God, girl, you're gonna make me cry before I have to go to work...and I don't care. *g* This is so good, such lovely work, Xanthe, honestly, the tenderness, the care of it all, it just shines through, as does your love for these men. If I didn't love them already, reading this would make me love them, it's that simple. This story is vivid and yet it's drawn in such faded colors, it makes the inherent brutality just distant enough, just soft enough to let your mind remember that it's the past, and that the future has hope.

Wonderful, incredible, as always! And now I'm late!!!! *g*