The Butterfly Effect

There was something inherently unsettling about being around so many Skiá. It wasn’t supposed to happen; to be close enough to know they were there meant either split-second decisions to avoid them or dying. So walking beside them, even if they were illusions, went against all common sense. Honestly she probably wouldn’t have cared as much if it was just her—intentionally or not, getting chased by Skiá was not the most dangerous thing she’d done. But since the boys were there, she couldn’t think of anything else except making sure they really were all illusions.

All four of them stopped when they heard a familiar laugh. Shortly after, a figure burst out from the trees. It was wispy, barely anything distinguishing about her except for the confident air she seemed to possess despite being a part of the same illusion that created the Skiá. She called out some jumble of words before bolting off.

Tim and Henry were the first to chase after her, knowing that she must’ve either been or would lead them to the person they needed to see next. Tavin, though not without a hint of reluctance, followed them, with Lydia staying behind him.

The figure said several more things, but still none of them could be heard. When the Skiá got close to her, she shown an odd light in their direction. It was all a part of the fun for her—or, perhaps more fittingly, adventure.

To them, where she stopped was nothing more than another part of the forest. The projections of Skiá disappearing was their sign that she’d entered somewhere else; where she had been going all this time. She dropped to her knees in front of one of the trees, mumbling things until finally a voice became clear.

“You have gone to great lengths to achieve this,” the voice mused. “Do you truly desire my prize that much?”

“Yes.” While still jumbled, that much at least could be pieced together.

“Then here you have it—I assume you don’t need me to tell you what it is.” A clasp with a glittering red gem in the center appeared in front of the figure. “May you all find peace and move on to see a brighter tomorrow.”

The figure slowly picked up the clasp and turned to look directly at the four of them. “A brighter tomorrow indeed…” With the breeze that came through the trees, she disappeared.

Henry cautiously walked closer to where she had been. “Who was that?”

“Is there even any way to tell?” Tim questioned as he went to the tree as well. “Nothing was said to distinguish it from anything else. But it had to be something if it showed up in the memory, didn’t it?”

“Find peace and move on,” Tavin mumbled. He was leaning on a nearby tree and clearly glad that they had this time to stop. “No matter what period of time it showed, there’s one figure who’s responsible for those kinds of things: Usiu.”

That didn’t make either of them any less confused. “Usiu?”

Lydia, realizing the name was familiar, shared what she knew. “The angel that’s supposed to help the dead who still cling to the living. She does whatever brings them closure or comfort so that they’ll actually be able to enter the underworld. But I’m not sure how exactly that relates to the living.” She paused. “The better question’s probably where this memory happened. It had to be close enough that whatever’s projecting it was able to see the original thing. But she went inside something and it’s definitely not here anymore, if it was ever here to begin with.”

“Could it be something before or during Qizarn myth?” Tim offered. “Then it would make sense if whatever it was is gone by now.”

“Skiá didn’t exist until after Eldrianna’s Fall,” Tavin pointed out. “They’re her creations of darkness in a way of getting back at Orestis. At the very least, it needed to be after then, but that doesn’t narrow anything down.”

“That means that it has to be somewhere else entirely, though,” Henry remarked, “because there’s no way it’s here somewhere.”

As much as they could’ve debated it more, something else caught their attention; the emergence of two new figures. One was slightly darker—not faded—than the other, as if tainted by something, and her dragonfly wings distinguished her as more than just human. The other seemed completely normal, unlikely to have stood out in his time. They walked out from the tree the previous projection had disappeared in front of and seemed to be in the middle of a casual conversation while they walked.

“What do you think of all this, Dree? Aren’t I a genius to have come up with something like this?” the lighter one prompted, puffing out his chest with pride.

“I don’t understand why you’ve made it all so complicated,” his darker companion responded, still smiling. “Though it does take a certain mix of cleverness and stupidity to do the things you’ve decided to do.”

“I can’t explain it, but I’m sure that someone out there is going to appreciate this.” As the two figures started to get further away, Lydia gestured for the boys to follow them. “I don’t know who it’s going to be or what they’re going to be here for, but this is going to help them with… something. I feel like this is my contribution to the world; the thing I do that keeps my name from becoming forgotten.”

“Your name will never be forgotten. As long as I still exist, there will always be someone to remember you.”

He chuckled. “Thanks for the sentiment, but it doesn’t mean nearly as much when it’s coming from someone who lives forever.”

“I suppose it doesn’t…” She looked around at the forest. “Isn’t this the last spot you wanted to go to? Do you plan on going back home when you’re done?”

“I think I’m going to look over everything one more time,” he responded thoughtfully. “I’ve got to make sure everything follows along chronologically, you know? Sprinkle some stuff in now that I know every step of the journey and see what I can do to make it more interesting. I mean, it’s not like I’m finding any of this boring—it’s all a nice change of pace that I’m perfectly fine with lasting a little longer. Assuming you don’t want to be done, that is; I won’t drag you along if you don’t want to go.”

She shook her head. “I want to stay with you, no matter what else may happen. There’s a reason I agreed to come along with you in the first place, and it wasn’t because I was genuinely interested in what you said you’d be doing.”

“Can I ask you a favor?” He stopped and turned to face her. “No matter how long it takes, I want you to watch over whoever comes through here. I’m undoubtedly going to be dead by then and I doubt Vriuh will let me see how whoever it is works through everything I’ve created. So if I can’t, I want you to—then maybe, one day, you can tell me all about it.”

“You act like you’re going to be dead soon,” she muttered with a certain kind of distress.

“I don’t plan on dying right now, but I’m just human. There’s nothing I can do to escape it, so I might as well face that I’m not going to be the one to see this all through.”

She mumbled something that sounded like “okay” before they continued moving.

The rest of the conversation was blurred, being whatever they could think of that would fill in the silence until they reached the river. Then he bent down and sat something by the riverbed, surrounding it with dirt and rocks so that it wouldn’t easily be carried away. He stepped back and, with a grin, said, “Done.”

Both of them slowly faded away.

“So that had to be the guy who made all of this,” Henry guessed. “But who was the other person?”

“How many immortal people do you know of?” Tim remarked. “That should limit it a bit.”

“But it doesn’t,” Tavin pointed out. “None of the gods interacted with mortals, not on that kind of level. There’s a possibility that it’s Eldrianna, but…”

“I find it hard to believe.” Lydia wandered a little closer to the river. “I’ve technically met the lady. The only love she has is watching people get caught in her traps.”

Tavin looked back to where the figures had disappeared. “I suppose the Commandments never said why Orestis banished Eldrianna, and it’s one of the few things scholars can’t agree on. The only thing we know is that, whatever it was, it was against what He wanted. With something like that, there’s really no end to the possibilities…”