Chapter 67

She re-entered a few moments later with a towel wrapped around her head and wearing leggings, a warm tunic and just her socks on her feet.

"Boots?" Tristan asked.

"Need to dry out. I can go wear my short ones in the meantime," she shrugged.

"No need, we can talk in here." He sat down on the bed and patted the mattress beside him. She hesitated and glared at him suspiciously for a long moment, looking ready to bolt. "I'm not going to kill you, I just want to talk," he added.

She didn't relax, but sat cautiously on the edge of the bed and looked at him in a very measuring way. "So?" she said, her voice dropping into that soft tone that he was swiftly learning to dread.

"So… I ran into someone while out on patrol," he said, suddenly nervous and wondering if this was the right way to start the conversation. He felt a strong sense of impending doom. Worse still, Kation refused to speak, but waited, looking at him in that too-neutral-and-expectant way of hers. "Someone you know," he added, hoping this would draw her out of that unnerving silence.

Still nothing.

"He… I…" He broke off, frustrated by her highly convincing imitation of a statue that no one would ever want to carve. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

She blinked slowly, but not at all dreamily. "Go on," was all she said, in a gentle way that one might speak to a startled horse.

Tristan suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of apprehension wash over him and fervently hoped she was not armed. But he had started this, and he would finish it, one way or another. "The person who approached me on the patrol was…" how to say this without sounding crazy? If—if—it had all be some sort of waking dream, she would never take him seriously again. Hopefully she knew him better than that. He was not the sort to tell crazy ghost stories. Silently commending his soul to his gods and ancestors, he looked her straight in the eye and said: "… he had… green skin."

The silence was deafening. She did not seem to be looking at him anymore, as her eyes had taken on an eerie sheen. She blinked slowly, absorbing his pathetic attempt to explain, and then slid her gaze to his face. There was banked emotion there, intense and not at all nice. If anything, it was the look of someone halfway to madness.

She believed him, alright.

~oOo~

—Typical—

—Deus ex machina —

—Literally… D.E.M. with no subtlety whatsoever—

—Typical—

—paper-bag-paper-bag-paper-bag-paper-bag-oh-god-hyperventilating—

I was aghast, and it manifested as a sort of thoroughly internalised hysteria.

"Oh…" I gasped softly, clenching my jaw against any chance of howling with not-amusement. This drowning feeling was only going to get worse. Why couldn't I catch a break? Why couldn't I just kill that bastard Prefect, inflict a little recreational torture on the God of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land and go home to my own world? Sure, I'd be a heart-broken wreck full of bitter self-hatred, but at least I'd be in charge of my own life. Things made (marginally more) sense and there was no such thing as 'destiny'.

There had been free will, damn it.

Tristan's fingers were digging into my shoulders, no doubt tight enough to leave marks because it actually hurt. However the pain was actually the catalyst for bringing me out of my fugue. I sucked in several shudderingly deep breaths, blowing them out slower and slower until I felt my heart slow to a vaguely more acceptable rate. Tristan was still looking at me as if he expected the head-twirling, pea-soup-spouting routine to begin at any minute. Squeezing my eyes shut for a long moment, I peeled his hands off me and scooted away until my back was resting against the wall. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I rested my forearms on my knees and tipped my head back with a deep sigh.

"This is a catastrophe. Tell me everything," I said. Otherwise, love or not, I was out of here. I had to be able to trust him with this, or else I would have to face surviving the inevitable heartbreak. At least I'd have my life and enough independence to get over the inevitable pain. I literally gritted my teeth against whatever he was going to say because any—ANY—contact with the God of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land was a disaster and would only lead to further cataclysms.

"He approached me while I was out on patrol. He told me that he was a friend of yours and that he held your fate and life."

"Well, he wasn't wrong," I said bitterly, causing Tristan's head to snap to me like a bird of prey, I swear I heard his neck pop from the effort.

"Either way, I resolved to kill him, and that was when he said he was a god." Though it wasn't technically a question, I heard the inflection that turned his words into an inquiry.

"I don't know what he is, precisely, but I think there's more to it than mere magic," I said darkly. The God of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land could be a highly advanced alien who was obsessed with human culture. It was a shame I couldn't run into one of his cousins on Star Wars' Tatooine and hold them to ransom for my safe return and a promise to leave me the hell alone.

"What else could it be?" Tristan asked, bewildered.

"Science, advanced mathematics, particle physics, Einstein-Rosen bridges… you know, stuff like that," I replied offhandedly, my mind still mostly occupied with a glorious image of the God of CCL's imaginary torture.

"I have no idea what you just said. At all." Tristan said flatly. It was his 'peeved tone'. "So I shall continue with my tale as if I was not interrupted by an impertinent brat."

I grinned, feeling a little better if he was up for name-calling.

"So," he drawled. "He then revealed that he brought you to the woods this autumn from your own world."

That threw me somewhat. I had no idea that the God of CCL would be so candid. He must have a sinister ulterior motive!

"And you believed him?" I tried to inject scorn into my voice.

"Well, since he knew we had sex combined with the fact that he knew you're a woman, I came to the logical conclusion that of all the lies he could concoct, that was the most far-fetched and also the most likely to be true."

I was pleasantly surprised at the roundabout, almost-accurate use of Occam's razor.

This boy has potential.

"Plus, he referred to you by your real name."

That would do it. "And then?"

"He said your world was like this one but… in the future."

I raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"And that he controls your ability to travel between worlds, effectively keeping you in his power. He told me he was considering returning you to your own world."

That… happened sooner than I thought it would. I had predicted years and years of drudgery, mucking out the stables, fletching arrows and reading those awful crop reports. Never forget the horror of the crop reports.

"When I protested this," Tristan soldiered on bravely in the face of my continued blank-faced silence, "he mentioned that you were cursed."

"Hm?" I couldn't quite stop the reflexive noise in my throat.

"And that I was to ask you all about it, at sword-point."

"Indeed?" I made a show of looking around. "I see you left that accessory out of this conversation."

"Only because I still have knives under my pillow," he replied easily, but in all seriousness. "Will I need them?"

"Oh, I love you," I said, and meant it. Only the best possible man for me would still be willing to take up arms against me.

"And I you. But will I need my knives now that we are discussing the curse?"

I actually paused for a moment. "No point," I finally said. This was it. I'd have to tell him everything.

"Meaning?" the dangerous growl was back in his voice.

I didn't want to soften the blow, but thought it would be kind and possibly more acceptable to break it to him gently. I figured demonstrating my affection would help and nervously put my hand out, inviting contact. He twitched, then tentatively covered my hand with his infinitely warmer one. "Okay, can you try to withhold your questions until I've explained?"

He nodded mutely, his callused fingers tightening on mine fractionally.

"Alright. Well, it isn't complicated. I can't die. At least not permanently," I clarified, seeing his incredulous look. "Imagine that I'm killed by a stab wound. While I'm dead, the damage will repair itself and then I will revive, good as new. Not quite like Jesus, but I can only think of him as a vaguely acceptable comparison." I frowned at the thought. "And before you ask, yes, I do have two normal human parents. I am not like Jesus Christ. I also have accelerated healing, which means that if the wound does not kill me, it will be fixed very quickly. For example, if I were to break my leg right now, it would heal in a few hours. If I was to stay here another two or three years, it would reduce to mere minutes. I think it's some sort of cumulative effect. Oh," I exclaimed softly. "That's the other thing… because I can't die, I can't age. As long as you know me, I will always look this good." I felt it was a good thing to end on a happy, almost joking note.

There was a long silence as Tristan digested this. "So… were you killed during the revolt?"

I nodded, unsure what to say.

"How?" his grip on my hand was rather tight now, but still not painful. Maybe my nerve endings fused from this awful situation and nothing hurt anymore.

"A blow to the head while I held the gate with the Batavians and a few of our soldiers. I'm fine now, though." Then I fixed him with a serious look.

"How did this even happen? Why were you chosen to come here and to meet me?" he asked, looking angry. Then a thought seemed to occur to him. "Is this an attempt to get to Arthur?"

"I don't think so, no," I said. "But I'm a free agent—that green-skinned cretin never visits me or tries to influence my decisions. I think he prefers the inevitable chaos and comedy. As for why I was chosen… or why I was sent here… I don't know the reason. Apparently I'm one of the few who can travel safely between worlds."

"Have you ever seen another… world?"

"Yeah…" I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "I went to a really bizarre place. Along with the usual humans, there were talking animals with human personalities and intelligence, and loads of magical nonsense everywhere. It was like something out of myth and I was forced to stay there for almost two hundred years."

"Have I gone mad, or is this some sort of fever dream?" Tristan asked quietly.

"I hoped so too, once upon a time," I mumbled, heaving a sigh and letting the silence settle over us. "But after enough time and nasty experiences, that optimism fizzles out. Only a form of reality not of one's own choosing could be so consistently…" I trailed off and stared at my toes, unable to vocalise the unnameable surge of emotion that coursed through me at the knowledge that I was trapped in a fictional universe. It was a distant cousin of outrage.

"What?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft. He must have caught something in my voice or eyes.

I looked at him sharply, and was surprised by the concern I found there. "Painful." I confessed, feeling sick.

"Is it truly so hard?"

I couldn't tell whether he was angry or simply bewildered. "In some ways, yes. I don't regret meeting you or the others for a single moment. But I do know, very roughly, how the course of history in my own world goes between this century and the one I was born in. And if this world's history is anything like mine, then I have fairly detailed knowledge of events, of technologies, skills, ideas, foods, entire countries and civilisations that have yet either to happen or to be discovered."

That made him pause for a long moment. "How far into your future were you born, from now?"

I thought for a moment, doing a quick calculation of the numbers. "About one thousand and four hundred years from now," I said quietly.

"Hm."

I was instantly suspicious. I knew that tone. And there should have been a bigger reaction to that bombshell.

"What did you do?" I asked. Because no one made that kind of noise with a clean conscience… unless they were nearing an orgasm, I suppose.

He paused, suddenly wary, and my suspicion ratcheted up by about half a kilometre. I gave him a sharp look and he explained hastily.

"I made a deal with him," and he said simply.

My blood crystallised into a billion points of ice all over my body. Suddenly I couldn't breathe. This was worse than all the other awful revelations. My lungs probably collapsed.

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe Darwin was wrong. Maybe the stupid did manage to sneak into the gene pool after all. I wanted a few serious words with the lifeguards and possibly the leisure centre officials. Get to management level and threaten them with some serious lawsuits.

Great, thought rambling again. Fortunately, it had only lasted for two seconds of horror-struck eternity.

Snapping my eyes back to his guarded expression, I felt rage and utter terror. "You… did… what?!" I hissed.

"I made a deal with him to keep you with me," He said it slowly and carefully, clearly worried that I would completely flip out and attack. It was extremely tempting.

"Oh?"

"He said you could stay if I shared your curse."

"Oh."

"So I will probably be leaving this world with you at some point in time." He said, starting to appear anxious.

"Oh."

Was that all I was capable of saying? I had serious issues with the entire situation. I was an emotionally unavailable, prickly, (probably morally stunted) person at the best of times, and had just realised that as much as I loved Tristan—a fictional character—I was still adjusting to the notion of being in a relationship, let alone enacting said love affair in a 5th Century AD failing military outpost.

So being told that he was now effectively immortal and planning to stick around only doubled my apprehension.

I needed some space to attempt to bring down a certain green-skinned bastard to discuss just where he got off ruining my life and sense of reality; although I had no idea what kind of arcane ceremony would be necessary for such a summoning.

I stood up so fast that Tristan actually flinched back. "I need to think about this," I said, staring at the far wall. Then I my gaze slid instinctively to the window and I walked over to it, flung the shutter back and swung myself out. To his credit, Tristan didn't say anything or try to stop me. He knew I would come back.

I didn't even bother to go anywhere, but just sat on the apex of the roof and hugged my knees to my chest while staring out over the late winter landscape.