I woke up.

The lull of sleep held me for longer than a normal person. I had dreamt of a sweet field of flowers. Vast and of vibrant colours, it had filled me with a feeling of warmth. The overpowering beat of a massive clock in the sky had soured the vision somewhat. Back and forth the pendulum had swung, a rhythm that ran in parallel to the time that made all things fleeting. Still, the flowers had remained.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I had always been a back sleeper. I just put my head down on the pillows, listened to some music or a podcast, and drifted away. Usually, I woke up the way I had bedded myself. Rolling around was never a thing I did. Perhaps because I was used to narrow beds.

The usual craving for my morning dose of coffee hit me after a couple of seconds. I ignored it in favour of the water bottle that I had placed in the compartment, which was hidden under some particularly firm pillows. Stored in relative isolation, it was relatively cool, a welcome temperature after sleeping through a summer night. It helped me ground myself outside the dream, even if it wasn’t quite as potent at wafting away the sleepiness as coffee.

While I sipped from the bottle, I looked out the window. Sunlight fell in through the glass and broke partly on the drops that were scattered over the translucent surface. ‘It must have rained during the night,’ I thought. Grabbing the Ashod next to me, I checked the time. My eyes got stuck to the display.

It was 8:12. Not concerning, it was Tuesday and my first class was at eleven. My problem was the date. It was the second of Novem, the ninth month on the Welldark calendar, named simply after the Latin word for ‘nine’. Around here, the year began in the winter semester, each month was exactly 28 days, and the seasons were confined to the two semesters and the two semester breaks. This made for an orderly, if overly predictable, procedure. It also meant Spring and Autumn only lasted for one month each.

All of that trivia darting through my mind only served to distract me from the real issue at hand. Over a month had passed since the ball. The progress I had made with Esther in that time was describable in a single word: null.

Absolutely nothing. We had maintained our current level, which was good, but that meant that we were at a particularly awkward standstill. We were going on dates, we were flirting, we were feeling each other up on the regular, the sexual and emotional tension was so thick that nobody in our proximity could have missed it. A tension that found no relief. Not in sex, not in kisses, not even in a whispered ‘I love you’.

We were at the drop into a relationship and danced along the edge. I was afraid either one of us would get tired of that dance eventually and walk away or we would dance along that potentially wonderful fall until we arrived at darker chasms. The fact of the matter was that it couldn’t continue like this.

Pushing her, however, was a course of action in and of itself that took incredible courage to embark on. I had spent several weeks now hoping she would perhaps meet me halfway. The foolish hope of the undecided. I should have known better.

‘But what do I do now…?’ I asked myself and found no clear answer. The different actions and the different reactions played out before my mind’s eye. I sat, brooding, in my silent bedroom and sipped my water. My thoughts went silent.

I finished half the bottle, then put it to the side and grabbed my clothes.

_______________________________________________________________________

It started like every other Tuesday.

I sat next to Esther in the Interdimensional Conduct class. The teacher, a dry man with gelled back, brown hair and dark, round glasses on his effeminate face, walked up and down the stage he had been given to educate us. Lots of teachers did such things while teaching. Generally, it was used so the student’s eyes had something to track, pumping a bit of energy into the lecture. It failed here, utterly. His stride was so lethargic, it made me miss my bed. The class was so boring, I had even forgotten the teacher’s name.

“When you… find yourself on a world that has a patron god… always make sure you make sure it’s a god that allows magic on his planet before you use any magic,” the teacher babbled, making the same, extremely obvious point for the sixteenth time. “Earth, for example, has a particularly powerful guardian deity. A deity that oversees many worlds. Of which only Earth is to be seen as the evolving garden... or something like that.”

“Or something like that,” I mumbled mockingly, getting a little giggle out of the gorgeous woman next to me. “What a fantastic description, he is really earning his pay.”

Esther hid her smile from the teacher and the classroom at large by raising her hand in front of her mouth. That left the curve of her full, pink lips only for me to be seen. “You are an awful individual, when the opportunity arises,” she whispered to me, her amber eyes darting over to me for a few moments.

She was incredible. I knew that this was circling in my head a lot these days, but all of her was just so wonderful that this fact surfaced in my mind again and again. Her hourglass figure, lean and squishy in all the right places, her heart-shaped face with the downright angelic features, the way her unruly hair was confined into an orderly ponytail. Underneath all of that, her ever-present mind, her discipline, and the willingness to be kinky or playful depending on the situation. A girl who could be angry at me for my own good, who was jealous because she wanted me, who laughed with me and who I wanted to see every day.

‘A girl who’s incredibly indecisive,’ a thought surfaced and the dreamy smile I had on my face died like a candle flame that had consumed the last bit of wax and yarn. The thought was resentful, bitter and weak, I flicked it out of my mind like one would a piece of dirt sitting on an otherwise clean surface.

I looked towards the lecture. Not to listen, I had no interest in following this prolonged waffling that just repeated the same statements in different situations. My goal was just to hide the fact that I was stirring in my thoughts from Esther. At least for the moment.

‘Well, that’s not good,’ I analyzed what had just happened. It was quite normal that I thought a lot of things during the day that I didn’t mean. Throwing my bag at the teacher, for example, because he bored me. Getting up and pulling the clothes off a nearby girl. Steadily wondering what would happen if I just screamed off the top of my lungs at that very moment.

Crazy little thoughts that I was willing to bet everyone experienced in some shape or form. Darker parts of the mind and base desires surfacing for the moment, suggesting something, and then getting pushed down to obscurity by the greater I. Parts the human mind maintained for bare necessity. The action of murder had little to no place in civilized society, but the brain was always ready to stoop to primitive solutions should the situation demand it. If a society unraveled, for whatever reason, the people that did not understand those savage parts of themselves would either be the greatest hindrances or the greatest monsters. Those that were frozen by circumstance or those that were consumed fully by the savage.

The little resentment that had just wormed its way to my surface thoughts was a bit of a different beast. Rather than something that activated in times of crisis, it was an emotion reserved for stagnancy. It was the thing that I was afraid of eventually rearing its ugly head. A warning mechanism of my subconscious that basically said that this woman would not reciprocate what I wanted from her and that it was time to move on.

For now, it was easy to ignore. It was small, the mind was a complicated thing and different impulses always pulled at the central decision-making apparatus. The bitterness I felt right now existed to spur me into motion. My mind was telling me there was a problem and that I had to address it one way or another.

The longer I ignored this, the more my resentment would grow. I could continue on and on to push it down, keep devoting myself to Esther and our current relationship. All the while, an ever-growing part of me would want to search for greener pastures. A part that would become increasingly difficult to argue against. After all, if the reason for the resentment wasn’t cleared, what was I even pursuing? The act of pursuit itself? Could one be satisfied by just that?

Of course, there were people that got resentful incredibly quickly. The stalemate Esther and I found ourselves in could hardly fall under the crowd of people that got heavily annoyed with a woman who wouldn’t drop her panties after a first date at a fancy restaurant. The problem here was that I knew perfectly well that the little resentment had a viable cause. It had been a month of us basically dating, what were we still waiting for? What more did she need proven?

Esther put her pencil down and shifted her entire attention to me. Her left hand reached out to gently brush over my shoulder. “You seem bothered by something greater than the boredom of this lecture. Are you alright, good Karitas?”

It said a lot about my state of mind that not even her display of worry lifted my spirits by any notable margin. “Yes,” I said, only to shake my head and correct myself immediately, “No, actually, there’s a problem.” I knew I could stave off the suggestion of breaking with this awkward, stable, and pleasant paradigm for a while. However, what good would that do me? My subconscious had just given me the declaration that this relationship had to advance soon or never. When it came to things as complicated as love, the gut was an advisor best heeded. Pretending there wasn’t an issue would only make it larger by the time it had to be confronted. “Let’s talk after the classes are done.”

Esther’s hand froze and she slowly pulled it back. Whether it was my uncharacteristically serious tone or that similar thoughts about this topic went through her head, it appeared she already knew what direction this was going.

________________________________________________________________________

Regardless of my conviction, I didn’t know how to approach the topic. As we headed back, I mulled over how to jump into it. For some reason, we had opted to get back on foot. No words had been exchanged over this decision. Very little words had been exchanged at all. I had tried to keep things somewhat casual during the last few hours of the classes and I had failed miserably at it.

‘Come now, you shouldn’t start being a pathetic wimp now,’ I pep-talked myself. ‘You, who has maneuvered through countless flirts, who has been able to get physical in the squishiest of areas, who already went through a small number of fights with this very same woman – you really shouldn’t have this big of an issue talking about what is imperative to talk about.’

Despite my attempts at self-convincing, my hesitation remained a hindering influence that coiled around my heart like a snake. It would have been so much easier if Esther met me somewhere at least a fifth of the way. For all of her virtues, however, when it came to romantic engagements and talking about her feelings, she was rather stunted.

I looked over my shoulder, checking if there was an excuse to push this off further. There wasn’t, we were alone on the road that connected the dormitory and the university. It was only us, the stone and the silver tiles of the floor, and the nearby trees. Finally gathering my resolve, I suddenly took Esther by the hand and pulled her onto the green strip at the side.

“What is-“ she started, only for the both of us to suddenly sit under one of these trees. I embraced her tightly, pressing her back against my chest, and she swallowed whatever questions she had. Instead, she went silent, as a soft wind brushed over us, pleasant in the summer shade we now found ourselves in.

“When are we going to form an Anomalia, Esther?” I finally posed the question. To my surprise, she didn’t tense up whatsoever. She had definitely known that this was coming.

“Why must we jump right to the final step?” the lady of my desires asked in a quiet tone. “The Anomalia, it is the last vow two people can give each other. It is more intimate than marriage even. The linking of two souls, achievable only through an act of true adoration. What is it that drives us towards the final extreme at the first juncture?”

She pulled her legs up to her chest and made herself as small as possible. I had never seen her this vulnerable before. No small amount of thought had gone into her own doubts, I was willing to bet. Doubts that had not culminated in any progress for our relationship and therefore doubts I had to disperse.

“Because there is nothing more you would be willing to give me without crossing that final line first,” I stated what I truly thought. “Your lips, your body, the rest of your life, would you allow me to claim any of it without us being an Anomalia first?” No answer, I must have hit the nail right on the head. “You know I want more from you – want us to be more. Just holding you isn’t going to be enough for me forever. I want to know that you are mine and I am yours.” I stopped for a moment, considered and ultimately decided to put in the bluntest terms possible. “If you let me wait much longer, I will move on.”

“I know,” she whispered and started to quiver in my arms. If she was crying, however slightly, she did not want me to see it. Her head rested on her lowered knees and I respected the silence. It took a while, but eventually she looked over her shoulder and at me. Her beautiful, golden eyes were surrounded by a tinge of red, both shimmering from withheld tears. It made me absolutely miserable to see her that way. “My secrets bind me to an uncertain future, my Karitas.”

“As do mine,” I replied and brushed over her curves with motions that were not the least sexual. “And I don’t know how or when I’m ready to reveal all I am to you, Esther. All I know is that you are the first person I have ever met that I know I want to face my future with. In all of its glory and all of its darkness.”

“I feel the same,” she admitted and I felt my heart jump in my chest in joy. “Although my past is clouded I… I know you would be able to traverse that fog with me.”

My enthusiasm at hearing that knew no bounds. All I wanted, all I hoped for, her love, her companionship, her physical presence, they could all be mine from now until death do us part. All it needed was a little more, the final signing of the contract that we both so obviously desired. “Then we-“

Esther shook her head. “But not today.”

It felt as if someone had ripped out my heart and replaced it with black ice. “What do you mean?” I asked, barely able to keep the cold at bay.

A concerned glance went my way. “I’m not ready yet.”

“When will you be ready?”

“I cannot say.”

The resentment I had done my best to suppress was fueled by those words and fed the cold rage in my chest. My teeth clenched, the grinding of the enamel was the only thing I heard for a few seconds, then it was replaced by the rushing and drumming of blood and heartbeat in my ears. “So your words are hollow,” I stated and let go of her. Barely, I resisted the impulse to shove her away from me.

Esther looked at me in shocked surprise when I got up and grabbed my bag. “I apologize if-“

“No.” I interrupted and withdrew my arms. “I don’t want any apologies, Esther. I’ve had it with the laters and maybes and with being sorry.” I grabbed my bag and stood up. “I want you to reciprocate what I feel and I am absolutely sure you want us to go to the next step as well. As much as I want you, as much as I love you, I’m no longer willing to just wait for you.” I had a hard time staying straight-headed while I said all of that, her indecisiveness had my temper compromised, to put it in a very nice fashion. “I need to know when we can continue forwards.”

The raven-haired lady sat under the tree. Of her usual composure, very little remained. Her mouth and eyes were wide open, neither facilitating any emotion other than her being overwhelmed by the situation. After several seconds, I turned around. I barely caught her raising her hand in my periphery, but I didn’t care. My stride bordered on a jog, all I wanted was to get somewhere where I could be less angry. In other words, I wanted to go wherever she wasn’t right then.

The wrath continued to boil away the terrible ice inside me for the entire trip home. By the time I slammed the door shut behind me, an action that was likely heard by the entire neighborhood, the source of my anger had been consumed, but I was still running on fumes. I was in that state of anger where it wasn’t aimed at anything specifically anymore and everything served as a potential source to set it off again.

Something Arlethia and Willt noticed. They were sitting at the dinner table when my approach alerted them. They exchanged a long look, while I stomped into the kitchen and rummaged in the fridge for anything I could put inside me right now.

“Something bad happened?” the young warlock asked.

“Yes.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.” Even the greatest of speakers lost all of their abilities to hold an interesting dialogue when their brain was swimming in the chemical cocktail of rage. “Do you mind if I take your milk?” I asked, once realizing I was out of any. I may have been angry, but I wasn’t an asshole.

“Knock yourself out,” Arlethia answered quickly.

“Thanks,” I grabbed a bowl and smashed it on the kitchen counter. Quite literally, as any refinement of motions was lost to brute instincts. Shards of porcelain flew everywhere. “Father in heaven, choke on your stagnancy and die,” I cussed, as if it was the bowl’s fault that I had used too much force on it, then shut my mouth before I could say more mindless things. “This fucking day,” I grumbled instead, while sweeping up the shards with a hand shovel I materialized.The bowl had become the unwilling sacrifice to the anger I did not want to aim at Esther earlier. I may have been able to keep my words in check, but that didn’t mean I was anything more than an angry young man.

With a bit more delicacy, I grabbed a second bowl, put cereal and milk in there, and then went to my room. A giant mattress was not the most advisable environment to consume anything partly liquid, especially not milk, but my care was at an all time low. I managed to eat it all without any spills. At least that was something that was going on for me. Afterwards, I had cooled down a bit, laid down, and let the rest of my anger fade away over the course of an hour.

At which point I found myself exactly as I did this morning, staring at the ceiling and consumed by uncertainty. “Fantastic job, you jackass,” I cursed at myself. The multiple levels of awfulness I had just engaged in started to unravel. “You were just barely able to not scream at the woman you love, she definitely got a better impression of you because of that.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “I can’t remember the last time I was that angry at anything…” The mumbles were only for the room to hear.

I sprawled out and waited for something, anything to happen. A divine revelation to the enigma of hesitating partners. Better yet, a blessing that allowed me to have endless patience while also being firm whenever I needed to be. That was the person I wanted to be, after all.

Perhaps Esther would come in and admit she was in the wrong and that we could go right ahead and form our Anomalia. ‘That’s the remaining anger talking,’ I thought and tried to find all the errors I just made. For once, I was more than happy to assign blame to Esther. Although spoken in rage, I meant everything I said and was convinced of the truth of things. Her inability to overcome her hesitation was the cause of all this hardship. There was little sense in thinking about what she needed to do better though. I could only change myself, so myself was who I had to sort out.

‘Obviously, I shouldn’t have gotten angry.’ After a few moments, I softly shook my head. ‘No, I was perfectly justified to get angry. The problem is that I lost control. I should have shown that her indecisiveness was annoying me and then delivered an ultimatum. Something like, ‘I give you another two weeks to come to a decision, then I’ll look around elsewhere.’ Not that that makes me feel any better about myself.’

I grabbed my head, shouted and kicked the air in a desperate attempt to find some relief of these relationship issues in physical activity. It only helped a little bit and I rolled over on my stomach.

‘Why did I have to fall for the most complicated woman around?’ I asked myself. ‘I could have fucked Karona three times a day for the past month already.’ That was the base male in me talking and I shoved him aside. As much as I liked sex, this was about a bit more than that. ‘Aclysia… I guess she would have her own troubles? She seems a tad better sorted in her life than Esther though…’

I turned around and was on my back again. Through fate and the publicity my victory at the introduction ceremony had brought me, I had multiple genuine opportunities to find other women to start building a harem with. If I started investing all the time I spent with Esther into other advances, there was no doubt I could land with someone. Not to blow my own horn too much, but I was handsome, powerful and smart. None of those three guaranteed a successful relationship. They did mean I had an advantage over the vast majority of other guys though.

‘I should have made a proper ultimatum,’ I repeated to myself. ‘I had already threatened this course of action, adding a date to it would have meant she needed to actually decide and I would have time to prepare myself for the break-up.’

Instead, I was staring at my ceiling, wondering how, if at all, I would speak to the lady I loved tomorrow. I spent hours just lying there. Sometimes I put on a video or some music to distract myself from misery, but it was never successful for too long.

And sleep evaded me for most of the night.

_____________________________________________________________________

I didn’t see Esther at all on Wednesday. I wasn’t even sure if she had even returned to her room at any time. Willt and Arlethia hadn’t seen her either, so all things pointed towards Esther having returned to her own mansion for the moment.

All I could do was try and reach out to her via Ashod, but that felt like an inappropriate option. I would still use it, if I saw no other path forwards. Until there had been at least a few days without contact, however, I wouldn’t stoop down to text messages or awkward phone calls. I wanted to resolve this in person.

Until I stumbled over her again, my best bet was to just follow my regular schedule. A good strategy, since it made her and my path cross again on Thursday. Albeit, not in the way I wanted.

It was in the Café Served. I arrived at 13 hours, about thirty minutes before my shift should start. The floor was absolutely packed, courtesy of some student group taking up a whole quarter of the available tables. The red and black school uniforms stood out in the beige and white room, contrasted with the potted plants and universally made them stand out from the normal customers and the employees in their servant outfits.

I saw Esther walk around with quick and measured steps. It should have been the end of her shift already but she was still in full get-up. The only pause she took was a very forceful halt that came when she spotted me. The empty dishes on the salver she was carrying slid forwards. None of them fell off, such a rookie mistake wouldn’t have happened to her, but it created a series of clanking noises that had a few people look up.

One of whom was Allister, our boss and owner of the establishment. He waved at me with hurried movements and I, with no idea what else to do, obliged and walked in his direction. “Could you do me the favor and start early?” he asked and gestured towards the busy room. “Esther is staying overtime, but I don’t think that’ll be enough. I’ll pay you the extra hour.”

Although this was not the environment that I wanted to interact with Esther in again, my sense of duty made me nod instinctively. Allister had been nothing but nice and obliging so far, he had even taken the risk that came with hiring two young lovers at the same time. This was the absolute least I could do for him. “Don’t worry about the money,” I therefore responded and hurried into the back area.

My uniform was quickly gathered together, all of it being exactly where I had left it on Monday. I had changed in less than ten minutes and went out into the battlefield of dining service.

My weapon was the electronic device that we used to keep track of orders and their state of completion. Colour-coding made the initial overlay easy to get. Red meant a table had yet to have their orders taken, orange that they were waiting on what they had asked for, yellow stood for orders being available and waiting in the kitchen and green meant that the table currently had everything they could ask for. Aside from those, there was white for an empty table, grey for a table that needed to be cleaned and black for a table that had been reserved.

I tapped on one of the yellow tables to find out what I was supposed to fetch from the kitchen and got to work. As chances would have it, and the chances for this were quite high, Esther was already present and loading the two meals onto her salver. “What does the boss tell me I need to start early for when you have a clear handle on things?” I asked with a reflexive smile.

Esther was as surprised to hear my friendly tone as I was to have spoken it, albeit I hid it a bit better. “As competent as I might be, I cannot be at two places at once,” she answered with a slight smile, as two more finished meals were placed on the counter between the kitchen and the server’s area. It was a hip-high wall that separated the place where everything was cooked from the storing room for drinks and snacks that required little to no preparation. One was the domain of us servants, the other was reserved for the cooks.

“I’m sure you could be if you tried hard enough,” I complimented, grabbed myself a salver of my own and placed the two meals on top of it. Took me a second to find out which table they belonged to, but then I followed her into the customer area. There was a big smile on my face as I served the meals and none of it was fake.

As much as I wanted to continue the talk we had, in calmer spirits if possible, retaining our ability to banter was a good sign that there was no permanent damage to the relationship. There was an argument to be made that this meant she hadn’t taken me seriously. Given her reaction when she first saw me, I doubted it though.

Our conversation went on seamlessly in the little breaks and during short meetings in the customer area. Every sentence had a minute or two between them, but we didn’t mind. It was a little game that we played while we served food to whatever student society had decided to take their lunch in the café today.

“I would think your powers are more suitable towards duplication,” Esther said while making a cup of cappuccino.

“I could make an empty puppet, you could try summoning your past self for help,” I went on, when we passed each other.

“It is inadvisable to mess with the timeline in such blatant a fashion. Hypothetically, were I to find myself able to utilize such an ability, I would abstain,” she responded as we waited for a few meals to get finished up.

“A real shame, I would give my left hand to hold two of you.”

“Your condition and your goal are in opposition.”

“A little paradox I’m willing to make if you mess with the flow of time for me,” I smiled before I drank a little bit of tap water to keep myself fresh. “That aside, maybe I could make a new one with my powers, if we increase our abilities by such hypothetical absurdities.”

“Perhaps you could,” Esther answered and marched back out into the customer area to start cleaning the tables. Something I joined her in. The large group of students had left, leaving a lot to be cleared and the pace of the business slowed to the usual level.

While we cleaned, our happy little conversation continued and then petered off into nothing. Without the pressure of work to stretch it out, it came to a conclusion fairly quickly. “Guess you can finally finish up your shift,” I suggested, trying to keep the carefree attitude from going.

“It appears so,” Esther agreed, not sounding like she wanted to go along with that anymore. Turning towards me she started, “Karitas, I…” only to look around and shake her head. “…I can only apologize.”

Although I hadn’t known it, that was the last thing I wanted to hear and I pressed my lips together. This time I was somewhat prepared for the bitterness that overcame me at hearing her stalling and I managed to keep a cool head. “I don’t want to hear that, Esther,” I spoke the truth in as calm a fashion as I could. “I need some sort of answer.”

“I know… what I can say is…” Those words trailed off, never achieving anything aside from an awkward pause. Her fingers nervously clawed into her maid uniform. “There are things I’m afraid to show you, that much I admit. I understand that I am selfish in leaving you with uncertainty. I swear that we will have a talk about us, sooner rather than later.”

That was, at the very least, a clear improvement of where we had left off. “Thank you,” I nodded and gave her a warm smile. “Seriously though, you should end your shift already. You’re more than an hour in overtime. It’s time for you to get lunch, right?”

“You are correct,” Esther nodded and sighed, the pulling hand turning to one resting on an empty stomach. That she was this docile in her behavior despite a doubtless state of hunger spoke to a level of bad conscience that made me regret putting her in this state in the first place. It was also strangely adorable. The human mind was a mystery. “Thank you for being considerate, good Karitas. Genuinely.”

Further talks were interrupted by the ringing sound of a new customer entering. I put away the washing cloth and went to the entrance to do the usual greeting. No matter how much I wanted to continue talking to her, I had a job to do. Esther took that opening to walk towards the employee area.

I guided the customer towards one of the many empty tables. The rush hour was over, at least as far as our restaurant was concerned, and now began the long lull that lasted until the evening hours. The new arrival ordered a coffee and some cookies. Just some snacks to eat while they read the news or something. Not all that unusual.

When I stood in front of the coffee machine, I let out a gargantuan sigh of relief, anticipation and uncertainty. I had hoped to let that out in relative isolation, but my boss chose exactly that moment to enter the room as well. Whatever he wanted to originally say to me, Allister kept to himself. Instead, he leaned against the wall and adjusted his monocle. The pose didn’t quite fit the mustache-wearing man’s image of a 19th century butler of British royalty.

“Do you have trouble with your lady?” he asked. The wonder how he guessed that must have been written all over my face, as he added, “I noticed Esther isn’t eating here today, so you must have something bad going on.”

I just nodded. “I think it’s getting better though?”

“You sound doubtful.”

“Because I am, which is part of the issue.” I watched the coffee trickle into the cup and gave into the urge to talk about things. It was much easier to do so with my boss than it was with my friends. Maybe because I was calmer today. Maybe because he was older and an authority figure. Maybe because he was less involved in my private life. “I want us to advance our relationship, she can’t decide, and I don’t know how much more I want to push her on the topic.”

“Until she gives you what you want,” Allister said with absolute certainty and I looked at him with a bamboozled expression. As much as I thought I belonged in the category of romantically aggressive people, that sounded a bit strong even for me. The head butler elaborated, “Look, that isn’t general life advice. I remember why you originally came here and I have seen you two interact for over a month now. Has she gotten angry with you about pushing her?”

“No… the opposite, really,” I said and watched the last few drops of coffee drip down.

“Then you shouldn’t let up until you have an answer. Just remember the three Cs: be confident, calm and a bit of a cunt.” Hearing the butler drop that word so casually had even me surprised. He smiled. “Look, as much as we all like to pretend that you can get all things in life by being nice, there are things you can only get if you pursue them with insistence.”

“That’s true enough,” I agreed, since that fit with my life experience as well. There was a large difference between assertive and forceful. To put it in very blunt terms, the former got one laid and the latter made one a rapist.

“Great that we understand each other,” Allister stepped forwards and calmly took my place in front of the coffee machine. “Now, go get her,” he said and grabbed the cup I was meant to bring to the customer.

I needed a second to digest the meaning of those words, the last few minutes were a bit high on the unexpected development side, “Wait… you mean…?”

“A little tip, if you exit the city to the northeast and get over the hill, you will find the exit of a maintenance tunnel. The road going out of it leads up the central mountain. It’s an easy walk and the view is spectacular.” My boss gave me a little wink behind the monocle. “There are more good excuses for a young man to miss work than sickness.”

“But… the evening rush hour…”

“Let that be my worry,” Allister said and already walked out to deliver the coffee. “A happy employee is a good employee, Karitas!” It sounded like he was trying to give me his rationale, but the lie was rather thin. “Just remember to leave the uniform here.”

I hurried into the employee area and undid the buttons as quickly as possible without tearing them. It was against the code of the café, but I threw all of the parts over the same coat hanger and left it for someone else to figure out. There probably would be some wrinkles as well, but I had an inkling suspicion that the only reason why Allister had told me to leave the uniform was to avoid the kind of stains that were not easily removed.

Grass, of course, that was the only thing I meant with that.

Those kinds of stains could get rubbed into white clothing really easily during hard, repetitive moves. Like fucking, just as a random example.

‘I’m getting distracted and too hopeful,’ I reprimanded my joking side as I put the last bit of my uniform together. As much as I liked to take life with a bit of sugar, to inverse a popular idiom, this was not the time. Instead, I grabbed my Ashod. Enough time had passed that I was worried Esther could have already left the city, so I had to shoot her a message. ‘Where are you?’ it simply read.

‘On my way to the train station – Why?’ The answer came quickly, thankfully.

‘Wait for me there.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do.’ After half a second, I added. ‘I beg of you.’

‘Alright.’

I pushed my Ashod back into its holster in my belt, grabbed my bag, and left the building. Although I had gotten her word on her staying, my beating heart spurred me into a sprint. An absurd amount of adrenaline pumped through my system. Even though my boss had told me it was fine, leaving work like this still felt pretty adventurous. Not to mention the fact that I was about to do something mildly crazy.

My feet hammered on the pavement, as I made my way through the streets. There were a lot of people on the street, all relocating in the aftermath of the lunch rush. Regular residents of Welldark City and hundreds of students, all taking their leisurely stroll back to work and university. I made my way through with relative ease, the streets were broad enough to handle this many people. I just had to swerve around them.

I arrived at the train station and looked around for Esther. There was no need to look around for long. Although she wore the same school uniform as the majority of the crowd, her tricorne and the white feather on it were easily spotted. The lady of my desires was sitting on a bench, munching on some sort of cheese-covered baked good. A crumpled-up piece of packaging indicated that this wasn’t her first one.

When I approached, she looked at me like I was a mythical creature casually strolling out of the forest. “Karitas?” she asked, while I was gathering my breath. “Your shift continues for another six hours, what is the meaning of this?”

“Obviously I…” One thought stumbled over the other and a question surfaced before I could give her an answer. “Wait, did you agree to wait thinking it would take me six hours to get here?”

“Yes,” she answered like it was the clearest thing in the world. “I restate: why are you here at this point in time?”

“Allister let me go… never mind that,” I waved off before she could ask me more questions. Instead, I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s have a date!” I declared.

With all that had happened in the last 24 hours, she must have been mighty confused by now. “I still have classes today,” she voiced a weak protest, while I took her away from the train station.

“You already confirmed you would have waited here the rest of the day, that won’t fly,” I dismantled that in a moment’s notice.

“The trash…” she started, only for me to let go of her hand. It was just for a few seconds, as long as it took me to run back to the bench, grab the packaging she had left lying on the bench, throw it in the nearest trash can, and return.

“No more trash,” I told her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Anything else you have to say to try to stop this from happening?”

“I never wanted us to not have a date, however sudden. It simply strikes me as inappropriate.” Her amber gaze met mine and for a moment it was like the awkwardness of Tuesday had never happened. Then she must have remembered and lowered her eyes.

“It is wholly inappropriate,” I told her, while once more taking the lead over our steps. “I’m skipping out on work and making you skip out on your classes. However, I’m allowed to skip and attendance isn’t mandatory, so we’ll be fine.” I gave her my warmest smile and pulled her a slight bit closer. “We’ll be fine,” I repeated, this time with a hopeful tone, changing the meaning of those words.

“You do not know that,” Esther asserted.

“True enough, but I feel it,” I responded.

“That is not a worthwhile substitute.”

“Just for today, I disagree with that.”

“Will you tell me what this is about or where we are going?” she looked around, our steps carrying us past dozens of shops and restaurants I would have stirred towards during a normal date already. Waiting for my answer, she took a bite of her meal. I was honestly lucky that she had decided to get something to eat before I caught up to her. This was not something I wanted her easily irritable for.

“No and I don’t know.” Nibbling on her cheese-covered bread, she gave me a glare. “I know only how to get there, not where our destination is. Therefore, our steps should carry us there eventually and anticipation will hold both of us.”

She rolled her eyes and we went the rest of the way in relative silence, only stopping when she had finished that second bread and had to discard the additional packaging. It was a good silence, as far as I could make out. The tension of Tuesday’s confrontation was still between us, there was no way to get rid of it aside from resolving the issue, but it wasn’t what dominated our dynamic. We were still Karitas and Esther, two honest people attracted to each other, getting along splendidly.

As per Allister’s instructions, we left the city to the northeast. While it wasn’t exactly clear which hill he had meant, once we were on top of the highest one, spotting the maintenance tunnel wasn’t difficult. As described, a grey, paved road led out of it and we followed its path.

It was a longer walk than I had anticipated, close to an hour in total. At first, Esther couldn’t hold back a bit of sarcastic commentary. Once the road led up the mountain, however, those comments quickly ceased. The craggy exterior of brown stone was covered with large patches of grass-covered dirt and the occasional tree. The narrow road we followed did fairly little to interrupt nature and we saw a couple of deer and a whole lot of smaller animals, primarily bunnies and squirrels, roll around.

It was the most genuine nature that I had seen in a while. Be it due to noises or other factors, the direct surroundings of the dormitories were devoid of visible wildlife. Oddly enough, the animals didn’t seem to mind us. Sure, they were wary of our approach and darted away if we came a bit too close, but if we stayed more than five steps away, they only looked at us with curious eyes. Perhaps they were already accustomed to people. Perhaps they just thought that this environment was safe. Who really knew?

Eventually, the steady rise of the road brought us so high up that we could see our house in the distance. The small cluster of mansions stood separated from the twin skyscrapers for the rest of the first-year students. Between them was a verdant forest that stretched from there all the way to this mountain. Behind all of that were the two shades of blue from the surrounding water and the artificial sky, stretching over the edge of this snow globe of a dimensional pocket.

For a moment I thought this was the spectacular view Allister told me about. The way he had phrased things. ‘No, he specifically said the top,’ I thought and continued walking.

I didn’t regret that decision for a moment.

The road cut a path through a massive ridge that encircled a crater atop the mountain. Following it to its end would have led us to some sort of mansion-storehouse hybrid that was closely nestled against the inside of that ridge. Neither Esther nor I had any interest in going there. Instead, our steps naturally carried us off the street and onto the grass beyond it.

The crater was filled with magical sights. Pine, ash, birch and a large number of other trees stood with considerable distance from each other on a green field that wrapped around a central lake of crystal-clear water. Endlessly, a massive fountain at the centre of the crater spewed more water into the air. The sparking drops flew high up and created an everlasting rainbow that spanned from one side of the crater to the river that let excess water flow away on the other.

Esther initiated the motion of sitting down, only a few steps away from the edge of the lake. I let her pull me down, our hands still connected. We had clearly arrived where we meant to be. Much like Tuesday, she was sitting in front of me, and I put both my arms around her in a protective embrace. Birds chirped in the distance, singing over the steady sound of the rushing, clear liquid before us.

“A central reservoir,” the raven-haired woman suddenly said.

“Hm?” I asked what she meant without raising my voice.

“This place’s presumed purpose,” she asserted and pointed at the fountain. “A water-managing magical apparatus must be installed underneath this mountain. By pumping water from the underside of Welldark’s sphere through filtration and measurement systems, they continue the flow of the rivers that cover the island.” Her finger moved onto the trees and then the building we had ignored. “Likely, they also store seeds of the wanted bio-diversity here.”

“Not the most romantic topic, given the view,” I jokingly reprimanded.

“If that is your contention, bothersome Karitas, it is on you to finally unveil the point of us reaching this destination,” she returned and gave me a light smile before looking out over the lake again. “Although you are correct, the view is fantastic.”

‘It’s better from here,’ I thought, smelling her citrusy hair. It was the final breath I took before cutting into the topic. “I’m sorry for the way I left you.”

Esther shook her head. “Your anger with me is justified.”

I expected more, but she left it there. I had apologized for my fault and she had acknowledged hers. That was satisfying in its own way but didn’t help our current situation. I had to push things further, even if it was going to be uncomfortable for both of us, if I wanted this resolved. “Then let us decide things.”

Expectedly, Esther tensed up at that line. “Karitas, as previously said, I am…”

“You’re uncertain, yes,” I said and wrestled down whatever resentment I felt about that. Today, I wasn’t going to let myself be controlled by impulses. “Do you want to be with me, Esther?” I asked, wanting to approach this simply.

“…Yes,” she answered quietly and pulled her legs up to her chest again. “I fail to comprehend how I could ever want something as much as I want you,” her whispers reached me and I cradled her softly between my arms.

Things were very similar to how they went before, but I was calmer and she appeared more open. That could make all the difference and I decided to nudge her along, ever so gently. “What is stopping you?”

“I’m afraid,” she answered.

“Afraid of what?” I asked in an earnest tone. I didn’t want her to feel like it was a ridiculous idea. A binding relationship, with all its perks, was a thing not to be gotten into lightly. Especially since both of us hid so much. “Afraid of my secrets? Afraid that I might reject you for yours?”

“That’s approaching the truth of it,” she nodded. “It’s that… lower even than my secrets, something that has been caused by what I h-hide, there are…” she hesitated, stuttered, the nervousness was in her every gesture and she pulled the tricorne deep into her face to hide what little I could see of her, “…there are… things on my body Karitas. If you see them, you might think I’m hideous and if you reject me for it, I’m uncertain if my heart can take it.”

I had long since guessed that she was hiding something. That it was the thing that had her hesitate this much did cause me to pause as a clump formed in my stomach. I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t sure how I would react if the parts of her that I hadn’t seen were destroyed in disgusting ways. I was a man of bodily desires, I knew that and she knew that, so her fear wasn’t unjustified. How would I react? Did I care for her enough that I could ignore even the worst ways she could be disfigured? I didn’t know and that scared me as well.

It took me a whole minute to wrestle with that fear. A minute that must have been pure torture for her, while I searched for what I could say, what I had to say, so we could go on. What it was, finally, wasn’t reassuring. It was only true. “But we’ll have to risk it, Esther,” I told her.

Finally, she turned her head again. A single tear rolled from her eyes as she looked at me. She wasn’t shocked, she knew I had to say it. A resigned acceptance had replaced her usually boldly stern expression, as I recounted the common wisdom to her.

“You know I cannot wait forever. I can give you another week, in the name of creation, I can give you another month if you need it, but at some point I will have to leave you for my own sanity.” I never stopped holding her, never averted my eyes, while I told her what had to be said. “It will hurt me and you will be forever left with the uncertainty of what might have happened. You might lose if you do it, Esther, but you will lose guaranteed if you don’t.”

The birds chirped, the water rushed and Esther’s second tear rolled over her face. “Tell me, my Karitas,” she whispered.

“Tell you what?” I had to ask, feeling like I failed her by having to do so.

“Tell me what you feel for me. Without fancy metaphors or large monologues.”

“I love you,” I said without hesitation. I wished it was the first time I said this to her, but past mistakes couldn’t be undone.

“I love you too, Karitas,” she responded and her teary gaze became a little bit dreamy, as if these few words healed the entire world. In a way, between the two of us, they did. Then she closed her eyes and let out a long, long, quiet sigh. After all the air had left her, she smiled, broadly, her pink lips stretching as far as they could. Once she opened them again, they were still wet, but it didn’t seem like she would cry any more. They expressed happiness and readiness. “Can you create a shelter around us?”

I saw where this was going. “Are you certain you want to do it now?” After all the pushing I just did, having gotten her to this point already was enough that I would have settled for the day.

“No, we will not ‘do it’,” she responded, I only got that she was joking when she continued, “your imprecise formulations are exploitable at times like these, beloved Karitas.” That title was two steps up from ‘good Karitas’ and even better than ‘my Karitas’, I had to say.

“Are you certain you want to show me what you’re hiding now?” I asked more clearly. “I can give you more time if you want to prepare yourself.”

“No, I left you waiting long enough,” she took her hat and placed it to the side. “This will only hurt more a month from now, if my worst fears are realized. Further, I don’t know if I can conjure this boldness again in the future. Let me take this risk now, while I feel convinced that you will accept all I am.” Her hands rose to her first button and she halted expectantly. “If you can create a shelter here. I will risk no other eyes on this or all other worlds seeing what I’m about to unveil to you.”

“I can,” I said. It would take a fair bit of Astral Capacity, but it was definitely possible. Especially since it had to be nothing elegant. I backed off to give her the necessary room to undress and closed my eyes to initiate the conjuration. I imagined a basic cubicle with a roof, encapsulating us on all sides except the front. If she had any concerns about that, she was free to correct me. As it was, that was the sole direction I didn’t feel threatened by and I wanted to preserve the view.

“Keep your eyes closed until I tell you I’m ready,” I heard her say instead. I obliged, as hard as that was when I heard her clothes ruffle. The mixture of anticipation, fear and general desire to see her naked mixed to form something very confusing and unpleasant. “…You may look now,” I finally heard her say.

Despite that lustful desire, I only opened my eyes slowly. It was the weakest of those three emotions and died the moment I laid eyes on her. Her back was still turned towards me. The strap of her bra covered a thin strip of it, but the rest was laid bare for me to see. The last bit of clothing made little difference; I could see what she meant to hide in all its gruesomeness.

It was a scar. A series of scars, rather, most of them were clear cut and thin, with that white, raised texture that well-healed scars usually had. The largest one was a continuous circle, starting below the neckline and ending at the middle of her back. A total of fourteen lines crossed through that. Twelve of them were arranged like the positions on a clock, the one for 12 and 6 being the longest ones and covering almost the entirety of her spine. The shape was a cruel irony given her time powers.

Not for a moment did I believe that it was by accident. Such an intricate, symmetrical shape was impossible to create by accident or by herself. Whoever did this had done so for mockery’s sake and the way it had all healed indicated that they had done it after depleting her Astral Capacity. An Astral Body would have healed those wounds without leaving scars. The only way to create such lasting marks on someone that knew the Dimensional Truth was to heal them in a deliberately incomplete fashion in the time it took to regenerate the Astral Capacity. Then, once the body had ‘saved’ those scars as part of the normal appearance, they were near impossible to remove. I knew nobody that could and I doubted anybody on Welldark could either. It would take a powerful entity and an immense amount of trust to let someone fleshcraft something like that away.

The last two scars were different. They were lines crossing the circle as well, but not in the same fashion. They ran parallel to the outline of her shoulder blades and were about as long as well, a handspan of space between them and the centre of her back. Each was as broad as three fingers. Where the other thirteen scars looked like some sort of tribal marking, aesthetic despite their gruesome origin, those two were simply awful. Their texture was uneven, their colour closer to that of her skin, but with a pinkish, fleshy note, making them stand out. It was like something had been ripped out of her there.

As gently as I could, I touched those scars, my eyes alone didn’t let me believe what I was seeing. The enormous one felt unpleasantly rough, the slim ones were smooth and only bad because of their intentional placement. “Who did this to you?” My voice was cold as ice. Any emotion I had previously felt had been washed away by a rage that I desperately needed to guide towards something.

“My family,” Esther said and the contempt for those unknown individuals formed rapidly. Not even the best of explanations could possibly justify this in its entirety. “Hideous, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone beyond misery. Her entire body quivered under my touch.

It pulled me away from my hatred for those not present and back to the moment. Someday, I could have the opportunity to act on this contempt, but right at that moment, there was only me and her and the need to say the right thing. “It is hideous,” I said truthfully and pulled her towards me, until I could no longer see her scars, “but you aren’t,” I whispered into her ear, “you are beautiful.”

I heard a choked sob of joyful sadness and a whirl of movements later, Esther was facing me. Crying without holding back, she embraced me tightly. Her tears stained my shoulder and I couldn’t help but cry with her. All of her hesitation, all her fears made complete sense to me now. I would have said more to ease her pain, but she gathered herself remarkably fast and cupped my face with her hands.

“I am ready now, beloved Karitas,” she said and slowly leaned in, as if to give me a last chance to pull back.

Refusal didn’t even enter my mind as an option, as I answered the motion. Our lips met. The luscious pink was even softer than I had dreamed of. The salty taste of tears lasted only for a few seconds, as I eased her into opening herself up. It was her first kiss and I took the lead, aiming to make it as memorable as I could be, beyond the sadness, relief and joy of this moment itself.

I placed my hand on her neck, while I guided her through the process wordlessly. The almost innocent connection of our lips soon turned into something more intimate and less pure. She was clumsy and a natural, a combination that was as adorable as it was pleasing. The longer I kept her, the better she got at answering the demanding way I pressed onto her. Gently, I probed with my tongue. The unfamiliar sensation caused her to shrink back for a moment, technically ending our first kiss, but it picked up so quickly again that I refused to count it on practicality. With growing confidence, she answered my advances and then repaid them in kind. She tasted sweet, a bit minty even, with a strangely comical aftertaste of cheese from her recent meal. Reality had its way to mingle unexpected notes into the ongoing musical of life.

Esther moaned, a sound that may have been meant to be a word, but she didn’t put the proper distance in to actually speak. Not that I would have let her go quite yet, as I still craved more of her. Greedily, I continued to make out with her, as I felt some sort of tingle slip into me where our bodies connected.

It was her Astral Capacity. She pushed it into me as raw power, a harmless ritual that could do absolutely nothing, not in the trickling amounts she was doing it. Any more and I would have reflexively shut her out anyway, influencing another person’s body was tremendously difficult. I realized what she was doing after a few seconds.

She was going through the initial stage of the Anomalia ritual. I didn’t answer to it and neither did she seem intent on letting me, letting her power ebb away after a bit. Whoever initiated the ritual would be the head of the Anomalia that formed. This was an invitation, a wordless guarantee, that she would oblige if I pushed for it now.

‘When she had said she was ready now, she meant more than just a kiss,’ I realized and gathered my Astral Capacity. Just like she had done, I let the magic wash through our kiss. At first, it felt cold, like holding my hand under a stream of water, except I was the stream of water AND the hand. I could feel a tiny part of me spread through her without resistance and then, once I had filled her, she responded.

Pleasantly warm, her energy went into me. It felt like a deeply relaxing force was washing around my bones, making me feel secure and awake to the core. A truly euphoric feeling, as if I was stretching after having truly slept well and I didn’t even feel a tinge of tiredness. Our powers intertwined, lingered in each other, left a mark that would last permanently unless removed by a force only we could muster. I could simultaneously feel my power coalesce in her body as I felt hers in mine.

It was hot, almost unpleasantly so, as the Astral Capacity seared a visible mark into the ringfinger of my right hand. For her, it was the left. We continued to kiss to distract ourselves from that final bit of bother and only stopped once the ritual was completed. Curiosity overcame the greed we felt for each other’s body.

I looked at my hand first. It was pretty unspectacular. The Anomalia mark of a leader had the shape of a black circle that ran around the first segment of the finger. Two lines crossed it, indicating that two of the ‘cards’ were in use, a number card and the Queen card. There was no further information on that mark. If there had been, it wouldn’t have taken people so long to figure out a working system behind it. I could distantly feel this new extension of my soul. It was like a new sense had been unlocked and I didn’t quite know what to do with it yet. With some more usage and time, I would be able to instinctively feel who took up which slots, but for the moment I had to look at Esther’s hand to know what number she consumed.

I looked at her raised, left hand, which she inspected with wide open eyes. Her mark differed only in position and the meaning of the lines. Rather than the number of cards in use, hers depicted how much the capacity of the Anomalia she consumed. Had she had 5 lines, for example, it would have meant she was half as strong as I was. 20 lines would have meant she was twice as strong and also that she consumed numerous cards. I already knew that wasn’t true, but it was a possibility in general.

We were both surprised to see her marks, for equal and opposite reasons, as a total of ten lines crossed it. Turning her hand, counting with her lips silently moving, Esther made double sure of that fact and I did my best to check repeatedly myself. ‘That means she was holding back at the entrance ceremony,’ it shot through my mind, just as she looked at me and likely realized the same. “Our secrets have more weight than we perhaps anticipated,” I said. I had anticipated the need to give her a lengthy explanation why she ended up with a six or a seven, not this.

“So it appears…” Esther nodded and turned to grab her shirt.

“Are you angry?” I asked, afraid we were in for a new drama after we had just gotten through all of this.

She shook her head and gave me a little smile as she hurriedly covered her back. Even after having revealed them to me, she seemed a lot more comfortable once she had her shirt on. I couldn’t blame her. “Although this confuses me, I chose to face this with you, beloved Karitas. This is all the certainty I require.”

I had the urge to kiss her again, but the lady of my love already stood and buttoned up her shirt. “By all in creation, I love you,” I blurted out instead and managed to make her blush a little bit while she wiped the remainder of her tears off her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

“I believe you, how wonderful,” she laughed like an innocent girl that was in love for the first time in her life and, as far as I knew, that was largely true. “I offer you a proposal for the rest of this day, my Karitas,” she said, standing in front of me, as the shelter I made began to fall apart and be absorbed back into me. After the Anomalia bond creation, my resources were more depleted than I liked.

“I will gladly hear it,” I said and listened with anticipation.

“We should take the rest of the day with responsibility. If you return to work now, you can still help with the dinner rush and I can still catch my last class for today.” That was extremely boring and I did not want that to be what today ended with whatsoever. “Then, once we are home, and have had our meals and our showers, you can expect me in your room to spend the night.”

“…You mean…?” I asked.

“Yes,” was all she needed to say and I changed my position from sitting, to kneeling before her. “I have no reason to withhold what you want anymore, my beloved King.”

“Then I will take your proposal,” I said and took her left hand, kissing the ring-mark that I had made there. “My one and only Queen.”

She was finally mine.