The smell of the ocean was strong, the undulating waves lapping upon the midnight shore calming to the senses. Two boats sat on the grass near the cottage just ahead, and one boat had been occupied. The wood creaked ever so slightly as she shifted in his arms, the cool skin she rested against oddly comforting. It had been an eventful evening, and the two Forsaken were seemingly content to at last be here together, alone.
“I still can’t believe he is back,” came her voice, soft and wispy, barely heard against the night tide. His reply was a well-known chuckle and a tighter grasp around her.
“He is still adjusting. He did well to ask for my help. He’ll know what to expect now,” Zamboozle spoke gently, pulling his Forsaken lover closer still. Her skin was much too warm to be truly Undead, he knew, and his hands traveled down the slope of her shoulders, then to the amulet that hung around her neck, the source of her enchantment.
“Here, here,” he whispered near her ear, fiddling with the amulet. “You should be more…comfortable. No one can see us now.”
Pushing down upon the iris of the eye-shaped amulet, an audible click sounded. Her body and features shimmered and wavered, the enchantment melting away to reveal her true form…a human woman, very much alive. She turned in his arms as he released the amulet, and the Medic found himself staring into the honey-colored orbs that were her eyes, his cold, marble-like hands moving upwards to caress the scarlet hair. She seemed so lost, her expression uncertain.
“You are bothered by his return…” Zam spoke, not so much a confirmation, but a questioning. Anna looked away before she answered, her eyes following the tribal carvings upon the front of the boat.
“I am surprised…taken aback by how he was returned. I did not expect it at all, to be honest.”
Zam nodded, and she tucked an errant curl of hair behind her ear, which he smiled at.
“And…the Caverns of Time…? Surely, he will be punished for abusing them in such a way…for his personal use.”
Zam shrugged helplessly, then met his love with slight smile.
“Do not worry over it love. There is only so much he can do. Manipulating his timeline too much will only bring himself to ruin, which I am sure he is smart enough to know.”
Looking upon her again, he pulled her close and silenced her worry with a deep kiss, and she began to relax in his arms, which pleased him. The two lay quiet in the boat, and it was not long before his soothing strokes of her hair calmed her into a sleep. Her eyelids flickered chaotically as images flashed in her mind, memories of time past…of death, of pleads, of a young paladin, the chest cavity cut open, a heart removed and thrown into flames. Anna whimpered in her disturbed sleep, and a soft call escaped her lips, formed into a name:
“Luci….”
The Medic kissed Annaliese’s forehead gently, and looked up to the stars, wishing for a peaceful sleep for his love.
It would never come.
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