Rori and Karyn sat on the balcony that was attached to her bedroom. It had two chairs with a small table between them on the left side of the balcony and a two-person love seat on the right. It was this larger chair that they both sat in now. Rori’s legs were propped up on the railing and Karyn was leaning against his side with her legs dangling over the opposite armrest.

  The night air was calm and cool. The moon, though not full, was still large enough to give a soft glow that illuminated the yard. Down below and off to the side the sound of conversation and laughter could be heard from the larger patio. Two families of Karyn’s in-laws had arrived earlier in the day, and they were having an impromptu party of their own.

  “So, you are leaving tomorrow,” said Karyn.

  “I’d respond to that, only you’ve already made the same comment like five other times,” said Rori. “Even if I wasn’t leaving tomorrow, you still would be. The Senate is back in session, and you have a job to do back in Lorenthia.”

  “I know, but I don’t want it to end,” Karyn said wistfully. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but this time together has been pretty close to perfect.”

  “You’re not wrong. But there is no reason why we can’t have another almost perfect time together later.”

  “We can say that, but it won’t happen,” Karyn replied.

  “Why not? Don’t you want me to come back?”

  “You had better come back,” Karyn said elbowing him in the ribs. “That’s not my point. It’s just that right now things are new and exciting and so full of potential. It’s the magic of a new relationship and of new . . .”

  Karyn trailed off but then started anew. “The next time will be wonderful too. But it won’t be the same. Of course, if we stayed here too long, it would eventually change anyway.”

  “You were going to say ‘love’,” Rori said.

  “I was,” she admitted, “but I didn’t want to freak you out. Maybe you don’t feel the same.”

  After a moment of quiet contemplation by both, Rori said, “Well what’s to love really? You live in this hovel. You’re a dried up, old widow and you have no prospects for a career. I’ve done you a favor just by being here.”

  Though she said nothing, Rori could tell without even looking that she was smiling. Then before she could make any sort of reply he said,

  “I love you, Karyn. Don’t worry, I’ll be back even if I have to walk here. Wherever here is.”

  “You know that stream that runs into the pond?” Karyn replied trying to keep her voice even, but Rori could hear the hidden emotion in it.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you followed it off of the grounds and west a couple of miles, it would go up into some hills.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you went to the other side of those hills, you would find the start of another stream that runs to the west. That stream is the start of the Lycee River. Now you can find me whenever you’d like. And I know you just said you loved me and I’m going to treasure that forever, even though it came after the old crone comment, but if later when you are back to your regular life you decide that maybe you misspoke, I won’t hold it against you. All I ask is that you tell me somehow so that I know. We crones can’t spend all of our time pining for unrequited love.”

  “I guess at this point I just have three problems,” said Rori. “First, I didn’t call you an old crone. I said you were a dried up, old widow. There’s a difference. And second, I’d like to think I have at least some idea of what my heart is feeling and let me assure you that there is no chance that I’m going to decide you aren’t worth pursuing. I fell off a mountain cliff, was smashed to a pulp and that didn’t stop me.”

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything more, Karyn replied, “That was sweet, but didn’t make a lot of sense. Also, you said three things and that was only two. Well, one thing and a jumble of a second one. What was the third?”

  “The third is that I think you are wearing the wrong clothes.”

  “The wrong clothes?”

  “Yeah, you need to either put that red dress on again or take everything off. Your choice.”

  “I think I’ll leave the dress off. The prospect of seeing me in it again will give you another reason to hurry back.”

  “Fair enough. You can haunt my dreams with your beauty,” said Rori standing up. He then turned and scooped Karyn up in his arms and began walking back into the bedroom. “C’mon old crone. Let’s see what else might get me hurrying back.”

  With a half meow, half growl, the cat darted out from under the bed. Rori took a step back in an effort to avoid the animal, but the cat was already heading behind him. He ended up stumbling backward to avoid stepping on the cat while not dropping Karyn. He’d almost regained his balance when he noticed the lady standing by the bedroom door. A lady that had definitely not been standing there moments before.

  “Sorry, am I interrupting?” the lady asked.

  Rori stepped back again and tripped back over the cat. This time he completely lost his balance as the cat was almost like a stone beneath his foot. He also somehow lost ahold of Karyn, and he fell ungracefully into the chair that was behind him.

  He braced himself expecting Karyn to end up falling on top of him, but the impact never came. Looking up, he was surprised to find Karyn still frozen in place, suspended in the air and the cat standing stiff right where he had tripped over it.

  “Well, that was a bit of a mess, wasn’t it? Sorry about that, Rori. I’ll be gone in a moment, and everything will be fine.”

  Rori looked at the woman more closely. Her tone of voice seemed to indicate some familiarity, but he was fairly certain he had never seen her before in his life.

  She was wearing a simple dress that was a blue that bordered on being lavender. The bottom edge of the dress was above the woman’s knees, but it had strip of nearly invisible mesh that ran around the dress about three inches above that. The effect was that it looked like the bottom of the dress was a band that floated several inches below the rest of the dress. It also meant the edge above the mesh band revealed quite a lot of the woman’s legs.

  Her hair was a dark brown that was braided and pulled back into a ponytail that ended several inches below her shoulders. Her skin was a little bit lighter with a reddish undertone and her eyes were somewhere between the two. She had a band on her upper left arm that looked like a silver cord with a knot in it.

  “I believe this is the first time you’ve met me. Isn’t that right?” she asked.

  “As I have no idea who you are, or how you got in here, I would definitely agree that we have never met.”

  “I’m Mera,” she said as if it explained everything.

  “I’m Rori,” he responded not sure what else to say.

  “Yes, I know.” And then when it became clear that Rori was still confused she added. “I’m the goddess of time. I’ve actually met you several times now, but this is your first for me. I realize it can seem a bit confusing sometimes. But it’s fine.”

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  Rori looked back at Karyn where she still hung unmoving in the air and then back at the cat. He realized that in addition to their immobility, nothing else in the room was moving either. On top of that, he could no longer hear the party out on the patio or any other sounds at all.

  “Not frozen in place,” he said, “but frozen in time.”

  “Exactly. You have always been a quick study,” Mera said.

  It struck Rori that unlike all of the other gods he had met, Mera did not seem to have that sense of divinity that would always wash over and through you when gods appeared. It wasn’t that she didn’t look like a goddess. She had that embedded beauty that goddesses all seemed to have. It was just that her presence was much more subdued and less overpowering.

  “Does time always stop when you are around?” he asked as he stepped back over the cat and closer to Mera.

  “It doesn’t have to, but it is easier to talk when you don’t have to worry about interruption or anyone spying.”

  “Karyn won’t have any idea that any of this happened?” Rori said waving a hand in front of her face.

  “That’s not entirely true. I haven’t actually stopped time completely. We are just packing a whole lot into a tiny span. If she was paying attention, she might notice a short burst of sound of all we say compressed into a microsecond of time.”

  “What’s a microsecond?” Rori asked.

  “It’s a very small amount of time but never mind about that.”

  “Okay. Are you also here to scope me out and see if I’m worth stealing?”

  “Oh no. That’s not my thing. Besides, if I want to see what you’re made of, I can always zip to the future and see for myself.”

  “And have you?”

  “Of course. What kind of time goddess would I be otherwise?”

  “And how do I do?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “But you just said you went and saw it,” said Rori with confusion.

  “No, I said I went to a future and saw you. Whether or not that future actually comes to take place remains to be seen.”

  “The future can change?”

  “Of course. In fact, it already has. When I went to see you, I had never had this conversation with you before. Now I have. That will probably affect your future decisions. Maybe a lot. Maybe a little. Who knows?”

  “I would have thought you would.”

  “I probably have a better guess than most, but even I can’t say for sure.”

  “Sounds confusing to me. What’s the point in looking at the future if it will only change?”

  “The future may change, and it may only change in small ways. But even if events completely change, you are still you. At heart who a person is rarely changes.

  “Fair enough,” said Rori stepping over to the side table to grab the pitcher of water and a glass that sat there. Only when he grabbed the pitcher it would not move from the table. Neither could he move the glass at all. It was as if both were permanently attached to the table.

  “Those are frozen in time too. You can unfreeze them if you’d like. Just hold onto them for a few seconds and they should slip free.”

  Rori carefully pulled on both and after a moment they both slowly began to slide towards him. They scraped against the table with a feeling that was much like stone sliding on stone, even though the table was wood, and they were both glass. As they moved towards him, they gained speed, and the strange resistance disappeared until finally he was holding them in his hands. He tipped the pitcher over and attempted to pour the water into the glass, but the water remained frozen in time in the bottom of the pitcher.

  “Sorry, I should have said. It will take the water a moment more to catch up as well.”

  Rori set everything back onto the table.

  “Perhaps you should just tell me why you are here?” he said.

  “Good point. The truth is that I don’t have a reason. Most of the others have spoken with you and I figured I better introduce myself so that when we need to work together later, we can avoid this confusion at that point.”

  “Why would we work together?”

  “I didn’t say that we definitely would. Meredith and I often have joint projects and such. And you are definitely one of her adherents.”

  The more they spoke the less Rori believed this woman was a goddess. She seemed like most of the other adventurers or advanced military types he had interacted with in the past. She was confident and he had no doubt she was powerful. She had, at the very least, frozen time in this room, but she just didn’t seem like a god.

  “And you aren’t here to snatch me away from her or something else?”

  “Rori if I wanted to do you harm, you’d already be dead. I can stop time in just your heart if I needed to. You’d be dead in an instant and there is little you could do to stop it. Sure, a magical regeneration can heal you, but only if I allowed time to flow around you. If time doesn’t pass, you don’t get any healing. But the truth is I’d rather not do things that way. I find it to be much more affective if people want to work together of their own volition.”

  “Okay,” said Rori licking his dry lips and picking back up the pitcher and the glass. This time they came free from the table much more quickly and he sat holding them both until finally he could feel the water sloshing inside. He poured a glassful and sat the pitcher back down and sipped the water.

  “You still don’t believe me, do you?” she asked.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I just went to the future and talked to you about it. You said you didn’t really believe me until I exhibited my power. If that is what it takes, then here you go. Do you remember when you were sitting on the balcony a few moments ago?”

  “Yes of course,” Rori said.

  “Do you remember when you briefly saw me floating in the air in front of you and you weren’t sure if you had actually seen me or just imagined it?”

  “No,” said Rori, “that never happened.”

  “You are right. It had not happened then. But what about now?”

  As he was thinking it over, his memory of the event changed. Where before she had not been there at all, now he had a clear memory of her floating for an instant in the air beside the balcony. The memory in which she had not been there was gone, but he did still have a memory of having the old memory.

  “I’ll grant that you seem to have a lot of control over time, in ways that I can’t even fathom understanding myself,” Rori said. “I apologize if this is insulting, but you just don’t seem to have the presence of a god.”

  Mera laughed.

  “Is that all? The others rely too much on that if you ask me. But then they also don’t have the luxury of taking as long as they’d like to get things done without brute charismatic force. How much do you want?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Do you want total terror? Want me to drive you to your knees? Wet yourself?”

  “Sorry?” Rori said again but now with greater confusion.

  Then, as he was looking at her, though nothing outwardly changed, he felt the presence of her grow. It burst out of her and washed through him like wind through the grass. Though her actual appearance stayed the same, it felt as if she had grown in size and her beauty seemed to take on new depths. Rori felt smaller and less sure of himself.

  Her presence and charisma continued to flood over him, and he began to be afraid of her. At the same time, he began to wish to do everything he could to please her. As her power increased, his feeling of inadequacy grew, and he tried to drop his eyes from hers. Somehow, she would not let him, and he was compelled to maintain the gaze.

  Still her presence increased. Now she was a titanic force in the room that threatened to destroy everything else. Rori was a paper doll trying to withstand the crush of a boulder. He was nothing, trying to exist in the same space as everything. He was a mortal blip on the timeline of eternity and she was in complete control of that same eternity.

  A low moan escaped from his lips, and he was ashamed of himself and ready to kill himself for the affront if she so demanded. His legs were shaking and threatened to collapse, which would be fine with Rori because then he would be on his knees. But at the same time, he didn’t dare move lest she somehow sweep him away like chaff in the wind.

  And then it was gone, and she was back to being the odd lady in the unusual dress. But the memory of it was still there burning fresh in his mind. His knees felt weak, and he couldn’t bring himself to talk.

  After several moments he managed to bring the cup up to his lips and drink a few sips without spilling it everywhere. After several more careful sips, his hand stopped visibly shaking.

  “Sorry about that,” she said with obvious regret in her voice. “I hate doing that kind of thing. It’s so heavy handed.”

  “It’s okay,” Rori managed to mumble in a whisper. “I guess I kind of asked for it.”

  “I also dislike it because it is so disingenuous. The truth is that it’s just a trick of magic. Like a charm or compulsion but ratcheted up to deific levels. Sure, we have stronger forces of will, but the overbearing bit isn’t sustainable or true.”

  “If you say so,” said Rori sitting down on the edge of the bed.

  “Some of the minor gods are the worst,” Mera said filling the time with chitchat as Rori got things under control. “It’s almost as if they are overcompensating. But I guess to each his own.”

  Mera picked up the pitcher and refilled Rori’s glass. He drained it in three swallows, stood back up and managed to put the cup back onto the table without clattering it too much against the tabletop.

  “The part I love is when it doesn’t work. They glower over the mortals and occasionally the mortals just look a bit startled at the unexpected histrionics. You can avoid it, just like most magics. It’s tough. I guess it should be difficult since it is coming from a god, even when it’s a minor one. But you can get around it. Anyway, you look like you have mostly recovered. Again, I’m sorry about that whole show. I really did just drop by to introduce myself. Unless you have something else to discuss, you should probably get over there under the girl. When time starts up again, I’d hate for her to fall and hurt herself.”

  Rori walked back over to Karyn and put his arms back under her. It didn’t feel quite right, but it was close enough. He looked back up to the door, but when he did the goddess was gone. Before he could look back to Karyn again, the weight of her fell into his arms and the cat shot out from behind him. The experience with Mera had taken more out of him than he’d realized and this time he and Karyn both fell backwards into the chair that was behind him.