The wedding feast was a blur. I finally had to find Noriko and rescue us from it. She loved her ring, a tradition from her world, and a thing to have close by her when I have to travel and she stays home to study.
I was honored she'd thought hard enough to give me something that I couldn't destroy, although I hope to never transform again in such painful ways. The belt is embossed with birds with small blue stones for eyes. I think she would rather have given me one with dragons but she said she had to take the closest thing she could find this time. I like to wear it with the blue jacket and bandanna she made for me. Then I can proudly feel like we're husband and wife as I walk about.
As we walked from the top of the city wall back to our room, we talked about what we would do now that the wedding was done. Because she'd asked if we could fetch our things from the flower town and then send her writings to her family, I suggested we could rent one of the flying creatures of our world that carry people. That excited her. I thought it might, now that she doesn't fear heights. That was a better option than having me carry her the whole way.
Using those creatures also means we can do the few things we wanted to do faster. We'll need to meet back up with our friends to help them however we can. I've sent most of my gold on with Barago and Agol, who are going by wagon with Gaya and Zena to help them get started in Guzena with the ministers there. Duke Jeida and his family are going to Zago. We'll scry before we go to either to see which one we need to go to first, once our tasks are done.
When Noriko talked about what she wants to do after that, I wasn't at all surprised to hear she wants to teach her world's knowledge to this one. I was surprised that she admitted she doesn't have the knowledge for most of what she'll teach. What she wants to teach are the basic thoughts and ideas. She'll let the researchers of this world figure out how or even if they'll make them work in this one.
While we've been gifted with each other, and the double rainbow promise, and I suppose the additional bonding, I still have some slight concern I'll lose her. As she was collecting her gift from the dresser in our room, I almost lost her again to her sorrow.
I'd asked her how she'd learned to throw - we'd been talking about Calco and I'd remembered I'd wanted to know. She told me she and her brother had thrown a ball together every week as their time to just be siblings together. Because she'd remembered him, like the time I'd asked about her mother, she began to disappear.
I had her in my arms quickly and held her tightly, begging her not to leave me. She was confused and I told her this time. She's promised not to miss them so much. She said sending her records to her family will help. Then they won't miss her so much either. There's the possibility that because they miss her, when she misses them she's pulled back to them. I will hope so.
She's carefully standing far back from the golden moss, not wanting to be sent with the books and my letter to her family. Before we could send the books, she had to catch them up to the time she had paper and pen again. Then she had me write them in this world's language as she read and translated her work. All of that took longer than I'd planned, but if this works it's well worth it.
Carefully intending only the books to go, I instruct the chimo to send them from 'here' to 'there', the 'there' Noriko's holding open for me in the World of Light. I can send them because I exist in the World of Light and have access to its infinite power and energy so that they'll go. And go they do. We see them arrive on the desk in her room. It's an odd world compared to mine, indeed.
I make sure I end the movement request through those kinds of distances before I leave the gold moss to return to Noriko. I hold her tightly to reassure us both she's still here, then we move off to rejoin our flying transportation. It's time to return to the work of bringing peace to my world.
I was also right in one other thing. She had sold to and written up a contract with someone whom she's going to use to create her other world creations to sell. She came out of Calco with her own earned gold. I'm very proud of her, actually, that even from the beginning she was thinking of how to take care of herself.
She admitted she'd told me early, while we were still in the cave and couldn't understand each other, that if I would only get her to a village she would be fine with being left. She wouldn't have been once we were there, and neither would I, but that's because of the connection the World of Light gave us. Without that, she would have been fine without me eventually, as long as she had some sort of bodyguard along. I'm just as happy to be that bodyguard, however.
"Izark, it's okay. I'm feeling better now that I know they'll be able to know I'm alive. We can go check on them in a day or two and then I'll know they're happy for us. Even if they're sad they can't see me, that will be enough for all of us, I think. I won't leave." Noriko is earnest, and I realize I'm holding her hand a little too tightly.
I try to relax, then lean down and rest my forehead on her head. I can't quite get rid of the worry, but since we can at least see if having them know she's okay helps them, I can sigh and set it aside for now. I kiss her and request, "Please don't. I might be able to live without you, but it would be a very lonely life ...quiet ...but lonely."
Noriko gives a snort. "Yeah, mine would be too. Quiet and lonely. All this adventuring doesn't happen in my world, unless I decide to do something like climb Mount Everest - not likely - or become a world traveler. That's not really as easy there as here, for all there are trains and buses and airplanes. Those things just make it more expensive to travel, and I don't have an income there as a student. I'd go stir-crazy, I think."
She puts her arms around my neck and kisses me. "And I'd miss you something awful," she says quietly. "I really couldn't survive there anymore, I think ...not unless you came with me."
I hold my most precious treasure tightly to me and for a moment the emotions of the two dragons who claim each other as treasures swirl around us, taking our breath away.
I have the winged dinosaur stop at the top of the mountain in the little pass where we exited the cave system under the mountain so we can finish what that started. We decide to name that cave our dragon cave - our secret no one will ever find.
-o-o-o-
When the reinstatement of the western continent governments was completed satisfactorily, we took Agol, Geena, and Barago with us to the city of the university on that side of the middle sea. After about a week of hunting, Noriko and I settled on a home we could agree on. It was larger than either of us would have purchased, but Agol kept us practical. He knows us by now.
It's large enough for guests to stay with us, and to host large parties. That's more room than I think we need, but I had to admit that if Noriko is able to meet her goals it may end up too small, and I'd rather just have the one house to come home to.
I blush every time I think of it like that, not having a place to call my own for so long. Noriko is my home so I'm coming around to thinking in terms of settling down, like Kizak teased me I'd have to learn eventually.
Once we had our home purchased and furnished minimally enough Barago and Agol could live their sufficiently, Noriko turned to meeting the people at the university and getting to know those who might be able to help her. They still need to rebuild some, but she got a few things started before we came to the eastern continent.
While I work with Doctor Clairgeeta and others to get the countries on this side of the middle sea stable, she's only to be found in the Department of Chemistry unless I pry her out. It makes me smile, but I insist. I also need my Noriko time, and she wouldn't be happy to learn she had missed all of her time with Doctor Clairgeeta.
They spend many happy hours discussing the theories of the World of Light. Doctor Clairgeeta in particular loves to ask her detailed research questions and have her answer them, already at his level of understanding although he has the years of experience to answer her own questions.
I don't mind those conversations. Because I walk there, I get pulled into them as well, asking my own questions and answering for the slight details that are different for me than for them.
It's nice to have the quiet environment of the university and Doctor Clairgeeta's home to call our home here. He's been very welcoming, and his staff say we aren't a bother, calming Noriko's worries.
She's not used to servants. The ones here are training her nicely for when we return home. I don't think she'll ever think of Agol, Geena, and Barago as anything other than friends, but perhaps she'll be more open to ordering them around (asking politely for things since that's her way).
-o-o-o-
I've returned to the east continent for a brief visit. The governments have changed hands, in some countries multiple times, but all of them are doing well enough. Men are still good and bad, but most are still trying their best. It's the best we can hope for, I suppose.
Noriko asked me to check on the Department of Chemistry, to bring her word of if they're still thriving. They are. Her push and her small efforts, and the efforts of her students and their students, have created an environment where the love of research and learning is passed on from student to student, who becomes the next teacher to pass it on. She'll be pleased with my report, I think.
The university as a whole has expanded and remembers her with a memorial. I won't tell her that, unless I need to see her blush. She'll be terribly embarrassed to be praised so highly, even now that she's old enough to know that others like to remember those who've made a great difference to the world. She still doesn't see herself in that sort of role, for all she's been in it since she arrived here in the Sea of Trees, and tried to place herself there on our wedding day.
I long for those days. How I miss them, and all of our friends. It's been terribly difficult for me to see their passing away as the years have passed. They're all gone now. Even her brother has passed on. She's lived a very long and fulfilling life, and she's content. I've grown very discontent, but not with her. She still holds my heart tenderly. I'm discontent with me, and perhaps some with the World of Light.
When I return from this trip back to our home on the west continent, it will be to not leave it again for some time, if ever. She's dying and I won't leave her side after this. It grieves me so, to know that I can't die and go with her. Like I was so afraid to lose her after I turned into the full Sky Demon the first time, or the nearly-full since there was another level I was saved from ever having to experience, I'm again afraid to lose her and her comfort.
Will I stay the creature of Light I've become? Likely I will, so I sigh at myself when that fear rises. I've been that for so many years now it's not likely to change. It's just the old fear coming to tease me.
I know I can still go see them all, and sometimes I'll visit with Dr. Clairgeeta and Duke Jeida, or Barago will come just to tease me because he can. But, I can't walk there constantly. I've tried, experimenting with it as Noriko fails. The World of Light itself gently expels me with compassion and gentleness, but firm that I have work to be doing and running from my fears and grief does not get me a pass into the world of those who've worked hard properly. I also must live out what life I've been given.
At times that will make me angry, and then I'll rant and plead with the World of Light, like I did on several occasions before, and Noriko did. We were answered those times, and I would ask if we could be answered this time as well. ...I know that Noriko always wanted to go home one more time to see her family. She missed them so and still does.
I've finally humbly asked that if it's at all possible, that she be allowed that opportunity and that I be allowed to go with her to live a life where I may die with her, happy and content because she was finally properly rewarded for the terrible pain of being torn away from the life she knew.
The World of Light may have warned her it was going to happen, and remembering her stories of her dreams may have brought comfort to her family after she was gone, but the World of Light still never asked, never gave her the choice. If she could receive that payment, and I could go with her, I would be supremely grateful.
When I sorrow, I don't hold much hope for it. We're often not asked what we want. We're born into a family of nobles and thus must be a noble. The life of our parents is taken and we must learn to walk forward an orphan. Life isn't really like my wish. Plus, I don't know if we can walk through time in that way. It may be an impossibility, "science fiction" as Noriko would say - the sort of thing her father would have written about.
There's also the fact that they are all already in the World of Light. She'll be able to greet them and get her hugs when she does finally pass from this life. There's likely no real reason to send her back in time when what she wants will be waiting for her to receive immediately. Such things are logical and rational...and bring tears to my eyes. None of them comfort me. I would rather have the unreasonable request answered.
My eyes continually scan the sky for rainbows. So far I've seen none, at least in answer to my pleas. I'm trying to be humble, and I'm trying to come to terms with it, as I have been for the last ten years as Noriko has slowed down, then been unable to do more than rise from her bed to sit and chat pleasantly with guests who come to visit, or to keep me company.
She also grieves that she'll leave me behind with no family nor close friends by my side. She did what she could; the world has given us what we have. To have had her is greater than I could have hoped for. I will miss her just as greatly.
I've put the final few writings Noriko wanted to add with her journal that's here in Dr. Clarigeeta's collection. I'll leave this journal here with the other works of the time we were the central figures of.
If it's never read, that's fine with me. It was mostly my meanderings, a place to put my worries outside myself, and a way to remember those things that became most important to me and my walk into the light so that I could ponder on them again and again as I tried to convince myself that to step onto the path of hope and walk hand in hand with Noriko was more than a dream or vain hope. It was terribly difficult to unlearn my fear and despair learned in the early years.
I'm grateful for the final result, and for my Noriko who taught me how to reach it and then has stayed with me so long. I'll continue to hope for myself after she goes. I'll likely stay as long with her in the World of Light as it allows me to, until she has encouraged me enough to have the strength to return to my duties properly. (The seers still only see bright light when they look for me. It's dull, really, and sometimes frustrating, to not get to know things others can know if they ask. It is terribly difficult to live a predestined life and not know the ending.)
I'll close these writings by saying, "Farewell." I will hope to never come back again. It's highly likely that if she dies and I remain on this planet, I won't return regardless. This place she loved so much will be too difficult for me to see her shadow in, and I never was a student or researcher, save for what I needed to know to walk the path I've already walked.
