"Do you think she's coming?" Saave, the curator of the Estharian National Museum, nervously observed the visitors in the hall. Eizel placed a hand on his shoulder to calm the man down, despite his own concerns.
They were standing next to one of the pillars, that steadied the room. The exhibition had started only the day before, and would run three weeks. After that time span, their central item would have to be buried again, sealed for the time being. It had taken a lot of favours and connections to receive the permission for temporal excavation in the first place. Their nerves were worn out.
"I would think so. I mean, if this is the right time, then she could not possibly want to miss it." Eizel told him and felt the man shudder ever so slightly under his touch.
"Yes! If this is the right time. But we could have gotten all wrong. What if we have made a mistake in the dating? What if we misinterpreted the facts? What if the evidence was not enough to come to any certain conclusions-"
Eizel stepped in front of him, looking grimly into the man's face. "We have been through that enough times already. What could possibly happen in case we really made some kind of mistake? Then she will not show up. It's no tragedy."
Saave bristled, shaking his head. "But - but she has to see! She has to see the living proof of her failure. Perhaps then she'll understand the futility-"
"Oh don't be ridiculous! What did you think? One glimpse at it, and she will give up on her destiny? And that we are the reason for this? That we will become some kind of legends on our own?" He breathed slowly in and out. "Nothing can be changed. In a way, the paths are already laid out."
Saave looked sour. "What are we doing this for then? We are risking our lives here."
Eizel turned away from Saave, ignoring the last comment, his eyes drawn to the display case in the center of the hall. From a scientific point of view, it certainly was not the most important exhibit in the room. Nonetheless it was the item, most people came here to see.
What lay in there, meant hope. Hope for people, who had experienced war in the past, and people who believed in the old legends and were dreading the future.
Saave walked up next to him, following his gaze to the display case.
"If we could just call for them-" he started.
"No!" Eizel interrupted, louder than he had intended to. He darted his eyes over the crowd of people walking around them and turned his attention back to Saave. He lowered his voice. "No. Don't you see?" He gazed at him imploringly, placing his hands on Saave's shoulders. "That would just cause a catastrophe. The Whites would - they would fight her!"
"Exactly!" Saave hissed back. "That's what we want, right? We would nip the whole misery in the bud."
Eizel shook his head vigorously. "No, no, no. You don't understand. They would not win. They - they -" he gesticulated around the room. "They have not won!"
Saave looked at him puzzled. "What?"
Eizel tried to think of a way to explain. "Even if they fought her now, they could never win, because else the legends would have never been told. If you called for the Whites now, you would just send them to their certain deaths. And -"
His gaze roamed over to the display case, and he startled into silence.
Paling, he stared at the woman, who was now standing in front of the exhibit, wearing a grim expression.
His breath caught in his throat, as he took in the details of her slender and tall frame. Her elegant posture. Her thin drawn lips. She was truly regal.
The woman ran her amber eyes over the structure in front of her, seemingly unaware of the people in the hall, who unconsciously made a wide arch around her.
Saave looked questioningly from Eizel to the woman and back, until he realized what Eizel was seeing in her. He started to feel sick, his breathing heavy. "Hyne help us, Hyne help us." Saave kept on muttering, wiping his sweat covered forehead with the back of his hand.
Eizel was mesmerized as he took a step towards her. Saave caught the movement, gripped Eizel's jacket and yanked him back. "What are you doing?" he hissed incredulously. "You are not going there, are you? Have you lost your mind?"
Eizel didn't look at him and continued gazing at the woman. "I don't know. I just - " he trailed off.
"Look. Alright, she's here." Saave's voice had a hysterical edge in it. "That's what we wanted. And now we will leave, until she is gone, alright? Alright?" He tried to persuade Eizel, nudging him towards the exit, but Eizel stood transfixed. "Please, we have to get into a safe distance." Saave pleaded.
Eizel freed himself from the grip and shakily started walking over to the display case. Saave stayed in the background, wringing his hands.
As Eizel approached her, he felt like walking through a thick haze, being pulled towards her. The noise in the room seemed to subside, and he could merely hear his own footsteps reverberating in the hall. He came to a halt next to her, while she continued studying the glassy showcase.
"Where has this been found?" She spoke slowly, her voice somehow booming, without being loud.
"C-Centra Desert." he stuttered. He couldn't move, just staring at her profile.
"The desert is vast. Where exactly?"
Eizel pointed with one arm to her right. An assortment of large photographs were pinned to the wall. She turned to them. They showed the excavation site.
"Western Centra. Near -" he swallowed.
"Near what?" she demanded.
Eizel indicated a specific photograph on the left. "The ruins."
She examined the picture only briefly. She knew that place all too well.
The birthplace of her enemy.
Now nothing more than rotting pillars and crumbling walls of a run down orphanage. How appropriate.
Her attention was drawn to the corner of the picture, where cheery bright colors stood out from the grey of the concrete building. Vast flower fields. She would make sure to burn them down, until nothing was left than patches of scorched earth, laying sizzling and crackling at her feet. Dust and ashes would sweep over the dry plains, the smoke would scent the air with the sweet odor of burning grass and wood. No plant would grow there anymore, no seed sprouting.
She walked along the line of photographs. One by one, they showed the individual steps of the excavation.
From the undisturbed patch of sand, surrounded by reddish rocks, indistinguishable from any other place in the Centra desert. The place where the item in the showcase had been buried.
Over to an unknown man casting an aero spell, that removed several layers of dust and sand.
And finally a view of a white bleached structure, half buried in the soil.
She strode back to the show case. It contained a brightly illuminated flat red stone plate, standing vertically. Melded with the rock was a skeleton. It would have been human looking, were it not for the stumps that sprouted from its back.Wings
She narrowed her amber eyes in anger.
An unworthy grave.
Her grave.
"Impudent." she muttered, her voice sounding low and clear.
"It - It's what you deserve." Eizel told her, feeling his heart pumping vigorously. He was mentally cursing himself for this insanity. She would kill him. He was sure she would kill him.
Instead, she slowly turned to face him for the first time. For a moment, Eizel thought he had seen feathery dark wings shifting in and out of his vision. He stared up into her bright eyes. Trapped. He wondered if this was what the legends meant, when they spoke of her power to possess people. To be mesmerized and awed by her inviolable authority.
"Deserve? Hardly. I can recognize the purpose behind the earthy grave. Can taste their fear even through the threads of time. What seems to be cast aside so carelessly, was buried with the intent to be forgotten. Out of fear. Out of uncertainty."
She seemed to speak to herself.
Eizel wanted to leave. He didn't want to endure her gaze any longer. He didn't dare to move.
"What? You think I will exterminate you? Don't worry, I will not. After all, you have helped me." She paused. "And brought down your own demise."
Eizel panted shallowly. He blinked, confused. "What?" His voice cracked.
She tilted her head slightly, and all he could concentrate on, was the black rim of her iris, contrasting with the sharp yellow of her eyes. "All you historians. With your eternal struggle to preserve the past. Delivering me everything, I have to know. What allies to seek. What foes to avoid. Whom to trust."
Eizel shook his head rapidly. "But - but you can't change anything. You're doomed."
The outburst elicited a smile from her. "That's where you're wrong. Do I not have the proof, that I will succeed in starting Time Compression? Once it begins, I will unlink past from future, will rip the cause from effect, will nullify the seemingly inevitable outcome. This time, I know who failed me. This time, I will make it right."
She turned to the showcase, while Eizel stood, paling.
"I will build a castle."
She sent a last glance at the photographs.
"And my grave will be its foundation."