Our Time Together

The sunrise filtered through the bedroom curtains, casting soft golden glints on the intertwined skin of three bodies exhausted from the previous night.

Lizbeth,in the middle, woke up first, feeling the warmth of Shin's arm around her waist and the light weight of Mimi around her arms. The sheets were a mess, as if they had been fighting against them, but the room was filled with a scent she hadn't experienced in a long time.

Lizbeth felt Mimi's warmth, damp and soft like sand warmed by the sun on a riverbank, and behind her, the firm weight of Shin's arm, still pulsing against her waist as if he were dreaming. The heavy air of the room seemed to cling to her chest, a mixture of breaths but with a sweet exhaustion.

She didn't want to move. She listened to the faint creak of the wood beneath the bed, the sticky brush of a sheet against her leg, the murmur of the wind outside barely nudging the window. The world had narrowed to that disordered bed: three bodies breathing as one single organism, wrapped in a silence so intimate it was almost frightening to break it.

The sun really smells good, she though.

She felt almost back to those days when the two of them had shared that little bed in the RV, or when they had both been with Milena and Sari. So many decades...

For a moment, she simply enjoyed the feeling of security and fullness that enveloped her. Still a little tired, a little nervous about the sudden course of events, but she was happy. But when she felt Shin move behind her, a Mimi streching her legs and tail twiching, she knew that the other two had also awakened. She could not deny that she was also a little concerned about the repercussions of what had happened.

"Awake?" she muttered, turning her head to meet Shin's drowsy gaze.

"Yep... I just woke up," Shin said yawning, and then looked at the clock on the bedside table. "What time is it?"

It was nine in the morning.

"Jeez…" he said, kissing her on the shoulder and looking at Mimi.

Mimi for her part simply hugged Lizbeth, as she snuggled into her chest and seemed to want to sleep some more. She could still feel the warmth of the night before and Mimi's breath on her nipple.

"She's tired," Shin said, as he ran his hand through her black and red hair.

"Is she always so... lively?"

"Yeah, always. Although I don't think I've ever seen her like that with me."

"What do you mean?"

"She was really happy last night."

His tone was calm, but Lizbeth noticed the shadow of something else in his voice.

Shin stood up, kissed her on the forehead, then on the buttock, and stretched and sat down on the edge of the bed. Lizbeth tried to settle down between the sheets, watching him curiously, but with Mimi hugging her and falling back asleep, that didn't happen.

He ran a hand through his messy hair.

"I've been thinking… About Mimi… Us."

Lizbeth arched an eyebrow.

"What about her?"

Shin glanced over his shoulder and saw that Mimi had actually fallen asleep again.

"When I found her on the island, she was living like in the wild. She didn't speak, had no notion of anything beyond her instinct. If she attacked me when I arrived, it was because she had never seen another being like me. But in time she learned. Still I almost felt a little bad when I took her off the island."

Lizbeth listened to him silently, noting the seriousness in his expression.

"I couldn't leave her there." Shin continued, and leaned back on the bed again looking at Mimi as he ran his hand through her hair. "If someone else came along, like I did, what would have happened to her, how would they have treated her?"

There was a moment of silence. Lizbeth understood perfectly what Shin was saying. He had done for Mimi almost the same thing he had done for her years before.

"Yeah, you told me. That's why you took her out of there," Lizbeth said quietly and then shuddered. Was Mimi licking her in her sleep?

Shin nodded. "It's ironic, because she lived without a care in the world there. But if someone came to the island she might have been caught and something even worse would have been done to her. That's why I wanted to bring her along—when we escaped on the raft."

"You did the right thing."

"I was a little worried about how she would react to the world. But she seems to be taking it well."

Lizbeth smiled a little and caressed Mimi's cheek. Now they had a new companion in their lives. They couldn't turn back the clock on what had happened that night. And on the other hand, things had been escalating progressively over the last few weeks of living together. Maybe they were partly to blame, but Mimi hadn't helped much in that regard.

They had failed the responsible adult test, at least according to human standards.

Lizbeth took a breath and nodded. "I'm glad you brought her with you."

"Maybe. But you can't imagine the island. It really was a paradise. I've never seen anything like it. I felt a little guilty about taking her out of there. "

At that point Mimi turned around and snickered. "This place isn't so bad either. You didn't force me, I wanted to come when you invited me, dumb."

"Wait a while to say that," sighed Shin. And the three of them looked at each other.

"It's not bad at all," Mimi said again, smiling. "If you hadn't taken me, I would've taken you. I've told you many times how I saw the world: the island might have been beautiful, but it wasn't real consciousness. I spent too many years alone, even if I didn't understand what loneliness was. Sooner or later, I would've gone mad without anyone to talk to. Maybe I had awareness once, but living all that time in solitude made me forget it."

Lizbeth looked at her in silence. There was something in those words that pressed against her chest, as if she recognized a distant echo of herself in that confession.

"If that was the case, I'm glad I showed up. But considering you're a fey, most likely you just appeared there on your own," Shin said calmly.

Mimi lifted her head from Lizbeth's, her eyes shining with drowsy playfulness.

"Whatever the case, I'm glad you appeared. I've told you already—there's no need to feel bad about it."

"Huh," he nodded.

Lizbeth felt how that certainty cut through the room, and for an instant it seemed to her that Shin was a bit distant. That conversation from decades ago, before they had separated, flashed in her mind. He couldn't possibly be thinking of leaving again… could he? Not so quickly.

"Then…" Mimi whispered, snuggling closer, "I don't need to go back to the island. Because here… I'm not alone anymore."

Lizbeth's heart skipped a beat. She wanted to make a joke, to break the weight she felt, but found herself unable to. Instead, she just held Mimi tighter against her.

But that conversation about how dependent they had been on each other. She looked at him.

Lizbeth caught a strange gleam in his eyes: tenderness, yes… but also fear. That shadow was still with him.

The silence stretched for several seconds, heavy as a thick blanket. Then Mimi chuckled under her breath, as if she had caught a mischievous thought.

"Although…" she murmured, lifting her gaze toward Shin, "if you'd left me alone a little longer, I might have invented an imaginary friend. And he would definitely have been more handsome than you."

Shin then raised an eyebrow, amused.

"More handsome?"

Mimi had just given her the perfect opening to change the subject, and Lizbeth played along.

"The spectrum for finding someone more handsome than him is pretty wide."

Shin put a poker face, something even more incredible due his condition.

"Really? So basically anyone would do?"

"Yes," Mimi replied, burying her face against Lizbeth's chest to hide her smile. "But I'd have to start with someone more tall, strong, and with a serious gaze fixed on the horizon."

"That sounds like the moai statues on Easter Island," Shin said flatly. "They're made of stone."

"Moai? What is that?" Mimi asked.

Lizbeth burst out laughing, unable to hold it back. The dense air from the earlier confession slowly dissipated.

"Careful what you wish for. He might decide to leave you on an island again, and then you'll have no choice but to settle for your invisible friend."

Mimi lifted her head, eyes sparkling with exaggerated poutiness.

"Nooo!" she complained, hugging Lizbeth tightly and burying herself in her chest. "I wouldn't trade you for anything. Not for an island, not for an invisible friend. These soft pomelos are mine now too."

Pomelos again, Lizbeth thought. Mimi leaned toward her face and kissed her. Lizbeth just stood there, mesmerized by those red eyes, like two rubies filtering the light of a warm sunset.

Shin fell back on the bed with a sigh.

"Great… two against one. You've already formed a full alliance."

"Our word is law from now on," Lizbeth said with a mischievous smile, and Mimi laughed with her,

Then she approached him and kissed him too. Then she stretched out her tail, splitting it in two, to try to tickle him.

Shin couldn't laugh, but it worked like a charm on Lizbeth.

The three continued for another hour playing under the sheets before finally deciding to get out of bed.

***

The months that followed were a return to a time Lizbeth looked forward to. A routine that wasn't tiring and that she liked. There was no reason to run dodging bullets, and it felt like a well-deserved rest. But now there was someone else between them. Life with Mimi was a little different—for she had not yet experienced the human world and had not yet met too many feys.

The days dragged on, as Lizbeth and Shin taught her more things and lived together. Cooking, going for walks and exploring. The three of them, even in costume, attracted attention, but at least they could be more free with their demonstrations, compared to how it had been in previous years.

The years had really changed in many ways. Fashion, music, lifestyle. Lizbeth liked one-piece dresses or T-shirts with jeans a little more. Mimi, on the other hand, liked the punk style. The two women could spend the whole day shopping while Shin carried the bags. They always traveled light, but hey, he wasn't going to deny them their fun. If they didn't want something, they could always resell it. Shin liked his classic style, although he did like jeans and light shirts. Given the fashion for men, Shin had tried to grow a mustache, but when Mimi told him he looked like he had a live otter on his lip, he decided to give it up.

Shin found that what he had thought of Mimi was just as he had suspected. Even though she had no contact, Mimi really assimilated knowledge quickly and it was a matter of hours or days before she learned. She still had some out-of-place behaviors, such as hanging from places or climbing trees, but she had been taught to try not to do that in public.

The days passed with the naturalness of a newfound routine, although the word "normal" would never quite fit into their lives. Lizbeth, Shin and Mimi formed a strange relationship, a small universe with its own rules.

There were mornings where Shin would prepare breakfast, while Lizbeth tried to teach Mimi again the value of underwear, a lesson she found unnecessary and, at times, downright absurd.

"Underwear is just human nonsense," Mimi would mutter, snapping the elastic band as if testing a sling.

"But it's pretty. You can't walk around in a dress and be naked down there."

"Sometimes we are naked."

"When we are here at home, we cannot go outside naked. It would attract too much attention and it is forbidden."

"Don't be a liar, you're always looking at my butt."

"I just want to make sure you don't show your tail all of a sudden…"

"So boring..."

Shin sighed as he watched them from afar. At least understanding underwear was much easier than explaining the value of money to her. Mimi sometimes forgot, or pretended to, and would take things just because she thought they were there for anyone to take. Like that time she took a vehicle she thought was nice and drove wildly across town. She had learned to drive better than she had learned to write. It was lucky that a police officer knew about the situation and saved them from having to explain themselves to the authorities.

Evening walks around the east coast city became a habit: Lizbeth loved the feel of the wind on her face, Shin enjoyed the silence of the streets in the early morning, and Mimi... well, Mimi used to climb lamp posts, watching the world from above with a mixture of curiosity and restrained predation. Despite attempts to fit in, they couldn't help but draw a little attention to themselves.

Their interactions had a strange intensity, a closeness that humans didn't always understand. There were touches, glances, laughter that sounded too intimate for mere friends, but were too free for a conventional couple.

And so they decided to leave, so that Mimi could get to know a little more of the world. With a little help they gave Mimi an identity and a fictitious past, while Shin and Lizbeth also used the occasion to opt for new identities as well.

But before the long-awaited journey could begin, something unexpected happened.

***

Svetlana's husband had called Shin with desperation etched into his voice, after obtaining his number thanks to Wingate. It was pure luck that Shin, Lizbeth, and Mimi hadn't yet left for their planned trip—otherwise, they might not have arrived in time.

Svetlana's sudden decline had been due to a stroke, which had also revealed an underlying heart condition. Wingate and the others had offered their help, from the occult side, but Svetlana had refused. She knew that world too well.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

In a rented car, they made their way swiftly to Arkham.

When they crossed the threshold of the hospital room, Lizbeth felt a blow to her chest. Svetlana lay there, more fragile than in any memory, her eyes half-open, searching through the shadows of consciousness. Michael beside her bed, sitting in a chair. They greeted Michael with a hug. The poor man looked as if he had aged even more in that short time. Shin stepped forward slowly, as if afraid to disturb the delicate moment, and took his sister's hand. She reacted and opened her eyes.

"Svee," Shin whispered softly. "I'm here. I made it."

"Oh, that fool actually made you come."

"Of course I was going to come."

"I'm going to give you a good smack later," she said, glancing sideways at Michael, trying to appear normal, like when she joked around with her husband. Michael smiled weakly and sighed, looking at her tenderly. Shin looked at him.

He already knew that tantrum would never materialize.

Svetlana gave Shin a faint smile, and in that small gesture Lizbeth saw all the tenderness between the two siblings—a bridge between what had been and what was still left unsaid. They had always been like that. Svetlana turned slightly and then saw her.

"Lizzy, you too."

Lizbeth took her hand and kissed her on the forehead her voice caught in her throat. "Hey, Svee."

"Come here, Lizzy, give this old lady a hug." Lizbeth approached and did so, and she could feel her chest beating weakly.

She found it incredible how long it had been since she had known her. Despite her travels around the world, she had become accustomed to seeing her always the same. So much so that she had almost forgotten the wrinkles that crossed Svetlana's forehead and the hands now more bony than they once were, which could lift kilos of heavy books.

Mimi, nervous, remained by the door, unsure how to approach, how to touch that fragility so different from her own. Svetlana, with a faint sigh, looked at her with tenderness. Shin had brought Mimi to visit when they first arrived, back when Svetlana had still been well and then spent some time later.

"Mimi... come here, girl, what are you doing over there?" she said, her voice no more than a caress in the air. She looked at Shin and then at the two girls. "I'm glad my dumb brother found a family."

The moment had something sacred about it—suspended in time, with death already circling, but love refusing to retreat.

Lizbeth watched as Svetlana's breathing grew more uneven, her eyes closing slowly, while Shin held her hand tightly, a silent grip that cried farewell. She had fallen asleep again. She only woke a few minutes at a time each day—brief fragments of presence that felt like a fragile bridge between life and the abyss.

In those brief intervals, the hospital room filled with other faces, many of them strangers to Lizbeth. She had never met the rest of the family, but soon met Svetlana's sons, already grown men, marked by life and their own families. To them, Shin was that distant uncle from family legend—the Fey who broke through the ordinary, an exotic and mysterious presence that left them suspended between curiosity and caution.

Neither Lizbeth nor Mimi felt comfortable breaking that delicate balance. They kept to themselves, showing quiet respect to a family that, though human and grounded, had its own code of silences and gestures—different from Svetlana and her husband. Mimi, still learning to navigate the strange world of fey and human emotion, seemed to weigh every step, as if afraid to disturb something that appeared too private.

Svetlana's sons, though polite, maintained a curious distance from the two women—perhaps from a mix of awe and unease stirred by the presence of those strange beings so unlike themselves, and yet so closely tied to Shin. Those were days of waiting, suspended in quiet tension at first—but gradually, the family began to open up toward them.

Lizbeth came to understand that their initial reserve stemmed in part from the fact that Svetlana's sons had once faced trouble with the authorities, because of their Russian heritage, due the Cold War. Some in the extended family had even had unfortunate run-ins with other feys, which hadn't gone well.

And so, while Svetlana drifted between brief awakenings and long periods of sleep, both Lizbeth and Mimi began to get to know the family better.

And not only them. What surprised Lizbeth was the steady stream of people coming and going. She recognized many of them—some from the Armitage Foundation, others were regular customers from the bookstore or neighbors from the district. The couple had always been well loved in Arkham, known for their passion for old books.

Despite the city's dark reputation in the rest of Massachusetts, the truth was that most of its inhabitants simply tried to live normal lives—quiet, modest, far from the whispered horrors said to wander its alleys. Lizbeth knew that well from her own time living there.

Two days later, when death finally came to stay, the family and close friends gathered in a silent embrace.

Svetlana slipped away in sleep, with no final words, no need for whispered farewells or tears.

Those were left to the living.

Shin was grieving, but somewhere inside, he also hoped that in her final dreams, she had returned to that place where they grow—and where they had once lived when they were young.

At the crowded funeral, beneath the dull gray sky, the smell of wet soil and umbrellas still closed, Lizbeth wept without shame. Michael and Shin led the way, carrying the coffin to what would be Svetlana's final resting place.

Mimi watched her with that same blend of worry and incomprehension that only someone untouched by mourning could show—someone who had never seen grief spill out in the form of tears.

"Why are you crying so much?" Mimi asked, her voice soft and sad.

"Because death hurts," Lizbeth replied, placing a hand on her shoulder to comfort her a little too.

"But it also reminds us how deeply we've loved," Shin said.

Shin and those closest to Svetlana stood together, the weight of goodbye etched into their faces. For a moment, Lizbeth saw sorrow but also a flicker of peace in Shin, as though Svetlana's presence in her final days had been an unexpected balm.

Knowing him, he would never have forgiven himself if he hadn't come to say goodbye to his beloved little sister. Although his curse had always prevented him from spending long periods of time with his loved ones, he had visited her whenever he could. In a way, Lizbeth could say that Feodor, Svetlana, Leon, Michael, Mari, Gehirn, a few others, and herself were undoubtedly the people with whom Shin had spent the most time in his life. His closest friends, his family.

Lizbeth remembered a moment during the war, long ago, when they were being deployed. It had been Svetlana who told Shin that his life was like a dandelion seed—always carried away by the wind.

More than four decades had passed since that day—and even more so for Shin.

Human life was indeed far more fleeting than theirs.

In Lizbeth's case, she had been to too many funerals in the last years—of friends, brothers and sisters in arms, people she'd cared for—and it always left her with a strange discomfort.

Those who were loved, if they were human, followed a different biological rhythm.

No, it was the feys who were out of sync... frozen in time like mosquitoes trapped in amber.

Back in the city, they stayed with Michael for a few days, but the house was quite crowded with people coming and going. The immediate family planned to stay a little longer. Shin sensed that Michael wanted to be alone, but the family didn't want to leave. Finally, the three of them decided that, to give the house some breathing room, it would be better for them to go. On top of that, the sadness in the air had affected Mimi; she was a little down and unsettled, trying to make sense of all the emotions around her. For the sake of not overwhelming Michael, and Mimi as well, it seemed best to continue on their way.

Shin would need it too. Though he maintained a serious demeanor and tried to make the two of them feel better, the sadness he carried was visible, despite his efforts to hide it.

That night, before leaving, Lizbeth found Michael alone in the kitchen, sitting with a cup of tea gone cold. She sat across from him in silence, watching the tired weight in his eyes.

"We've already packed our things. Are you sure you don't want us to stay a bit longer?" she asked.

Michael nodded, smiled faintly, and took the last sip of his tea. "If it were up to me, you could stay as long as you like. But, Lizzy… he'll need this travel. That fool can get really sad. Svee and he cared for each other deeply," he said softly.

"And you too..."

Michael smiled fondly at her. "Don't worry too much about me. I may seem distant now, but my sons are close. I'll be okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, sweety." He nodded slightly, a small chuckle escaping. "The place doesn't matter, Lizzy. Destination is just a word. The heart stays where the family is. You two are family to me, but Shin… now he has you two. You also need to build something together—I think it's time, isn't it?"

Lizbeth lowered her gaze, feeling both the warmth and the weight of those words.

"Well, we've also been apart for a while. Building something like… you mean…will take time," she said.

Michael gestured with a hand, eyes soft but firm. "Before anything happens, make every memory you can, girl. Even if feys live longer than we do, no one should ever take tomorrow for granted. Not you, not him, not anyone... Even if it's not tomorrow or the day after, don't deny yourselves happiness, no matter the stones you find on the path. You two have seen hell compared to us, make sure that trip was worth it."

Lizbeth reached for his hand across the table, squeezing it gently. For a moment, she saw in Michael the same quiet strength she had seen in Svetlana.

"We will, Mich," she whispered.

"Better do it. I'd love to see a few little ones before I go," he added, with a mischievous smile.

"That's a bit difficult… I can't promise anything."

"Trying is enough, Lizzy."

Under the morning sun, they finally left Arkham to resume their journey.

***

Despite the pain of loss for both of them, they tried their best to make the trip as planned and a favorable experience for Mimi. And at the same time, the two of them tried to make Shin feel better. Between the three of them, it worked like a charm.

The journeys followed one after the other with a whimsical logic. They spent months in a small cabin in the Alps, where Lizbeth taught Mimi to skate on a frozen lake and almost lost her when she decided to test how much ice she could break with her appendages before it collapsed under her weight.

After leaving the cabin in the Alps behind, they crossed France in an old car—that Shin bought in Lyon for the sheer pleasure of driving and that Lizbeth enjoyed tuning up—much to the seller's astonishment. There was no map and no fixed direction, just a taste for movement, the wind in her face and Mimi singing softly songs in languages she barely knew. Lizbeth was in charge of the singing lessons. They arrived at the Atlantic coast unplanned, in a fishing village that smelled of salt and baked bread.

There, they rented a house overlooking the sea for a couple of weeks, one of those with blue windows and shutters that rustled with every breeze. Lizbeth spent her afternoons drawing in a notebook that no one else saw, lately she had taken to drawing a lot. Then the two girls would venture far out for a swim, so far out that sometimes Shin would get worried and go out after them at night, when the sea looked like a broken mirror.

One early morning, the three of them were on the beach, wrapped in blankets and cheap wine.

"Do you think this sea has seen things like us?" asked Mimi, her feet sinking into the wet sand and snuggled between the two of them.

"The sea has seen everything," Lizbeth replied, resting her head on Shin's shoulder. "But it has no memory, just like us. It forgets everything every time the tide comes in."

Shin exhaled smoke from a cigarette. "Maybe that's why we keep traveling. So no one remembers too much, but we can always create new memories."

Lizbeth looked at him and sighed. Surely she was referring to that adventure in Wales and what she had discovered even though she couldn't tell Shin what it was about. He knew in a way, but was ignorant of the details she couldn't tell him.

"Then I hope we never get anywhere. That way we can do more and more things and never get bored." muttered Mimi, and the three of them were silent, listening to the waves crashing like forgotten secrets.

After Lyon they went to Budapest. They arrived just as spring was beginning to burst into the parks like a melody held back too long. They stayed in an old hotel by the Danube, where the rooms smelled of old books and waxed wood. During the day, they wandered the markets, lost themselves in alleys full of cats, and talked to artists who never asked them who they were. Lizbeth found a Venetian mask store and spent hours trying on one after another. Mimi bought one in the shape of a raven and wore it for days—even to sleep while trying to imitate Shin.

One night, in a dingy subway pub, with moss-covered walls and pictures of defunct bands, Lizbeth and Mimi began to dance to the sound of a Spanish guitar that someone was playing in a hidden corner. Shin watched them from a corner, a glass of rum in his hand. The song seemed to have a certain Flamenco tone to it, but Shin couldn't say for sure. He was simply enjoying the sight of them dancing and smiling.

"Are you going to stand there like a sad guardian?" shouted Mimi at him, dragging Lizbeth towards him. They both grabbed him and pulled him away from the table.

"I'm stiff like a statue now, we walked a lot today" Shin said, as he let himself be dragged away.

"Then we'll carve you a smile," Lizbeth replied.

"This statue needs a flag hoisted too," Mimi said mischievously and kissed him, with the music of the guitar in the background, with the applause of no one but the own laughter of the two girls.

At some point, they were in a village in Sicily, where citrus fruits exploded on the trees like little golden moons. They had found a small shire of feys and wizards who lived secretly in the place. Lizbeth and Shin repaired an old motorcycle just to take Mimi to the cliffs at sunset.

Mimi collected oddly shaped stones and piled them up in the kitchen. Lizbeth tried to cook pasta one night and accidentally summoned a small thunderstorm on the stove.

"Well, at least the stove didn't explode," Mimi said, shaking the singed hair off Liz's forehead.

"What the hell did you do?" asked Shin between gasps, opening the window to air out the kitchen.

"I followed a Neapolitan recipe. Maybe the salt was... too magical."

"Should we be worried if I start seeing visions?"

"Only if they tell you coherent things," Lizbeth said. "Then you should be alarmed."

That night they ended up dining on bread with oil and wine, laughing with the lightness of one who has already survived too long to take life seriously—at least for that night.

Other time was spent in the damp streets of Kyoto, where Shin would take them to ruined temples and Mimi would amuse herself by scaring the monks with her true form, when she thought no one was looking.

In the evenings they shared the warmth of their bodies without urgency, as if all the time in the world belonged to them. There were moments of pure pleasure, where Mimi would better discover the power of her body in intimacy and Lizbeth would marvel at feeling her own voice bend in echoes of pleasure on Shin's skin. But there was also laughter, absurd midnight conversations, silly games between messy sheets, and shared silences that didn't need to be filled with words.

As Shin continued to catch up on the news. They visited Onigashima and, although they enjoyed it, Shin spent a lot of time on his curse and historical research. There were just four old friends, an archaeologist, a fey communications specialist, Nitocris, and Laren. What was going on in the occult academic world caught his attention. It was something that was already rumored in legends, but the discoveries of the last few decades had made it stronger.

It was about civilizations that were older than history wanted to accept. Legends about the lands of Hyborea, Thuria, Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu and Hyperboria. Given the findings in Onigashima, many thought that that land must have been part of the land of Mu. Probably between 400 and 300 thousand years old—long before the better known civilizations of Sumer and Babylon.

That matched the legends in those cursed grimoires that spoke of those vanished civilizations or others that had come from the stars. Lizbeth remembered that story of the adventure in Antarctica, and sometimes on her own travels she had seen some ruins and objects that were said not to have been built by humans, or feys but something much older.

Although Lizbeth was not too interested in those facts, and in Mimi's case, in almost two days she had managed to assimilate part of that knowledge. Fortunately the fun days were more than the study days.

Lizbeth was now in a long vacation period, after years of action in TF. And she was already wondering what she would do now that Shin was back.

But the quiet never lasted long. In the second half of 1986, they began to feel it: a kind of pressure in the air, as if the world was about to take an unexpected turn.

Shin was restless again, Lizbeth knew him too well not to notice the signs. Mimi, though more unconcerned, sensed it too—in her instinctive way of reading the world. Too much time had passed without something interfering, and that in itself was an anomaly. The question was not if something was going to happen, but when.

By November, Lizbeth was looking at Shin with the certainty that the end of this stage of their lives was closer than either of them wanted to admit.

The first anomaly was subtle. Barely a whisper on the beach, a distortion in the air that caused the glass to vibrate and the mirrors to reflect things that weren't there. Lizbeth noticed it first, but said nothing. She didn't need to. Years at his side had taught her to recognize the signs before Shin even mentioned them. Then the second anomaly was less discreet. A swarm of shadows crossed the ruined city on a moonless night, shapeless figures swirling through the vegetation and seeming to lengthen their limbs as they noticed Shin's presence.

It was during that time that they realized things they didn't know. Thanks to the seismographs placed on the island, it was discovered that there were microearthquakes near the places where Shin was. The weather had always been a constant, sometimes causing a chain of unfortunate events to occur to those closest to him. When he stayed in one place for too long, changes in air pressure and humidity could occur. They knew this, but had never fully attributed it to him.

Even the island's animals and giant snakes detected him. One of the young dragons on the island detected him and took flight to the west and had to be sought out before he was detected by the humans. The shadows did not attack, they did not try anything direct, but they were there—and that was enough. Shin watched as if waiting for them to make up their minds, but they never did. They just looked at him. And that was worse. Lizbeth knew then that it was time. Before something bigger manifested itself, before the anomaly stopped being limited to her surroundings and started affecting others.

The call from Argentina, came just as Lizbeth was preparing the talk with Mimi.

It was Van, who spoke first, her tone dry—almost impatient. She wasted no time on unnecessary details: they needed help.

Something had gone wrong and she and Leon couldn't handle it alone.

Shin didn't ask questions, or immediate explanations. He just listened and then nodded. It was the kind of answer he always gave, as if his role in the world was nothing more than to appear when people needed him, like a storm summoned at will.

Like a dandelion seed through the wind. But at least it was his choice to help.

Lizbeth watched the scene in silence, seeing the inevitability in Shin's shoulders, in the way he was already thinking about what came next, in the way he didn't even need to discuss it. When he hung up, she already knew what he would say. And Mimi, who was no fool, understood it too.

But understanding didn't make it any less painful. For Mimi, it had all been a game so far, one discovery after another, a life with no real worries beyond what Lizbeth and Shin were teaching her.

Even so, they sat down at the entrance to the cabin where they were staying and talked about it.

The idea of Shin leaving-and more to the point, the reason for his departure-was not something she could easily process. Lizbeth was the one who sat down with her and explained it to her. Meanwhile, Mimi hung around his neck, looking at him silently. She did so calmly, without embellishment, without softening the truth.

"It's not that he wants to leave," she told her, "it's that the world won't let him stay."

"Has it always been like this?

Lizbeth nodded. "Yes, it's always been one thing or the other, but it's beyond his control."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize, you haven't done anything," Mimi said.

Mimi didn't cry, or get angry, but there was something in her look, in the way her tail quivered a little before folding behind her back, that made it clear this was a lesson that hurt. Finally, she only nodded.

"Then you'll be back," she said, not phrasing it as a question. Shin looked at her and smiled, with that smile that promised nothing but said everything.

"I always come back."

Lizbeth was silent, understanding the weight of his words. Shin had always lived with the curse of attracting things he couldn't control.

And so later sitting on the sand once again the conversation continued when they had a moment alone, while Mimi helped one of the girls who was preparing food on the outdoor kitchen.

"Do you mind?" Shin asked suddenly.

Lizbeth blinked. "The what?"

"Taking care of her for a while."

There was a moment of surprise before a smile tugged at Lizbeth's lips. She sat up, as she looked at him with amusement.

"Are you asking me to adopt her?"

Shin grimaced. "Don't put it like that."

Lizbeth laughed softly.

"You don't even have to say it. I wouldn't leave her alone and I have plenty of money and wouldn't mind traveling together. Besides, it would be interesting to teach her more about the outside world, in case she wants to travel alone as well."

Shin seemed relieved by her answer. "Thank you."

Lizbeth shrugged. "Don't make it sound like it's a sacrifice. We both love her, but it wouldn't be weird if she wants to spread her wings before long, she's a lot smarter than me, she just needs a little discipline. Besides, I like the idea of traveling away from fucking weapons again."

Shin looked at her for a moment before speaking. "I guess it's settled then."

"Settled? Please. With her around, nothing will ever be settled."

"Cuidense las espaldas," Shin dijo y la abrazo por la cintura.

Lizbeth nodded, but in the back of her mind she was already wondering what it would be like to travel with Mimi, just the two of them.

It would certainly be a trip like no other.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.