's heart... passion to be free, but when freed, the fire in your eyes
guttered out. With the separation, your life has shed all meaning, I fear."
Ravel smiled with her yellowed fangs, then clicks them together, as if
laughing. "Mayhap you should sit on your hind legs and limp your forepaws
-- mayhap Ravel will give you a another scrap of knowing."
I looked back to my companions, then to Ravel, and knelt, "If begging will
bring me answers, then I beg you, Ravel: Tell me what you know. I need your
help in remembering what happened."
"Ah... a gentled heart now?" Ravel's black-veined eyes glinted, and the
corner of her mouth twisted upwards, like a snake. "Has life a-softened
you... ah, but one can hope."
"Ravel, I have many questions I wish to ask you..."
"Oh, MORE questions do you have?" Ravel crooned softly, but there was an
edge to it, as if she was reprimanding me. "Tchhh-tcchhh. But you have
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