The soft tinkling of the teaspoon somehow matched the sway of the waves as the sea broke on the shore.
She was sitting by the coast, enjoying the soft breeze with a cup of tea that refused to become cold.
The tinkling suddenly stopped when, out of nowhere, in the middle of the empty beach, the seat across from her became occupied.
She looked at the man sitting in front of her. He looked back at her, expectant.
He didn't know what was going through her head, but until he knew, he would be patient. She tilted her head.
The teaspoon resumed its metronomic rhythm.
"Have we met?" she finally said.
His stomach churned at the question, and a cold chill ran down his spine.
This wasn't the first time she had made that inquiry, but it didn't hurt any less each time.
His lips parted, but before he could say anything, something in her eyes shifted.
Suddenly, they became bright with joy.
"Zok!" Her smile stretched. "You are back!"
His heart throbbed, and even though he was happy she had recognized him, the worry didn't leave his eyes.
Zok nodded gently.
"Did you bring me the luminescent shells you promised?"
The memory took a minute or two to reach him, but when it did, he let out a sigh of disappointment.
He had brought the shells for her... back when she was seven years old.
"I forgot about them." He smiled tenderly, his eyes pleading.
She clicked her tongue.
"Zoooook!" Her voice deflated. "This is the fifth time you forget." She pouted.
"I am sorry." Zok grabbed the extra porcelain cup on the table. "I'll remember next time." He sipped his tea.
It was cold.
***
It had been a while... although time was impossible to measure here. The moon, the sun, and even the stars refused to be restrained by the invisible forces of nature. Or perhaps nature was simply different here.
But not too difficult to understand, if given the time. Time that Zok spent calculating carefully until he found the right opportunity.
He stepped onto the golden sand and placed himself exactly where he should stand. He lifted his arm. He wanted to hesitate, to be nervous, maybe, to be wrong, but his pounding heart muted his doubts.
His wrist began to circle gently, and at the third cycle, drops of light began sparkling like fireworks above his head.
He had opened a portal.
And because his mastery of time and space gave him knowledge beyond comprehension, he opened that door in a way that would make the floor beneath Erisa's feet part, causing her to fall through directly into his arms.
The moment she crossed and the portal closed, something tiny but relevant shifted in her, although she couldn't tell right away, as being pulled from her reality distracted her.
She fell into Zok's familiar embrace, and for a fraction of a second, it felt like time stood still. But it didn't.
Zok thought…
He stupidly thought she'd be glad to see him.
"Let go of me!" She wiggled herself free. "What the hell are you doing?!" she demanded. Zok felt a rush of heat rising through him, but before it reached his head, he turned around and walked away from her.
Erisa took off one of her shoes and threw it at him, hitting him in the back and forcing him to stop.
"Where the hell did you bring me?" Her voice broke stronger than the waves against the shore. Zok, as usual, took a second to calculate his answer.
He turned around and looked directly into Erisa's deep eyes.
"This is the Temple of Chaos."
The Temple of Chaos stood just short of Oblivion, where the dark angels carried the souls of the dead.
Erisa straightened up in disbelief. Even though she was herself a Chaos Wizard, she had never been here, wherever here was.
She looked around to orient herself. The golden sun, the soft foam of the ocean, a couple of palm trees that seemed to lean in to hear better, Zok standing tall, and behind him what looked like a building struggling between classical columns and Mannerist architectural details.
She didn't wonder how. Zok had taken the role of guardian of the temple, so the how of her arrival was understandable.
The why, however, wasn't clear to her at all.
"If you don't put me right back in the timeline..." She hesitated. How could she possibly threaten the powerful dragon who wielded Chaos magic? "I'll find a way on my own."
Zok felt anger boiling in his gut.
"Be my guest," he murmured, forcing himself to keep his composure before resuming his pace toward the temple.
Erisa took off her other shoe and threw it at him again, even though this time she couldn't reach him.
"Why do YOU have to be so stubborn?" She raised her voice, waking the palm trees along the shore.
"Fine!" Her voice was losing strength. "Walk away from me like you always do!"
Suddenly, the sand rumbled as one of the palm trees approached.
"Are you the one?" The palm tree inclined itself as if to meet her gaze. "Who's making a ruckus?"
Erisa looked at the palm, annoyed. She let out a tired sigh before walking over to pick up her shoes.
The palm followed her.
"Did you lose your voice?" The palm placed itself between her and the other shoe.
"Ugh." Erisa groaned.
She wasn't particularly fond of spirits, mostly because of the cryptic way they talked. It annoyed her when they acted as if they knew her better than she knew herself.
"Go away." She tried to dismiss it, but the palm tree had nothing else to do.
"No," it said, leaning in to pick up the shoe for her.
She accepted it, but as she extended her hand, a drop of rain gently kissed her forehead.
The palm tree straightened up as if to get a clearer look at the sky.
The stars were twinkling.
"Zok is sad," it said. "It's raining without clouds."
Erisa looked at the tree in disbelief. How could a heartless dragon feel any emotion? She decided she didn't need to hear that and simply sat closer to the tree for shelter.
"Although it's different now," it continued.
Erisa buried her head in her knees.
"Most of the time, he mourns, but this one..." The palm tasted the drops against its leaves. "This one—"
"Shut up," Erisa interrupted. "I know what you are doing, and I will not fall for it, so shut up."
The palm tree shook itself, allowing all the rain it had collected to fall on Erisa.
"What the hell was that for?!" she yelled at the palm, looking up for an answer. "You are right," it said. "He is not sad." It paused to think its words through. "He is heartbroken... He's been heartbroken for a long, long time."
Erisa's gaze dropped. She truly didn't want to think about it.
"Zok has a girlfriend," the palm added.
"A girlfriend?!" Erisa raised her head. Her chest throbbed.
The palm leaned in closer.
"I don't care." She finally let her breath out, burying her head in her knees again.
Of course he moved on. I mean, what did I expect? He didn't even care about our—
"He always longs for the ones he lost." The palm shook the water off, this time without hitting Erisa. "But this one feels different," the palm added.
"This one carries hope."
***
Morning, or its equivalent, flooded the chamber with its warmth, but what truly woke Erisa was the soft knock on the door.
"May I come in?" Zok's voice matched the gentleness of the breeze entering through the window.
Zok knew Erisa's silence too well, so he twisted the knob with surgical precision, avoiding breaking the stillness even when the latch creaked as the door opened.
As soon as there was enough space to allow Zok in, a flying pillow darted toward his face, but his natural reflexes stopped it from hitting him.
Zok lowered the pillow slowly to see Erisa crossing her arms as she lay in the big bed, sliding through the silk sheets as if deflating into thought.
Zok felt relieved that no other item would be thrown at him anytime soon, so he entered the room and walked straight to the small table near the window.
"I brought you food," he said.
"Why am I here?" she asked with a slightly demanding tone.
"You fell asleep outside," he said, placing the food tray on the table, the wind caressing the palm fronds outside. "I didn't want you to—"
"I'm not talking about how I got to this room." She cut him off.
Zok turned toward her, straightening his back.
"You know very well." He hesitated, thinking about how Chaos was more than its erratic face value. It was the consequences of choice—and choice, an honest, true choice, could only be born when no one told you how the story ended. "I can't tell you."
She let out an exhausted sigh.
"Get out," she said without raising her voice, and the calm of it was more terrifying than if she'd screamed.
A cold chill ran down Zok's spine.
He gave a soft nod and, without taking his eyes off her, left, closing the door behind him.
Erisa's hands went to her face, and even though she was trying to keep her heart from breaking, she couldn't help but whisper to herself:
"You could have said that you wanted to see me."
***
Five thousand steps from Zok later—interrupted by sitting down, sighing, and drinking tea—he tried Erisa's door again.
He closed his eyes before turning the knob.
His heart skipped a beat, but on the next beat, he let Chaos open the door to a different room. For in this temple, whatever wasn't meticulously executed would result in miscalculation.
Zok closed the door again.
He rubbed his eyes.
It had been a while since he had felt this anxious.
He had done the math. Not once, not twice.
But when it came to her…
One breath.
Two breaths.
He twisted the knob again.
The bedroom was quieter than he expected.
He entered, his steps muted by the lavish carpet.
When the angle allowed him to see farther into the room, he saw Erisa sitting in one of the chairs in the chamber.
Zok knew better than to force eye contact, so he walked straight to the table by the window. There, the food tray he had brought up earlier remained still.
"Did you have something to eat?" he asked, concern in his voice.
Erisa didn't lift her gaze from the book she was reading—she had found it while snooping around the room.
"Can't you tell I didn't touch it?"
"I can't tell if you have." He lifted the tray and walked toward Erisa. "There's a temporal looping spell on the food."
She finally looked at Zok.
"What do you mean?"
Zok placed the food tray on the coffee table between the chairs in the sitting area of the bedroom and joined her.
"It has a spell that traps the food in its best moment in time." He leaned in to grab a piece of toast slathered in butter and honey. "The food remains fresh and hot."
Another piece of toast appeared on the plate, replacing the one Zok had just taken. "So I can't tell whether you ate or not."
Erisa stared at Zok, tilting her head slightly before noticing the toast in his hand.
"Butter and honey?"
"Your favorite." "My second favorite."
"I had no salami."
"Well." She leaned forward to take a piece of toast. "At least it's not fish."
Zok let out a sigh of relief, barely containing the smile besieging his lips.
"We ate so much fish back then..."
"Sorry about that." Now he let out his full smile.
In a way, he was proud of being a Sea Dragon.
"Still," Erisa continued, "this is our last day together before I go back to the Academy, so if you want to eat fish..."
"Our last day?" His brow furrowed.
"Yeah. Tomorrow I have to go back to the Academy and start my second semester." "What do you mean?"
"I know it's confusing. I don't know why they call it a semester when it's just four months. It's like biweekly... Is it twice a week or every two weeks?"
Zok's face distorted in confusion.
Erisa turned to Zok.
"Relax. I'll be back before you know it." She took another bite of the hot, fresh toast, dropping delicious honey all over her chin.
"Erisa." Zok's voice became stern. "How old are you?"
"What?" She wiped her lips. "Why? Did you forget?"
"Humor me," Zok insisted.
Erisa caught on to Zok's demeanor.
"Sixteen. I'm sixteen."
She even sat straighter in her chair.
Zok jolted up from his seat, cold sweat condensing along his back.
He stretched out his hand.
Erisa identified his distress immediately and, without a second thought, took it.
Zok was so petrified by her answer that he didn't have time to dwell on how much he had yearned for Erisa's touch.
He pulled her in front of the great mirror in the corner of the room.
"Erisa, look at yourself," he said, trying his best to make his tone feel less tense. Erisa complied without question.
She stared at herself for a moment. Her eyes drifted to Zok's reflection for a second before landing back on her own face.
"I don't get it." She kept staring at herself. "What am I supposed to see?"
Zok's heart suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy.
"Erisa..." His lips parted, but before he said anything, his thoughts took over.
He knew that bringing Erisa here, taking her out of her timeline, would, in a way, weaken her connection with the entity that held her hostage, but he had not expected this.
"Erisa," he began. "You are thirty-six." He tried to smile. "We—" He sighed. "We had a—" He licked his lips. "We had a child together, but when he died, you went to get revenge."
"What are you talking about?" She turned to Zok. "You are, like, a million years old. No offense." "Erisa, you've been trapped for centuries and centuries on end."
"If this is your idea of a prank..." Erisa pushed Zok aside and walked toward the window. Suddenly, she realized she didn't recognize the room.
"Wait a minute." She looked around. "This isn't our cabin."
She spun around.
"Where are we?"
Zok tilted his head, his confusion matching hers.
"The Temple of Chaos," he whispered.
***
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