You make it feel like time has stopped and it’s just the two of us.

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Maximillian Matsuya
Race: Human
Age: 30, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 568 words

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I don’t know where to start. We’re from two completely different backgrounds, we liked different things and I had my doubts when we first met but I guess that this one comes from the way I was raised, which, by the way, is a perfectly fine way to raise someone, it’s not much different from way back then when the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’ had different views on things. Not that this is what happened here but it’s the only way I can think of to put this in a sort of perspective.

When you look at our backgrounds, at our we were raised, at everything about us, you’d imagine we’re one of the most mismatched pairs out there but I wouldn’t want anyone else in my life, I couldn’t handle anyone else in my life, he’s just that perfect for me. Not that he’s perfect, he’s not. I’m not either and I know that, I don’t imagine myself to be perfect, furthest from but we work out perfectly well together.

At first, I really wasn’t sure what to make of him but I’ve been over that. Now, now whenever I’m with him there’s just nobody else. I’m aware that the rest of the world keeps going but it still feels like this is exactly what happens. I feel like the world has stopped, like time has paused—and let me tell you that one’s just crazy because I know that’s not an ideal sort of, well, idea—and that it’s just the two of us together. Of course, most of the time, I can still focus on what I need to be doing at that very moment, even when he’s at my side but now and again I like to let myself be swept away by this timelessness.

There’s that statement somewhere about love being blind but in this case I think love is timeless, it is a break in the continuous flow of our daily lives and it makes waking up worth a thousand mornings, it makes going to bed at his side worth the chilliness of the sheets just before they’re warmed up. It makes every second I spend with him feel like forever and it leaves me thirsty for so many more. I’m the man dying of thirst in the desert and he’s the oasis that’s just there, at my fingertip when I’m with him but just an illusion when he’s not.

Mind you, I don’t fancy myself poetic at all but there’s something to being at his side and it seems to just bring that out in me. Not that I’d write anything of the sort out for anyone but my eyes and his to see but it’s one of those things that feels the need to be said now and again. I try to let him know that he means the world to me on a daily basis, it’s important and it makes me feel better to know that I let my love spill, that I’ve let my heart be true.

I suppose this need to let him know comes from the fact that I was very keep-to-myself while I was growing up. My ear issues were likely at the source of this but I suppose that’s secondary, we’re so perfect for one another that even this issue is helped by his presence, what more is there to ask for?

Never turn your back on me.

Timeline/World: Zenas
Characters: Mocha Káva
Race: Dragon – Ice
Age: 2 251, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 538 words

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I’ve learned this the hard way. Some people you should never turn your back to. There are those you simply cannot trust but would not harm you and then there are those you cannot trust but will plunge a knife deep into your back the moment you’ve turned. I suppose that in a way, these folks would very simply stab you in the heart if they could get away with it but would rather be assholes about it and go for the back, I don’t know where it comes from but I want nothing to do with it.

Thankfully, I’ve never had to be around the latter-type of folks often. Once or twice in my life, especially after I’d spent time finally healing up to help with my somewhat mangled leg. The time I spent in that dimension was the most peaceful of my life and I do miss it somewhat, not a lot since it was quite lonely, even if I had a visitor now and again but it was a soothing sort of time. It’s a shame I no longer can go back there but that it most fine with me.

I’ve travelled a lot since that time. The ties I had before I went into mock hiding were no longer viable, they no longer were there. Whether by my fault or that of the twins doesn’t matter. They moved on to other things and I moved on elsewhere just the same, it was also for the best. At least, that’s what I tell myself, if we parted ways and no longer have any contact, it tends to mean that this was it, that if we meet up again later in life, we might, but right now, we don’t need to be in one another’s presence, that’s how I see it.

Backstabbers though, I’ve met a small handful. Enough to frustrate me, if nothing else. I can smell them from a distance. I couldn’t really tell them apart one from the other before but after one encounter that left me laid out for a short while, while I healed up again, I learned to differentiate. I assume it comes from my dragon blood, this sensitive nose of mine, if I’d been a mere mortal, I might not have survived the near-literal back stabbing and I doubt I’d be able to now smell them from a distance, it’s helpful. It has kept me from doing business with people I am better off being no where near.

With that knowledge firmly implanted in my brain, I’ve lived an easier life, at least as far as keeping myself from harm by these particular individuals who seem to roam about in a search for suckers who might give them the time of day before being robbed blind. I’m glad I’m no longer in that category. That’s not to say I might not be duped now and again but I believe that I know better, I’ve learned my lesson and after being alive as long as I have, that lesson has been learned a long time ago. There just are new breeds of these assholes cropping up every so often, so it’s a lesson that needs to be refreshed, that’s all.