Paradox

"Iliria…"

I stopped and turned slowly in shock. The voice was impossibly familiar, an echoing sound from a long ago time when I had been truly complete.
As I turned in the long corridor a young man faced me at its end. His hair was black as night and his eyes were green as the pastures where I had grown up and as blue as the sea I had lived by so long. He looked as young as the day he had disappeared.  The smoothness of his face and the soft wildness of his eyes made me freeze. Fear, trust, uncertainty,  belief, disbelief, pain, tears, but most of all heart achingly familiar memories washed over me fresh and intense. They paralyzed me with emotions that a woman such I had not felt in a long while. 
Tears I had learned to suppress suddenly came without a single will to stop them.

"Iliria…"

"You left to find me and never returned. We searched and searched through forest and brush, all across the lands for days and days. I prayed and begged for the higher powers to return you to me, and kept looking and looking for weeks on end but you had vanished from the face of the world completely. They told me you were dead though no body was found."

Tears welled in his eyes too, "Iliria. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."


  "I cried for weeks after that, some small part of me still clinging to the hope that you were alive somewhere out there and that you would come for me," my voice wavered, "A year passed  and things returned to normal, whatever that means,  but thinking of you too long was more than I could bear at moments and I still wept for you on occasion.  More years passed and I slipped  into the silent acceptance of your absence. I still pined at times, but never  in the daylight or in the company of others,  I sobbed only in the deepest of the nights.  Fifty years came and went and now I think of you not with sadness but with the fondness of the brief but profound love we had shared so long ago. The memories of you are so engraved in my mind they have never faded though so much time has passed.  I looked upon those memories with a content knowledge that I will one day see you again, but not in this life."

"I'm sorry, my love I'm so sorry," he said walking forward, "I was trapped by the time keeper for only a little while. When I woke I came here without delay but you…."

"I have grown old, Daren," I whispered with fear, "I have turned grey and ashen since you left."

He walked forward with the confidence and trust I once had in my youth before the slowness had crept into my step then cupped my papery cheeks in his warm hands. I brought my vein trekked hands to his and closed my eyes. I had long to feel that touch for fifty years.

"Our time has passed," I said to him, not wanting to believe it myself, "You have been released and you can begin anew. I have only the wintery years of life left and you are as young and wonderful as the last time you held me so."

He wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face his chest like so many times before when I cried. I had not had him to cry on for all this time because he had been the cause of my grief.

"Iliria, you are as beautiful now to me as you were then," he murmured, " And I will always love you."

I looked into his beautiful face, the face that should have grown old a tired alongside mine, and saw him with the same look of love he had viewed me with 50 years ago.

"I love you Daren," I replied, "I always have."

"I know it to be true," he said kissing me on the forehead, "Because in all this time you never found another. You waited, ready to die to be with me again and I am so sorry. I can never forgive myself for causing you so much pain," he let me go.

"Wait," I croaked desperately, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back."

"No! Please don't!"

He took up my hand and squeezed it. "I have to go back to the time keeper and make him send me back. I will not let you survive these long years without me. It's my fault in the first place. I tried to find you and strike a deal with him to tell me where you were, but he tricked me. I was foolish, but I am going back. I will make things right because the thought of you kept me from being trapped forever by him. You set me free and now, I'm going back to make sure things can never turn out this way."

"Age makes you see things differently, Daren," I replied, "And I can see the stubbornness I once had reflected in you.  I know I cannot convince you to stay. "

"We were both stubborn," he smiled gently, "I love you, Iliria and I will see you soon."

He embraced me once more then disappeared to see the time keeper. Perhaps he would go back and change things, but having him leave again after so long, even with the hope of change, was the hardest thing I ever had to do.  I had been strong as an old woman and a fair ruler as a queen but now without dignity of any kind I collapsed in the hall where I had first seen Daren and cried of a broken heart.