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Sebastian was inspecting the necklaces, since they didn't have cuff links. He liked the sparkly ones best, and thought there were several that would look nice and delicate on Kaitlyn for tonight's event, but he couldn't really choose one, he decided, until he knew what her dress would look like. It couldn't be too long or too short.

The unicorn man could feel the angry eyes boring into him, even from across the store. He looked up and saw that it was time for Kaitlyn to try things on, and thus, time for him to go give his expert opinion on which dress he liked best so that the women could decide they hated it and choose a different one. This had been the female tradition for centuries.

He didn't think he needed to be glared at quite so ferociously, though, for such a small thing as not paying attention.

The immortal made his way back and sat in the obligatory male observer's chair, usually reserved for fathers and boyfriends and whomever else girls dragged along when they wanted someone to see all the dresses they were trying on.

The first dress was very nice. It was shiny and red, had an interesting shape, and was not too terribly risque for a preteen. The unicorn nodded appreciatively.

“I like that one. The sleeves are nice.”

Then because he didn't want her to think he liked it too much, in case this was the one that she actually wanted to get he added, “The neckline is a little low though, don't you think?”

Marilys' glare told him not to mention her neckline again. He shrugged as if to show that he merely didn't want any undesirable people to be taking advantage of the young lady while she was in his care (or when she wasn't, for that matter). Any father, uncle, or older brother would do the same.

“The procedure went well? I understand. Thank you Dr. Shaw.”

Sebastian hung up the phone and glared at his calendar. Time was turning too quickly. These deadline things kind of sucked, actually. All his plans... were working, but they were taking far longer than he had thought they would.

All he'd been hearing lately was, “Be patient,” “I have to think about it,” and “We have to special order this piece of equipment”.

He only had a little time left before he had to meet Lori's deadline. She had been keeping up her end of the bargain, so he had to keep up his as well: unite the world against a common enemy. Yet, he wanted his church to be able to stand on its own before that. That meant it needed people capable of leading it without him. That meant he had to convince people quickly.

'Quickly' wasn't working for him.

Everything seemed to be on hold.

Sebastian sighed and closed the calendar, tossing it into the center of his desk, amidst the new advertisement designs he was supposed to sign off on. Maybe if he went on a walk he could clear his mind a little. He stood, strapped his swords onto his back, and headed for the door of his office.

Sebastian sat in front of his congregation, watching as they trickled in for the service. They greeted each other and took their seats, but their greetings seemed automatic. Their smiles seemed empty.

It had been a particularly bad week at the end of a bad month in the middle of a bad year. Just last night there had been a fire that had destroyed a warehouse full of grain stores. Someone had tried to raid it, and in their haste to escape and through their selfishness, that person or persons had set the building on fire rather than get caught and punished for their crime. There had been deaths this week, too. Two of the elders in the community had succumbed to heatstroke before Sebastian could get to them. A woman had died in childbirth. The baby had been given milk from another mother in the congregation, but wasn't doing well. There had been a water contamination scare.

The people were growing weary. They were losing hope. They looked ... hollow.

They needed something to fill them up, something to believe in. They needed something or someone to give them hope.

Sebastian stood, then lifted his arms and his voice to his congregation.



“Remember how we got here!”

As if anyone could forget those days. The explosion had been bad enough, killing several who were close to him, those that weren't immortal. Then after, the city torn apart in fire bombings, then in riots. The city, and the whole world, was consumed with fire. Everyone lost homes and loved ones. Everyone had been affected.

“The countries of the world, hungry for power, greedy for more land, more money, more influence, more... more... more! Those countries formed alliances with each other and against each other. They drew so lines on the ground with enemies on one side and allies on the other. They made borders here, fences there, and walls to divide them. They put these lines on their maps and divided the world. Eventually no one could tell who was a friend and who was a foe.

“Then, there was one accident, one misunderstanding, and it became an excuse to go to war. Their hate, OUR hate, tore this world apart.”



“Now that our world is destroyed and our homes and families are in pieces, we feel lost. We feel alone. But we are not alone.”

“Bombs destroyed our cities, our states, and our countries, but they also destroyed the barriers between people. They erased the lines on the map. They tore down the walls that we had built up, the walls that separated 'us' from 'them'.

“No more are there Americans, Canadians, or Mexicans. French, German, Russian, or Pakistani. Nationality is no more! No more is there black, white, red, yellow, brown... or even blue or green,” That got a few chuckles from the crowd, they seemed to be livening up a little now. Sebastian smiled at the young man in the third row that actually had green skin, then continued.

“Race is no more! No more is there mutant and non-mutant. Differences are no more! We are all humans, part of one single human race. “There is no more reason to hate each other! We are all of us brothers and sisters.”



Sebastian's eyes swept the crowd. Up in the balcony he thought he saw a small figure cloaked in a veil, with just a bit of red hair showing. Recognizing her, Sebastian spoke in her direction for a moment, knowing she would understand this part of the message.

“Since the fires that tore this world apart, we have formed our own little groups. We've made new 'families' to help us survive.”

Murmurs throughout the congregation showed that they all knew who he was talking about. Amazons. Ferals. Townies. Raiders. Fighters. Farmers. All of them were at each other's throats.

“Perhaps each group can look out for its own members. Perhaps they will even survive, bound together like this, but if all these groups feed off of each other, we will eventually destroy each other.

“Will we again let ourselves draw lines and build walls between 'us' and 'them'? Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?”



“Our world was destroyed once by hate. Let us not let it be destroyed again.

“The world as we knew it has ended. Now it is something new, a blank canvas, washed clean and white, ready to be filled with color. Will we paint it with the same dark colors it was filled with before? Will we paint it red with blood once again?

“The world is waiting for our decision.”



“We must unite all the survivors of that horrible apocalypse, or we will not survive. Unity will save us.

“One people, one race. Unity will save us!

“We must work together. We must pass on this message. They must hear this word: Unity will save us!”

The congregation took up the chant, “Unity will save us! Unity will save us! Unity will save us!”



Sebastian raised one hand to silence the crowd.

“The world has been destroyed, but we can work together. We will bring unity to our people. We will begin again. We will rebuild this into a new world. A world without hate! A world without divisions! A world worth living in, for us, and for our children!”

The immortal stepped down from the pulpit and let the music director step in. The crowd sang until the end of the service, then filed out, their faces once more filled with hope for the future.

Once the crowd had left, Sebastian turned toward the back of the sanctuary. He used the rickety old stairs that led up to the organ master's seat. Not that they had anyone who knew how to play anymore. Perhaps no one in the whole world knew how to play anymore.

He twined his way through the brass pipes, lined up like soldiers ranging in size from child's toy to wider than Sebastian himself. Behind them was a door, then a ladder that led to the top of the belfry. The antediluvian perched himself in the opening at the top, through which the tolling bells called his believers to the church to hear his inspirational words each week.

He peered out at what was left of the world. The heart of the city was green, a park that had been designed to give the residents pleasure and exercise now sustained them and gave them life. Broken sky scrapers rose around the park like a shattered rib cage, providing little in the way of protection. Beyond that was wall to keep out raiders, and as far out as he could see was desert and wasteland.

It was a sad little place, with the constant reminder of what had happened, but Sebastian needed to be here. He needed to think and to be alone. He needed to take off the mask, to not be god for a few minutes. He needed to face his own secrets and doubts.

He never let even the closest of his followers in on the secret, on the fact that he wasn't sure if this idea would work. Unity for the whole world. He had laughed at the idea once, and now it had become his mantra. He felt guilty that he didn't even believe in his own words.

The reason he kept going, the reason he kept up this whole charade, was that these people needed hope. They needed it more than they needed bread and water. They needed to think that they could make the world a better place, that they could have children and that their children would have a better life than they did. If they didn't believe it, the human race would die out.

And so each week Sebastian took dreams and fantasies and spun them into words. He braided the words together into threads the people could follow towards ideas and actions. He twisted the threads together into speeches of hope and threw it to the congregation like it was a lifeline. So far, they kept holding on. So far they had stayed alive. Most of them, anyway.

He could only hope that the lies that held his rope together didn't unravel the whole thing.

Sebastian had caused this mess and now he had to fix it. He had to save humanity or he would have the rest of eternity to watch the world die away. He would have the rest of eternity to live alone atop the world's corpse as it rotted into nothingness.

This Eros person... owned the place where she lived? The only person who cared if she came or went was her landlord? It made sense now, why she spent so much time at the church, if she didn't really have a family to spend time with. Sebastian could sympathize. The church was his family, or as close to one as he had ever had.

After settling himself in the driver's seat and arranging his tail and seat belt comfortably the immortal asked, “Do you have a phone, or would you like to borrow mine?” He stuck it in the cup holder between them, in case she needed it, then put the key into the ignition.

Before turning the key Sebastian inhaled deeply, smelling the new car smell and getting mentally ready to run the most high tech machine he had even run before in his life. Granted, this wasn't the first time he had driven it. It was more like... the fifth or sixth. He normally would just walk or take the bus, but it was too far for the former and Calley insisted that he not do the latter any more. Therefore, he must take the Mustang.

While she made her phone call, the immortal did a quick mental rundown of all the necessary controls. Clutch, brake, and accelerator were all where they ought to be. As were the wheel, the mirrors, and the stick. The lights were tricky; they had their own little dial off to the side of the steering wheel. The wipers, in case it rained, were on a twist knob on the turn signal. Sebastian only knew that because he had read through the entire owner's manual under an overpass in the middle of a downpour.

The rest was just fancy dials, switches, knobs, lights, bells, whistles, and buttons he didn't press. “Info”, “Setup”, and “Reset”, for example, seemed to have no practical purpose. Nor did any of the buttons on the steering wheel, such as “- Vol +”,“+Set”, and “-Set”. He had tried them while the car was parked, and they didn't do anything. Not even the “OFF / ON” one, which probably should have been an emergency engine stopper, or something of the like. Not that a car really needed that. It wasn't the kind of thing that had been necessary fifty years ago, when Sebastian had learned to drive, and it wasn't probably necessary now either.

Sebastian still remembered where all the actually useful and necessary controls were. That was the important thing.

“Ready?”

The pale immortal turned the key in the ignition and pulled out into the road. It was a weekend, and traffic was relatively light for the time of day.

“I've heard a lot about you,” he started, thinking of the reports he'd heard about her involvement at the church, including her somewhat traumatic rescue of the youth group, “but I still feel as though I don't know much about you. Would you tell me more about yourself?”

They pulled up to a stoplight. The store that was their destination was just a few blocks away.

“Very well,” Sebastian offered her his arm so he could lead the way down to the car, “We will need to pick up something formal for you to wear on the way. We should have just enough time to stop at one store.”

He had one in mind, too. Whilst walking around the city, as he was often wont to do, he had recently spied a rather exquisite display of dresses at a shop not too far away. If his memory was correct, the shop had been called something along the lines of “Puttin' On the Ritz” whatever that meant. The dresses had been so sparkly he could have sworn someone had gathered whole constellations worth of stars and sewn them one at a time into the fabric.

Sebastian led the way out to where he had parked his car, the white Mustang with the three colored stripes down the middle: red, black, and pale green. It was fancier than he had ever used before, with lots of buttons he had yet to try. Maybe Kaitlyn could show him if there was a radio built into the control panel.

As a gentleman ought to, he opened the car door for her and waited fer her to sit in the passenger side. Before he closed the door he thought he had better ask a question.

“Is there anyone you need to inform of your whereabouts so they know you are safe with me for the evening? I'm not sure how long this event is supposed to last, but it may be a late night.”

The Church of Everlasting Life was gaining a life of its very own. At this point, there were so many eager volunteers that Sebastian didn't even have to help plan things any more. He even had someone to be in charge of the calendar of events and keeping it up to date on the bulletin board and the church's website.

Yes. They even had a website now. He hadn't made it. He hadn't even had a say in what it looked like, or rather, he had been at the meeting where they had signed off on it's final version, but some young graphics designer had given him an evil eye when he had made a suggestion about colors. Apparently his tastes were a little outdated.

He was truly a figurehead now. Just someone who signed papers and looked pretty. His list of duties included things like showing up at the biggest of events. For example, today there was a charity benefit auction for societies biggest spenders. Those that wanted the chance to eat dinner with a man who called himself a god paid exorbitant fees just for a place at the table, and they would have even larger purses to purchase the items at the auction; various artworks, antiques, and items of curio, all donated by the wealthier members of the church or their associates. The proceeds would be split into the refurnishing of the youth wing and given to charities to help cure cancer, the one thing Sebastian couldn't cure himself.

All Sebastian had had to do we pick up the tuxedo someone had had tailored for him. This was the first time in at least a century when someone else had done Sebastian's tailoring for him.

He checked his pocket watch. He'd have just enough time to do his errands and get to the gala event on time. Punctuality is next to godliness, or so it was said.

He was putting on his shoes when a knock at the door startled him into stumbling. He righted himself, slipped his shoe the rest of the way onto his foot, then opened the door. He was again startled at the sight before him. It was the little red head girl that was the talk of the church for all her devotion.

“Kaitlyn, right? How can I help you, my child?”

Her words were halting, as if they were difficult to speak. And indeed, she spoke of difficult things: being attacked in her former home, an assault on her dear friend, and the continued threat against her life by her parents' followers. It was no wonder she sounded troubled, and no wonder she had finally come to seek him out. When he had concocted his plan of introducing her, he hadn't realized that she would get attacked yet again, and that it would be the turning point that caused her to make her decision. He was sorry it had happened, yet still glad that it had come to this.

Sebastian made his smile a gently reassuring one; it seemed to be the type that came most easily to his lips. Then he set his sword down next to it's mate on the pew and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Before you make your choice, let me fully explain the offer. We have all the time in the world; there is no need to be hasty. I want to make sure you understand everything before you accept. Please, allow me to offer you a seat so we can discuss this.”

The unicorn steered her toward a section of the pew unobstructed by coat and swords, just a few steps away from where they stood.

Once they were both seated, he cleared his throat and began his explanation of his offer in his usual calming tones.

“First, in order for you to fully understand, I need to explain something about myself.” Sebastian's clear blue eyes searched Agnes', watching carefully for her reaction to the words that followed.

“I have a very powerful gift. You've seen part of it in action, but the entirety. The blood flowing through my veins allows me to heal myself and others, but it also keeps me alive, indefinitely. I am immortal and can not die.”

“Recently, I have discovered that with the wonders of modern medical treatments, I can share this gift with others. I can give you my blood, and with it, you too would be able to heal yourself. You too would be immortal.”

Sebastian reached across the space between them to put both his hands over hers.

“It is a gift I would be willing to share with you, but you must understand that this gift can be both a blessing and a curse. You will be a goddess, both blessed and burdened. Do you still wish to accept?”