Tiberinus

[Patricus I]

With a snort, Philip’s brows lifted high on confident supposition. “I presume it is because I am so incredibly handsome,” he said, blue eyes gleaming with delightful humor. Then he waited for the inevitable nod of agreement before the ripples buffeted against the wall that was his chest. The current split by the column of his physical interruption such that it pulled his gaze over his shoulder to bear witness to their death as they hit the bank.

What he saw beyond was a miracle of the mind. His own, he presumed, except to find that Nimeda beheld the same mirage. The woods flickered with shapes that circled like fog frozen to motionlessness. The resonance tugged, and he found himself walking on dry earth on the next heartbeat. His hands swept through the hazy outline of a woman with long hair pouring from a chalice. Then he peered into the foggy face of an old man on his knees before an altar. Flower petals dripped from tree limbs that were not there, but when his palm opened to catch one, it floated through him like a shiver.

It was amazing, he realized, watching the petal, a lotus blossom, sink to the ground and dissipate. When he turned back to Nimeda, it was with an expression of amazement. He himself flickered in the ghostly memory with all the different versions of himself he did not know. He was quite the foreigner in this place. “Life is but a dream from which we all will wake. When we wake, show me this place again.”

Face tilted; he studied the trees for the architecture now long gone. He sighed, thinking about the enormity of the past arisen for a brief moment around him. “You’ve shown me your home, but I did not ask to see it. Why is she so uncomfortable where you are not?”