holding the ring toward the bearded man.
He heard, and came to the litter quickly enough. Elena saw something move in his beard - lice, perhaps - and she forced herself to stare at the ring as she said, "Take it. Quickly, please."
The old man stared at the ring as if it were a banquet. "I don't have change," he moaned, bringing up his hand and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He seemed about to drop to the ground unconscious. "I don't have change!"
"I don't want change!" Elena said through the huge swelling that had formed in her throat. "Take the ring. Hurry or I'll drop it."
He snatched it from her fingers as the litter bearers started forward again. "May the Guardians bless you, lady," he said, trying to keep up with the litter bearer's trot. "Hear me who may! May They bless you!"
"You really shouldn't," Damon said to Elena when the voice had died away behind them. "He's not going to get a meal with that, you know."
"He was hungry," Elena said softly. She couldn't explain that he reminded her of Stefan, not just now. "It was my ring," she added defensively. "I suppose you're going to say he'll spend it on alcohol or drugs."
"No, but he won't get a meal with it, either. He'll get a banquet."
"Well, so much the - "
"In his imagination. He'll get a dusty orb with some old vampire's memory of a Roman feast, or someone from the city's memory of a modern one. Then he'll play it over and over as he slowly starves to death."
Elena was appalled. "Damon! Quick! I have to go back and find him - "
"You can't, I'm afraid." Lazily, Damon held up a hand. He had a firm grip on her rope. "Besides, he's long gone."
"How can he do that? How could anyone do that?"
"How can a lung cancer patient refuse to quit smoking? But I agree that those orbs can be the most addictive substances of all. Blame the kitsune for bringing their star balls here and making them the most popular form of obsession."
"Star balls? Hoshi no tama?" Elena gasped.
Damon stared at her, looking equally surprised. "You know about them?"
"All I know is what Meredith researched. She said that kitsune were often portrayed with either keys" - she raised her eyebrows at him - "or with star balls. And that myths say they can put some or all of their power in the ball, so that if you find it, you can control the kitsune. She and Bonnie want to find Misao's or Shinichi's star balls and have control over them."
"Be still, my unbeating heart," Damon said dramatically, but the next second he was all business. "Remember what that old guy said? A summer's day for a meal? He was talking about this." Damon picked up the little marble that the old man had dropped on the litter and held it to Elena's temple.
The world disappeared.
Damon was gone. The sights and sounds - yes, and the smells - of the bazaar were gone. She was sitting on green grass which rippled in a slight breeze and she was looking at a weeping willow that bent down to a stream that was copper and deep, deep green at once. There was some sweet scent in the air - honeysuckle, freesia? Something delicious that stirred Elena as she leaned back to gaze at picture-perfect white clouds rolling in a cerulean sky.
She felt - she didn't know how to say it. She felt young, but somewhere in her mind she knew that she was actually younger than this alien personality that had taken hold of her. Still, she felt excited that it was springtime and every golden-green leaf, every springy little reed, every weightless white cloud seemed to be rejoicing with her.
Then suddenly her heart was pounding. She had just caught the sound of a footfall behind her. In one, springing joyous moment she was on her feet, arms held out in the extremity of her love, the wild devotion she felt for this...
...this young girl? Something inside the sphere user's brain seemed to fall back in bewilderment. Most of it, though, was taken up with cataloguing the perfections of the girl who had crept up so lightly in the waving grass: the clustering dark curls at her neck, the flashing green eyes below arching brows, the smooth glowing skin of her cheeks as she laughed with her lover, pretending to run away on feet as light as any