zishy

He remembers every lifetime. While she forgets them all.
This time, he will not let her go, even if it that would mean becoming the villain in her every lifetime.

Auren has outlived every generation. In every one, he finds her.
In every one, she forgets him.
And in every single one, she dies, too soon, too cruelly, too unaware of who she truly is.

To her, Auren is no more than a stranger.
To him, she is everything that ever truly mattered.

This time, he won't wait for fate to take her.
This time, he will build a place where she cannot leave him, not by choice, not by death, not even by the gods themselves.
And if it means burning down entire empires, breaking time itself, or staining his hands in blood...
Then so be it.

Let the world call him a monster. Let her call him nothing at all.
He remembers enough love for both of them.
And he'll make sure she never forgets him again.

The Tethered Souls

Eliane always loved the blissful mornings in Lysira.

The sunlight was pouring like honey through the colored glass windows of the buildings, and the city was kept alive with music, sneaky merchants, and the calming melody of windchimes that scattered in the air which seemed to hum just for her.

She was kneeling among the flower bed, brushing their flower petals with her soft and delicate fingers. Due to that her fingertips had a scent of jasmine and mint. She had dirt under her nails and a smile that made even the flowers seem shy in front of her.

"Careful little lass," said the old caretaker of the flowers. "If you keep teasing the poor flowers like that you'll make them fall in love with you."

Eliane let out a cheeky giggle. "They started it."

The other girls at the sanctuary laughed along with her. Everyone liked her. She always had been well-liked. She was kind, warm, and magnetic. The kind of girl who could talk to a prince or a pauper with the same gentle tone.

But there were things she didn't say out loud.

Like how she often dreamed of dying in the rain.

Or how she sometimes wakes up crying her eyes out for someone she never remembered.

Just dreams, she told herself. Silly little dreams.

In the shadows, a shady figure was observing her.

Auren was watching her from the dark edge of the marketplace, dressed in a black hood and a false smile.

Fortunately for Auren, they passed by each other once. They were so near together he could smell her. Her individual hair strands seemed to shine like gold under the sunlight. Her voice still had that soft tone he had memorized throughout sixteen lifetimes.

He wasn't able to move even as the world continued to spin around him.

And for a short moment, a feeling manifested deep inside him that was even worse than his undying rage towards the Gods.

Maybe I shouldn't have come.

Maybe this time, I should just let her live a quiet life. Free… from me.

Maybe I am becoming the monster the gods feared I would become. I am broken.

And she smiled, bright, full, and living.

He stepped back into the alleyway before he burned the whole city down just to make her look at him.

Later that night, Eliane decided to wander around the garden again, she couldn't sleep.

There was a melody stuck in her head. One that she had no recollection about. One that she couldn't place. It made her chest ache.

And then suddenly... across the wind, she heard a voice whispering, though not in words, but in memory:

"Do you remember me?"

On the other hand, he returned to the ruins, where the gods abandoned him.

He was staring out deeply at the stars, speaking not to them but to himself.

"I saw her," he whispered under his breath. "She walked past me."

But his magic was tearing through the stones beneath him like they were fragile eggshells.

"Does she even dream of me anymore?"

"They have made her perfect. Though she always was… Pure. And I…"

And then said, "No I have made up my mind. I will not wait for fate. I will conquer it."

Eliane was laying down in her bed, staring absent mindedly at her bedroom window.

Auren stood under the stars, watching her window from across the city.

She whispered to the dark, "Who are you?"

He whispered to the wind, "I'm coming."

She Smiles in the Sun, He Watches from the Dark