"You have the worst sense of timing, do you know that?" asked Mother Harlot as the spider would greet the fly.

With a double tap of his cane against the damp cave floor, its echoes ringing out in the cavernous tunnel, the tall Dandy Man, all dressed in white, his shadow long and drawn to meet with the caves' shade, shielding Mother Harlot from the rays of sunlight replied, "Time is irrelevant, you know that."

There was a moment of silence in which not even the wind dared interrupt their exchange of breath. From deep within the cave where light could not penetrate, a droplet of water fell from a stalactite onto a forming stalagmite with the sound of an ocean falling from the sky. Mother Harlot sighed, curling up into a tighter ball upon the floor. "Is it really time once again?"

"Yes, of course," the Dandy Man said, tapping his cane twice again as if impatient – as if that were something he could be. "You will play your part as you are given it, as I will play mine. That's how it is, and how it always shall be."

The Dandy Man turned his back and stepped as if to exit the cave, three legs – two natural and one artificial – thundering nosily against the cave walls. Mother Harlot stirred from her spot on the floor as the Tall Man's shadow drew away from her, her malformed body pushing itself up into something of a sitting position, her gaze turned towards the mouth of the cave where the high sun's light bled in from the world outside, blinding to behold. "Suppose I were to end our part here and now, for such insolence? Would you and your master still have a part to play for me?" she inquired testily, thoughts of tossing the Dandy Man's body from atop her mountainous domain down into the valley below filling her mind momentarily.

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The Dandy Man stopped and paused, turning his head towards her without turning around or even fully looking back at her. "Yes, he would, as would I," he informed her, reaching into his inner breast pocket and pulling out an old pocket watch, flicking it open and glancing at the hands on its face, immobile and urgent. "I must be off. Things are about to begin again."

"Fine, go! Leave me here to fulfill my function!" Mother Harlot huffed, her blue eyes flashing in the darkness. She sighed a heavy sigh and her tone shifted, as if somehow phased by the wind. She laid back down on her side on the cool floor and another ocean fell from someone far beyond the reach of the sun. "You know Dandy Man, I don't believe that you've ever had the pleasure of sampling me... why don't you stay a while? If things are as inevitable as you say, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt for you to warm my bones at least once. I know I could give your bones a warmth they've never known. You do, too..."

The Dandy Man closed his pocket watch and replaced it in his pocket, heading out of the cave. "Someday, perhaps, when I am feeling up to being a better host," he said to her and then he was gone.