‹ Previous | Next ›
Anastasia sat by the window in Azurov's study, gazing at the bricks blocking it up.
"Nothing to see here," she muttered to herself.
He had told her that, sometimes, he could put a glamour on the window to make it appear like any scene she wanted. She turned him down, not wanting to trick her brain into thinking her reality was anything but what it was. Sometimes, though...
Anyway. The book, Basics Of Time Travel, was still in her lap.
By now, she had learned that she had come here — to 1937, 43 years before the year she had left from — through a timeslip, a storm in time, like quicksand, where sometimes things just slip.
She had also learned that, sometimes, these things are meant to happen, and that it was why she wasn’t surprised when it had. She didn't know it was going to happen, she hadn't any way of knowing it was going to happen. But she wasn’t surprised that it had happened.
And she learned a little more about her supposed destiny. But she wasn’t ready to acknowledge the biggest details yet, or that it would take her 43 years to see her father again, unless she found some other method of travelling back there.
There was always more angles of this to think about, and it seemed like that was all she was doing since she had arrived here.
But if she was going to be up to the task ahead, she might as well get it right. As much as possible, anyway. So, think it over.
Over dinner one night, Anastasia asked the wizard, "How did you know I was going to be here?"
He paused for a while, calculating an answer. Then, "Some things are meant to be. Some things you can't expect. Others happen as they always should. You were simply a product of your own inevitability."
"So...you're psychic?"
He scowled at her. "I have ways of detecting upcoming events, yes. Or at least, predicting them."
"So, you read it in your cards?"
"There was...there were signs," he said, finding it difficult to find the right words. "I had dreams of these events. The idea of you came to me in them. I connected with versions of myself that are still yet to be, and I learned of what is to come."
"Weird," Anastasia said, taking bites of her food.
"You'll get used to it," Azurov said. Then, before she could realize what he meant, he moved on and asked, "Have your studies been going well, at least?"
"No," she said. "I understand it. But it's a lot to take in."
Azurov inclined his head.
"I always knew no one knew who the Everlasting Girl was," Anastasia said. "But...to think that it's supposed to be me..."
"And it is, and it shall be," Azurov replied. "The time is nearly at hand. If you wish for it."
"Well, what else can I do? You can't fight the passage of time."
"Some have tried, and some always will. But for us, that bears little relevance."
"Right," she said. "You're one too."
"An Eternitarian," he said. "Yes. Not quite in the same line as you. But we share blood, however distant. The same temporal genetics that crafted my everlasting youth has crafted yours in turn."
"Will it give me the same beard too?" she asked.
"No," Azurov said. "But it will keep you alive, and undamaged, and free from the risk of getting hurt."
"That's fine too," she said, suddenly losing her appetite for her food.
"So, will you accept?" Azurov prompted, glacing with a frown at her idling fork.
"We'll see," she replied. "Wouldn't want to put the timeline in danger."
"Yes," Azurov said, still frowning.
The rest of their meal was silent.
She learned quickly that his bunker was underground.
It had been built into the hills of Idyll Island, so he was never far from the city itself, but it was isolated from the island's terrain as well. He had placed it into some form of pocket realm, something he shouldn't have been able to do yet, and created a personal, protected sanctum from it.
No warlocks or dark monsters would be getting in here, if he had anything to say about it.
But there wasn't much for the immortal ex-film star to do there either.
Other than train herself, and look forward to her new life, of course.
That all took place in an empty storage room that had become her gym; the Everlasting Girl was, according to the history Anastasia had grown up with, a contortionist, an athlete, someone who could fold herself like an accordion and still outrun a cheetah if she needed to. (Cheetahs didn't exist in Inglenook, everyone knew that, but it was worthwhile being prepared anyway.)
So, that all meant that Anastasia had to be too. And the hour of Anastasia's arrival on the scene as the Everlasting Girl was soon at hand, as it was always meant to be, so there were a lot of people counting on her to accept this life, even if she didn't know them or who they were or what they needed from her or liked about her.
That said, it would've been nice to get out away from the bunker once in a while. She was in a completely different year, one she'd never have imagined herself living in! And every day she was here was another missing out.
All she had to do was find the right way out.
She never really found one, unfortunately. Azurov's realmic warding spells had done a good job of sealing the realm away, and whatever magic or technology he used to teleport himself around everywhere wasn’t something Anastasia was familiar with.
Soon, she thought, as the clock dragged by with each passing day. Soon, I'll meet the Strongman. Soon, I'll be on my way.
‹ Previous | Next ›