Title: Paradox
By: Jamie Needham/Zr388
Prompt: Couple on the beach
They sat together, watching the crashing waves, the rising sun. The orange glow illuminated the water before them and for a moment, the man stiffened, broken from his moment of reprise. When the woman turned, she looked aside at him with eyes full of love, but the man began to shake, with a smile, he broke down. It was the most terrifying experience, and yet he could do nothing but reach for her hand as she spoke soft, kind words to him. As the sun fully rose, a beam of light obscured his vision, and like that she was gone.
The man grasped at the sand where she sat with him, the impression from her clothes and shoes still freshly left behind. For the first time, he cried. The sand grew wet beneath his fingers from the tears but as he listened he could swear he heard the sweet voice of the gentle woman left in the wind. As he looked up, he saw nothing but endless sands and glowing waters, but the voice was definitely there.
"Thank you, Cygnus." He never remembered telling her his name, it had been the first time he remembered it himself.
He didn't know how it happened, one moment Cygnus worked, trapped in his study for what felt like years as the books around him piled up, an open journal being the unfortunate resting spot for the scholar, the next he awoke in a dark village unlike his own. The buildings were cracked and smeared with soot, and though they looked like the ones from his own home, they showed less age, more fresh scars embellished in the stone.
He picked himself up from the ground of the dark alley, a pair of bright green eyes visible through the cold cloud of dark from dim lights. Cygnus couldn't help himself from approaching the figure, and in the pale light from lanterns he could swear she was an angel. She spoke to him with a careful tilt of her head and a shy giggle, but he never could understand the words. It sounded like gibberish no matter how he tried to make them out.
"Can you help me? Where am I?"
The woman frowned, pursing her lips and boldly taking his hand, gesturing with a quick tilt of her head that tossed her long brown hair. The gesture said for him to follow but it was his heart that moved his feet. Cygnus, for the first time in a long time felt lost, and even worse he had no idea what he was doing. Following a woman he had just met? How preposterous.
"Zach ne bract yon mai?" She spoke in a soft voice, looking back towards him as she pulled him through the streets. No one but them seemed to be there. Cygnus had to repress a soft shiver as her voice echoed off the cold stone walls.
"I'm sorry, I can't understand you."
"Hacht man Dezza." The woman pointed to her chest quickly then repeated the phrase, looking at him hopefully. "Deh-saa."
Cygnus sighed quietly, pulled from his thoughts of interpretation as he was quickly whisked into another alley, a slim finger pressed to his lips. He knew this gesture, quiet. The woman crouched down, and he followed what she did, watching the streets as men cloaked in black walked-- no, glided down the main pathways. He suddenly understood why she had taken pity on him.
Getting her attention silently with a tap to the shoulder, he gestured to the men, then to a nearby home, placing his hands under his head and closing his eyes as if he were asleep. The woman nodded, confirming his fears. There was a curfew and they were breaking it. He couldn't understand the language here to help himself. For the first time Cygnus would need someone else's help. He could inquire as to what this was when he was safe.
They moved from alley to alley, no one making any move to leave their houses to help, but the woman seemed to know what she was doing very well. She took him to the edge of the town, where they crawled through a crack in the gates to reach the grassy fields beyond. She continued to hush him as he asked more questions. It was so dark beyond the village he couldn't see a foot in front of his face, and so he placed his trust in his unusual savior.
A cold rush of wind touched his cheeks, and he could feel the distinct brush of her long hair against his neck as she stopped, pulling him down to take a seat. Cygnus felt the grains of sand beneath his hands as he sat, the warmth of her body next to his making the cold breeze disappear.
"Hacht man Dezza." She spoke again, gesturing once again to herself.
With a sigh, Cygnus tapped his chest, finally getting what she was meaning. "You are Dezza." He could only hope she understood.
"I am… Dezza?" She spoke again, a look of hope in her eyes. As he nodded she laughed heartily, laying back in the sand and staring up at the sky. "Moch nan dun can ve sar tu mas."
"…What?" was all he could say. She made no gestures, and he had no clue how to even begin deciphering what she had said. He rubbed his forehead, before trying to get some answers. "Those people." He drew in the sand with his finger, a simple stick figure, and attempted to draw their cloaks with them. He continued by drawing a man dying while Dezza leaned over to watch with interest. "Are they bad?"
The woman frowned, making her own drawings. Cygnus couldn't help but notice the swirling patterns she made. She made her own drawings to accompany his, and back and forth they drew together, making a story fit together. From what he learned, he arrived in the middle of a war, their town being overtaken by black cloaked monsters masquerading as men (or men with severely lacking fashion, with Dezza he couldn't tell) while the people were forced to remain indoors or be killed. She made other drawings that he couldn't decipher, one of a woman with wings while Dezza babbled her gobbledygook, and one of another woman with similar features to the men.
As she continued to draw and speak, he counted down what seemed like hours. She finally quieted enough to let him have a chance to speak, draw, and inquire.
"Thank you."
She repeated the phrase with confusion, before he leaned over to hug the strange woman. If she couldn't understand him, then he would just use interaction to make his point. She squeaked and fell back with a laugh, shaking her head.
"Thank you."
It had been weeks since he arrived, Dezza disappearing into the city at odd hours while he stayed behind in their meager shack on the shore. Since that night he'd barely wanted to leave the woman's side, wanting to learn more and needing to understand what she spoke of. It plagued his dreams, taunted him in his waking moments, and all that stood between him and that blasted information was a language. While Dezza disappeared into the city during the night, he studied her books, most of them handwritten, and all of them embellished with swirling text that looked as if it were written by an aristocrat.
Three months he spent like that, reading, studying, and finally he could understand enough to finish one of the texts. It spoke of arcane magics, things that never existed. It also spoke of another thing, a fresh bit of text that outlined the arrival of a herald, one that would continue the story. One that could save them at great cost.
He would be stupid not to know who was spoken of. She put that much faith in him? He hadn't even seen the city since that night. Cygnus tucked the text away, closing his eyes with a sigh as he pinched at the bridge of his nose. One of the few things he had learned was the time period being only twenty years before his own, yet everything seemed hundreds of years older, and still he had no clues on how to return.
Months spread into a year, four full seasons coming and going. Dezza remained talkative as ever, and finally he could understand most of her frantic talking. She spoke of blue skies, peace, and prosperity. It was wonderful to listen to her babble sometimes. They became close, and yet another season passed like a light being turned on and off.
It was a month later that she returned to the shack, shaking. The skies were red and the moon itself bore a foreboding presence. Not even he could stop her as she walked out to the beach, and drew arrays into the sand. Her hands trembled as Cygnus guided her.
That night she had taken her own life, the morning sun breaking the clouds and for once, bathing the world with light. He cried for the first time, as he had never known what was at stake as the woman he had grown to love disappeared in a shower of white light.
Finally he could read the arrays in the sand, make out the words, and know why he was here.
Love, mercy, sacrifice, time, life.
As Cygnus traced the letters, the curly text disappearing from the sand with the swipe of his fingers, he too disappeared, for it was his burden to be buried in the eternal paradox. He was happy as he saw his skin fade to shimmering dust, for he would be reborn, he would relive, and he would experience a year with the woman he had grown to love over and over.
Through the town, the people rejoiced for they were free, and a baby cried at the wooden doors of the academy. Though he would learn languages, texts, arcana, and academia, one day he would also learn mercy and forgiveness for the greater good.
