“At the time, nothing; but that’s not what I asked, is it?” I drank from the glass in my hand a draft of sweet, peach flavored liquor. My guest’s divine presence wavered from the painful memories I had stirred, that defensive nihility cloak flaring like an old wound I continued to prod. “I’ll not put the burden of planning on someone who has already suffered plenty of her own accord. All I want is to understand your intent. What you would do if anything was possible?”

At that moment, David slid Shiloh a bonfire on my command. The amber liquid glowed warmly under her gaze, a welcoming spirit to ease the soul. “Drink up,” I told her while swirling my own refreshment. “It might help you break through some of that nihility you’ve draped yourself in since you arrived.”

Her fingers wrapped around the warm glass with a squeeze. Staring into the still amber, the faint perfume of floral honey invited her to drink. Shiloh shut her eyes and threw her head back as she emptied it in one shot. A wave of soothing nectar hit her tongue and swept down her throat. As the drained glass was set down with a clink, she waited for the acrid sting of liquor or a burning aftertaste. Instead, there was none. 



The smell of pine and soil filled her nose as patches of sunlight filtered through the leaves. Dry mulch and twigs crunched beneath her shoes as she tailed a broad back high as a wall and coarse like marlstone. The moving boulder stopped and turned, reaching out a hand many times larger than her own. As her hand reached out, she was carefully lifted up and placed on the shoulders of the mountain troll. "Come on, wee beastie–we're almost there." The low rumble of Unna's voice reverberated through her body as she clung close to the back of the troll-mother's head. That warmth lingered as the dream faded, leaving her with her thoughts.

If she had a chance, if something like that was really possible… "I would go back. I would try to survive as long as I can, no matter what–so I can see them all again and tell them I'm coming home." Because everything she had ever done had always been for them. Whether her own life was destined to be cut short or not, they shouldn't be kept waiting for an answer that would never arrive. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but endless waiting would turn that love into torture. Having an answer was the least she could give them to put those questions to rest. And if she would never make it back, then they deserved to know.

Shiloh sat there in her memories for a moment, pensively quaffing the spirit I had served. David left the room before she said another word, but I was still there to receive the expected answer. The guilt and pain that woman felt need not have been vocalized for me to know how it clung to her, but I still wanted to hear the words straight from her mouth before I did anything else.

Having received the equivalent of consent, I remotely locked all the doors to the tavern and walked out from behind the bar. 

“You may feel some slight… discomfort,” I said as I turned my back to Shiloh and delicately removed my mask. Without delay, the hidden black strands in my hair showed themselves anew while a slow drip, drip, drip pierced the silence of the hall. A small puddle of black ichor formed on the floor by my left foot as a legion of floating screens appeared from nothingness across the entire tavern.

“Seems the damage is worse than I thought,” I remarked as each of those screens displayed the face of an individual from Berezat; many whom Shiloh had met or would meet. The vast majority were struck by giant, red X’s, betraying the ominous fate of those individuals in the current Berezat. “We’ll have to go back even further for the new timeline.”

Undeterred, I raised my hand to another screen, triggering a warning to appear. An alarm quietly whined as a message popped up on screen. ‘Protected Action. Access denied.’ The message disappeared as quickly as it had appeared as every screen emitted static for a solid minute.

“Come on, Wee Beastie, come on,” I said over the wailing, white noise. “Though your spirit be dampened and your memories broken, thy shackles may yet be released. It shall be a future you do not get to live, but one you desired all the same. So come on, Wee Beastie, come on: let down thy heavy binds. And live once more.” The static stopped then, replaced by the sound of an energetic thrum. Then suddenly the screens flashed for a brief moment before the portraits from before returned; this time with nary an “x” in sight. A new screen had also spawned, one with a much younger Shiloh pictured.

So it was that the goddess's desire was granted, though perhaps not in the way she imagined. I completed my spell, and dismissed the screens with a single phrase: “Let Berezat be born anew.” Then I put my mask back on my face before allowing the doors to open once more.

Still immersed in visions, as the proprietor removed their mask the words came through as blurred echoes ringing in her ears. Pictures of nameless faces filled the air, some strange and some familiar–all marked through in red. These faces she would never see again, no matter how much she would wish. And some, she would never meet. Like a child sent swaddled in a basket down the bulrush-fringed river, by the grace of some unknown power she came here to escape certain death. But although she had survived, the scars she carried remained. It was her greatest secret, buried deep and hidden from everyone, even herself. 

On those long summer days before she fled into the mountains, her father once said that when making a wish you had to speak it aloud for it to come true. For someone who had long lost faith in luck, she had pushed it aside as one does for childish fantasies. A wish unfulfilled becomes nothing but a burden, but this peculiar proprietor had given her chance to send it off like a message in a bottle. For once it is thrown into the sea, one can only believe that it will reach it's destination even if they never see it. Somewhere in the vast reaches of the universe, the hourglass was inverted. A new branch sprouted from the fork that was pruned, growing with leaves unfurling until the pruned stub was no longer visible. And in that new branch was another her who would continue where she could not. With that final release, Shiloh fell into a deep sleep.

I remained silent for a moment, expecting some sort of response or questioning from my guest. Yet all I heard was the sudden thud when she fell to the ground.

“Too much for the brain, huh,” I asked no one in particular as David returned from the backrooms? The dullahan wasted no time in getting Shiloh set up in a wheelchair once he was out from behind the counter, and then the two of us wheeled her out the main door into her private chambers. There were some ferrets there waiting for us, wary about their master until I used lifestitch to tuck her into bed.

“She must have already been quite tired,” I remarked while plunging my hand into a nondescript portal. From an unknown location, I pulled portraits of Shiloh’s family before putting them on her desk. Then I placed a sort of gem looking item resembling a catseye next to these portraits. Soon after, another portal opened next to that gem, revealing a wibbling cat’s paw. The paw deposited a gift basket and a sealed letter addressed to Shiloh. The envelope in question read “From Uncle Flergel” and was marked by a pawprint. 

Soon after those items were neatly organized upon the goddess’s desk, all of us - David, the cat’s paw and myself - quietly left her room. All evidence of my temple disappeared from Antikythera, but the signs of Shiloh’s wish remained. She would not be allowed to forget - at least not entirely. What’s more, her “uncle” knew where to send gifts now in order to spoil his niece rotten.