She didn't sleep much that night, after going back to the settlement. Sada kept replaying what she had just witnessed in her head, trying to find... Something, anything, that could explain it, and coming up with nothing. It was impossible to avoid the truth: Turo had some kind of... Inhuman power, and he had obviously gone to great lengths to keep it hidden. It was different from the little things she had discovered you could do with bits and pieces that you gathered from creatures. Like attaching a little bit of wool from Fluffyhead to the tip of a spear or an arrow to shock the target, like Chalo had started to do.

Or Narjik, who would use seeds and leaves dropped by plant creatures to create poisons and other potions with various effects.

This was... Different. She had never seen anything like it. This was... Like he actually had the same power as some of the creatures she had seen, the ones that disappeared and floated in midair. There was even a similarly colored light when he had done it. And that had put her on edge more than anything: was he actually human at all?

Had she really let some creature that tricked her inside the settlement? Inside her home, putting everyone at risk? Her mother's words kept repeating in her head, along with his weird behaviour, and Chalo's old theory about him being some kind of creature...

She had to confront him about it. Outside the village, where... In the worst case, there wouldn't be anyone else.

The next morning, at dawn, Sada left the little assortment of tents and headed in the direction she had seen him leave. She didn't want to get too near the place he had disappeared from yesterday; she didn't want to make him suspect that she had followed him.

She hid between the tall grass, watching the trail. Not much time later, she heard the tell-tale rustling of grass and his clothes. A moment later, and there he was.

« Hey» she approached him, only for her stomach to twist painfully when Turo smiled at her. She eyed him cautiously; he just... Looked the same as always. Had he already forgotten their little discussion from yesterday? She offered him an empty bag, an excuse to get him away from the village and to a more secluded location, then they started moving. She would glance at him every now and then. He was keeping both hands in his pockets, head low.

Sada turned back around, eyes on the road. One hand was on the flute that she used to summon Winged King, the other went behind her back to lightly touch her spear, just for a moment. She hoped that she didn't have to use it...

They arrived near a little patch of berry plants, and Sada set the man to work with the excuse of gathering food. She observed him for a while, picking up a couple of berries of her own. Her heart was beating at an increaseangly nervous rithm while she gathered the courage to speak up.

« ... I saw you. » she said in the end. His lack of response told her that he hadn't understood what she meant. He turned towards her, raising one eyebrow in that peculiar way that he did when he didn't quite understand a word, and didn't know how to ask her about it.

« You... vanished. Like a ... like a creature. I saw the light. »

Comprehension flashed in his eyes when she touched her wrist, miming the same gesture she had seen him do the last night. Turo stared, his already pale face now deathly white, eyes wide in horror. Then he moved, raising an arm in her direction.

Was he attacking her? Was he finally showing his true nature?

Reacting purely on instinct, she brandished her spear and thrust it forward, right toward his neck. She stops herself short of actually stabbing him, waiting for his reaction first.

« What are you? »

He sputtered an answer, and she can't help but feel a little surge of anger rising in her chest. She's done with his lies and excuses and vague non-answers.

She kind of explodes at him, pressing the spear against his neck with more force. And yet he still... does nothing. Why?

Turo raises his hands, and she can't help but be reminded of their first meeting. He had stood like that even at that time, not daring to move, shaking slightly while she circled him, looking completely and absolutely terrified until she had dropped the weapon.

Why isn't he disappearing into a flash of light like last night?

She can feel tears of frustration sting at the corner of her eyes now.

"What are you doing?"

Why isn't he attacking her? Why isn't he defending himself? If there was a moment where he would finally have to reveal his true nature, or escape, or get angry... Or anything, this is it. Sada stared at the single drop of blood that dripped down his neck and into his fur-coated hood, the one she had made for him. Into his eyes, that have never stopped being filled with fear. Turo had never looked at her like that since their very first meeting.

He looked conflicted, his chest rising and falling with short, panicked breaths - she could feel each of them applying just the slightest resistance to the spear still pointed to his neck. Then he closed his eyes and seemed to stop breathing for a moment. His next words when he reopened them sent her heart skipping a beat. There was... Something different in his tone, his pose. He had stopped shaking, eyes fixed in hers.

Was he... Was he actually going to explain...?

She tried to piece together what she knew about him.

« A "power"... is it a "scientist" power? » she asked, and he almost smirked.

So it was something that his people could do...? By making those bracelets? But then why had he said that she was also a scientist?

And... He was going back to his people every time he left?

Why...?

She just... She just wanted to understand.

Maybe it had been the change in tone, but when he tried to move her spear away, she just let him do it, transfixed by his expression. He looked so serious in that moment. So calm, his brown eyes just silently regarding her, in a way that he had never done before. Especially not when answering some of her questions: there had always been a trace of hesitation, like he was carefully choosing every single word to utter in front of her, but not this time. In a way, he looked like was finally confessing to something that had been weighing on him since the very beginning.

Even if his words were... Difficult to understand, she didn't doubt them.

She wanted to believe them.

Different... Worlds? Her eyes widened a bit at that: was he really a spirit after all? But weren't spirits supposed to be... Intangible, like smoke? He looked so real, his long, almost delicate fingers trailing through her hair as he caressed her gently, hesitantly. She repressed a shiver at his touch. He looked just so... human, even with his weird hair and pale skin. But what else could he mean by different worlds...?

His next words, whispered almost like he was afraid of saying them out loud, are the last thing she ever expected to hear. She doesn't know what to make of them for a long moment. Did he use the wrong word? Was he thinking of something else? What does it even mean for someone to be from...

The thought hits her slowly: it's not a complete and sudden realization.

But then it does, the enormity of what he had just said and all that it meant gradually washes over her.

Tomorrow... If... If according to the stories the spirits of your ancestors, people from the past could visit you in dreams to give you advice, then... Could people from moments that were yet to come do the same...?

But how did that work, if they... If they weren't here yet?

Sada tried to confusingly make sense of it, her mind already busy thinking of all the possible implications, when she remembered a little detail from one of their first meeting.

With a little gasp, she raised her free hand to touch his cheek, stroking it with her thumb.

That time she had noticed his beard had grown much faster than it should have after only three days... Was this the reason? Could he... "Choose" how many days had it been for him? From where he was coming from?

She was trembling with excitement while she tried to wrap her head around it all.

« How many... tomorrow? » she found herself also whispering, looking up at him. Turo leaned into her touch before answering with a soft smile, and that most of everything convinced her that he was being sincere.

Every possible doubt about him having some malicious intentions towards her or the settlement had been pushed aside; it was the truth, as absurd as it sounded.

It looked like he was actually having fun while she questioned him, teasing her with the answer, and while that annoyed her a bit - she didn't like feeling like she was being made fun of -, the new, almost playful spark in his eyes more than made up for it.

She liked that; it made his face light up in an almost imperceptibile way. In those short moments his eyes seemed to smile so much more than the rest of his face.

It was more than one moon, more than many seasons... she couldn't quite picture it. It may as well have been magic for her. His hand trailed from her hair to her shoulders, and he gently pushed her to sit on the soft ground with him, legs crossed. He drew a line between them on the ground with one finger.

« This... Is "today". » Turo explained slowly, pointing to a spot right between them on the line. He looked around for a moment, then picked up a pebble and placed it there as a little sign.

« This is... Tomorrow.» another pebble joined the first one right next to it.

« This is... One moon... And one season.» two more to her right, the first distanced a bit from the first two and the "season" pebble another three or four times the distance of one "moon", forcing him to throw the pebble a short distance. Sada nodded. That was pretty clear, he was representing how much time was between each method of measuring time. Easy.

« Then... Where are you?» she asked, looking over the imaginary line stretching away from them. If that pebble was a season, and he said "many"... She gestured for a distance that would cover maybe five or six of them.

« There?»

Turo just shook his head, a strange accent of a smile on his lips. She couldn't decide if he looked sad or almost embarassed.

« ... No.»

... More?

« ... No.»

She turned to look at him, wondering if he was making fun of her again or if it was a kind of trick question. He finally raised one finger and pointed, wordlessly, away from the pebbles on the ground. Far, far away, towards the horizon where the line stretched without end.

She followed his finger, her eyes widening when she started to realize the timescale. If she had children, and her children had children, and so on and so on for who knows how many times... No, that still wouldn't have been enough.

That ... That wasn't even measurable in entire lifetimes. And she didn't have anything bigger to use as a reference.

« Oh...» was pretty much the only thing she could say, both from her head spinning still spinning slightly from the realization, and from the thousands of other questions that she wanted to ask now.

How did his people get the power to do that? It seemed that not everyone could do it... Maybe they gave the bracelet only to those that could control it?

But... More than anything else, she needed proof. She saw him disappear, alright. That didn't mean that he was actually... Moving through time. He could simply be reappearing somewhere else, after all. And she just wanted some... Tangible proof, somehow. That something as incredible as that was possible.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

« Show me.» Sada asked, determined. Turo looked somewhat alarmed.

« W-what...?»

« That you can... "Jump" in other... "Days"» she explained a bit awkwardly.

He looked off to the side, conflicted. She noticed that he had covered the wrist where the bracelet was with his other hand, almost protectively.

« I ... Can't. » he answered after a moment. She frowned, and he seemed to notice it because he added, now at least trying to explain instead of avoiding the topic.

« I can't "jump"... Now. It... This, um-» he fell into a brief silence, thinking.

« ... My "power" is... Tired? » he offered after a moment. Sada thought for a bit at that.

All right, it made sense. Not even creatures could use their powers all the time without limit. They had to rest before they could use them again.

That also explained why he hadn't simply gone whoosh and disappeared to save his skin when she had pointed his spear at him. Or against the Brutal Fang.

Uh. Was that why he always so easily exhausted while they walked? It took him a lot of energy just to come "here"?

Or was he simply weak like that? His lean build seemed to point more to the latter, but maybe it was a bit of both?

« All right... » she wasn't doubting him, not right now, but her tone made it clear that she considered the whole "proof" conversation just momentarily suspended instead of conveniently avoided like before. There was actually another question that now was tormenting her.

« ... Why here?» she asked.

He had looked terrified the first time she saw him and had ran off at the first occasion, almost like he hadn't actually wanted to be here.

Then he had come back, just to almost get himself eaten. Why would he keep coming in such a dangerous place he obviously didn't know how to navigate? What was he hoping to accomplish? He obviously looked interested in learning about things here... But then again, so was she.

Turo had fallen silent, his eyes for the first time that day actively avoiding hers. Something was... wrong.

Had he not understood her?

« You come here... For what?» she tried again.

Turo stared at the ground, eyebrows deeply furrowed and face contorted in an almost frustrated scowl.

« I... r.... ou.» he whispered, almost mouthed silently in the end.

Sada leaned forward to hear better, and barely suppressed a little jump and a shiver when he suddenly raised his head again, staring at her with those quiet, almost sad eyes.

« ... for you.» he repeated, still barely a whisper, but this time they were so close that she could feel his breath tickle her face as he spoke.

His words suddenly made her chest tighten and fill with a sudden rush of warmth. Sada felt herself blushing, an almost embarrassed smile making its way on her lips as his words sunk in.

... That answer was... So like him, in a way. A bit sweet, a bit awkward. How was she even supposed to react? How could she even convey how those words had made her feel? How much they meant to her? What could you even say to something like that?

... Nothing. So Sada decided to not say anything, and simply act. He was still looking at her with a silent, almost desperate longing, and before he could break eye contact, or pull his head away, she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his. She felt Turo tense up, and for a terrible moment she thought that he was going to pull away, that she had misunderstood, that he had meant it in a completely different way... But then his lips parted slightly and he reciprocated the kiss, almost hungrily.

When they parted a couple of seconds later, he looked a bit dazed, mouth still hanging slightly open.

« I -» he started to say, just to trail off when Sada slowly cradled his hands in hers, tugging him a bit closer and resting her forehead on his, eyes closed. She felt Turo's breath stop for a moment, then resume and slow down as he relaxed and matched hers. They stood like that for a while, simply reveling in the contact with the other, fingers intertwined.

« I'm... So happy» she finally managed to say after a moment, reopening her eyes to find his still closed.

« ... That you... You've come here»

Of all the places he could have chosen to appear, to travel, it had been here, where she found someone that... Just understood her. He understood her desire to observe creatures, nature, everything, in a way that no one else she knew ever had.

To think that they could have missed each other so easily... If she had decided to not go the river that afternoon. Or if she had been just a bit slower in running to his aid a couple of days later, only to find him savagely torn apart by a Brutal Fang.

Or if she had let her doubts and fears about him make her stab the spear just a tiny bit deeper...

She shivered, and found Turo's hands squeeze hers just a bit harder.

« Yes... Me too. » he sighed, leaning against her, and Sada frowned for a moment.

He sounded... Pained. Was there still something he was not telling her?

--

They finished filling their bags with berries in the end, and quickly went back to the settlement to leave them there. Even if it had been more of an excuse to talk to him in private, having more food in their reserves never hurt, as long as they were able to keep it away from smaller creatures that tried to steal it.

Turo stopped for a moment when the children caught sight of them and crowded all around him, clamoring for a new writing lesson.

Sada however had already other plans for the day.

« Not today, we have stuff to do...he will come back tomorrow... right?» she asked, turning towards him. Turo nodded after a second at hearing the words "back" and "tomorrow", looking almost relieved as they quickly departed the village again. She studied him silently for a moment, trying to guess what he was thinking.

He had been acting strange about the settlement since yesterday, after the lesson.

She was right on the point of trying to ask him about it when he spoke first.

« Where are we going...?» he asked, looking at the vast plain of tall grass that extended over the outskirts of the settlement. Sada took one moment to play the flute and call Winged King.

« Flying.» she answered, smiling. She had already a course plotted in mind, a couple of places she wanted to explore from high up in the air, not to mention places that would take her hours of dangerous climbing to reach otherwise.

The dragon didn't take long to arrive, but when it landed, she noticed with a jolt of surprise that it looked in pain. It huffed, breath labored, and seemed to avoid putting his weight onto one of it's front paws.

« W-what happened?» she felt herself cry out while rushing to the dragon's side, observing it more in detail. There was a gash on it's left front leg, but the wound didn't look fresh; it wasn't bleeding right at the moment, at the least. It did, hovever, look pretty deep. And painful. Whatever had happened, it must have been in the hours the day before after they had left the creature to go to the settlement.

Winged King hissed softly, bumping her hand with its snout, obviously looking for some comfort. The fact that it wasn't even sniffing for food in her bag was a sign of how shaken the creature seemed to be. She caressed the dragon, whispering meaningless words to soothe it. She couldn't believe it: Winged King was so strong. What could even be able to hurt it? Did it happen while it was out hunting?

Could she do something? Maybe Narjik could make one of his healing concoctions...? But those worked on humans, she had no idea if they were even effective against a creature... she had seen some of them look for berries when hurt, but...

She noticed that she was trembling; she was having trouble thinking straight, looking at Winged King licking softly at her fingers. What if the wound opened up again? What if there was poison in it?

« What... what can I do...?» she whispered, turning towards Turo - who, she noticed only now, had been very, very quiet, calmly observing the situation from a distance. His face was unreadable, eyebrows furrowed, which by now she knew meant that he was trying very, very carefully to not let some thought of him show on his face.

And his left hand was back in being hidden deep in his pocket, like yesterday.

« I... I can help.» he said in the end, stepping closer.

He knelt down by her side to carefully observe the creature; then, slowly, he finally took something out from his left pocket. Despite everything, Sada couldn't help but stare and let out a little gasp when she saw what it was.

It... looked almost like a shiny rock, if rocks could be chipped and cut to such an impossibly smooth, perfect sphere. It was honestly starting to get a bit annoying, how everything that Turo had seemed to be just so... perfect. Like his clothes, she couldn't see a single imperfection or nick in the blindingly white sphere.

« ... another... "power"? » she asked. Turo was silent for a moment.

« No. A weapon.» he gestured to her spear.

Something in his tone chilled Sada to the core. A weapon? That?

Sure, it looked pretty, and probably hurt if you threw it hard enough at something, but... for Turo to call it a weapon... why hadn't he used it before, then? What did it do?

« This-» he said, holding the sphere firmly in his hand. « You... can not... tell people of this. No one can know. No one can see.»

So he was asking her to keep it a secret.

« What is it...?» she asked slowly, moving her eyes from the shiny sphere to Winged King. But if it was a weapon... wasn't it going to hurt it...?

Turo touched her chin with his free hand, gently guiding her to look him in the eyes.

« ... Sada. It will be okay. » he mirrored what she had said to him to reassure him just the day before, and she found herself smiling just a little despite it all. Even in that moment, when he had looked so nervous and beside himself with worry at the idea of meeting other people, he had still been paying enough attention to note the words she had used.

Of course she could trust him. He would never hurt Winged King.

Sada nodded, and Turo stood back up and approached the dragon. He touched the dragon's head with the sphere, and she jumped a little when the rock split open in two - two perfect half spheres, of course - and the entire figure of Winged King seemed to get enveloped in a blinding red light, before disappearing towards the sphere.

The white sphere closed again and a singular part on the front of it lit up with the same red color. The whole sphere violently shook in Turo's grasp for a moment, before going still again. She stared at the point where Winged King had disappeared, then at the sphere.

« W-what...? You... made it "jump" away...? » she asked, confused. It... it had looked almost like Winged King had gone inside the sphere...

« No. It's in here.» Turo confirmed her thoughts not even a moment later. « ... Sleeping.» he added after a second.

Sada kept staring, her thoughts starting to race while she thought about the implications of what she had just seen. A rock that... that trapped things inside it...

«... it catches creatures.» she realized, voice filled with awe. No wonder he had called it a weapon! Turo simply nodded after a moment.

As long as you had a good throwing arm (and who didn't, considering how important it was?), you could neutralize every single creature that came your way.

Hunting would become so easy, so less dangerous!

Just like that... their greatest problem... solved...

Her wonder was dampened quite a bit when she realized that Turo had made her swear to not speak to anyone about it, which implied that this was something that she couldn't... really make use of. She couldn't bring it to the settlement and teach it to everyone like she had done with writing. That... that wasn't fair. He had all this wondrous things that could make their life so much easier like it was nothing, and she had to pretend to not having seen anything?

Unless... unless she somehow figured out how they worked.

The sight of Turo simply dropping the sphere back in his pocket like it was the most normal thing to do was surreal enough to make her focus back on the present. She still couldn't quite believe that Winged King was inside it... and wonder about the shiny magical rock aside, how was this supposed to help him? She approached the man, suddenly antsy.

« This will... help...?»

« Not here. But with this... Winged King can... "jump" with me.» Turo explained in a low voice. « My people can help.» he added with a confident smile, starting to roll up the sleeve of his clothes again.

He was... he was going to bring it with him? She hadn't even thought about it being possible... he was so protective of that bracelet that it had seemed obvious to her that only he could use it... and nothing else. So by being inside the rock, he could... bring other... things with him?

« ... can... can people...?» she hadn't even finished the thought, taking another step towards him, when he suddenly went pale, hand raised near his wrist like he had done the night before.

« NO!» he practically screamed, franctically backing away from her, eyes wide with panic. Sada froze, surprised - she had never heard him raise his voice like that- and somewhat hurt. She had only wanted to... what was suddenly wrong now?

Turo still looked like he had just narrowly escaped death, breaths short and labored as he tried to calm down.

« That almost... no. No.» he repeated, taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

« You and your people c-can not... "jump". You can never... never come with me. »

Sada frowned, confused. So creatures could go but people couldn't? Was the rock really the difference? Was there no way to make it work on people...?

« ... why?» she asked, but Turo simply kept shaking his head, still backing away from her like she was going to burn him by simply standing near him.

« I... don't know... the word...» he answered after a moment with a frustrated scowl.

He still looked panicked, almost desperate to get something across.

... now that she thought about it, he had always walked away when disappearing. She had thought it was just to hide the flash of light -and probably it was at least in part for that-, but... was there another reason? Did it need a lot of open space...? But no... he had also disappeared in the middle of a thick forest.

« What word...?» she stopped trying to approach him, and that at least seemed to make him calm down just a bit. Turo crossed his arms -in a way as to hide the wrist with the bracelet under the other, she noticed-, thinking silently for a moment. He then lifted one hand and pointed to her spear, then to his neck, where the sharp point had drawn the smallest amount of blood with a cut. He mimed brutally stabbing at his throat.

« You come with me... you "die".» he finally said.

That gave her pause. She wasn't sure about the word he had just used, but the gesture had been pretty clear. People without the power died if they tried to jump with someone...? So... his panic had actually been for her, not because of her...?

Turo sighed and backed away another couple of steps for good measure, raising his left hand to his wrist.

«... wait here.» he said, and then the blinding flash of light surrounded him completely again, and he was gone.

... it was still so strange to see... even stranger this time, maybe, because he had done it right in front of her.

Which both made her happy, because it really looked like he wasn't trying to hide things from her anymore, he was actually making an effort to explain things now, and infuriated her a tiny bit. It... it would be a lie to say that she wasn't a bit jealous. And he made it look so easy to do, just touch that bracelet and poof he was gone. And not to mention that shiny rock!

Sada grumbled a bit, shifting her weight.

"Wait here", he had said. How was she even supposed to know how long he had meant her to w-

Another flash of light right in front of her made her first jump, then stare with her mouth half open as Turo reappeared immediately, like he had never left. In his left hand was the shiny white rock.

« ... hey.» he greeted her as usual, pressing the front part of the rock with one finger. It opened up again, and in another flash of white light -why was it always so bright?? -, Winged King appeared right by his side.

Perfectly healthy. Sada stared, in a daze, at the creature's front leg, which didn't even have a single scar or any other sign that there had even been a large chunk gouged out of it just a couple of moments ago. She couldn't believe it.

It was like it had never happened.

«... oh.» was the only thing she could say as she approached the creature, caressing it's neck, the feathers, and even the leg that had been wounded.

The lizard's orange eyes went wide at seeing her and it pretty much leaped against her, stopping just short of making her topple over.

« You're all right... you're all right...»

It had happened all so fast, in such a surreal way that she hadn't realized how scared she was of Winged King being hurt, of the creature dying or of how much she had grown fond of it in such a short time until she could throw her arms around its thick, scaly neck and bury her face against it. She stood like that for a good while, the lizard hissing softly as it rubbed it's neck against her, nuzzling her.

Then she suddenly remembered that Turo was also here. She turned her eyes to look up at him... and had to question what she was seeing for the second or third time that day.

He looked... different. Much different this time. There were heavy bags under his eyes, his hair was less tidy than usual, and his beard was noticeably longer that she had ever seen him with.

It looked almost like a... a normal beard that any man in the settlement could wear.

She stared at him for a moment, amazed, before she realized what must have happened.

Even if just thinking about it made her head hurt, because...

« ... how many... days is it... for you?»

And for Winged King, obviously, she realized. That is how the creature could be so perfectly healthy... even if for her, just a couple of moments had passed.

Turo smiled his almost invisible smirk as he hid the shiny rock back in his pocket.

« Half moon.» he answered, sitting down- more like slumping down- with an exhausted sigh.

Half a moon?!

How many... how many times had that happened? How many times had Turo promised to meet her "tomorrow", or "in three days", only for who knows how much time to actually pass for him?

It... it almost made her feel guilty, in a way. She almost wanted to ask him, but... something stopped her at the last second. She wasn't sure how the answer, whatever it was, would have made her feel.

« What... what happened?» she asked. Obviously Winged King needed time to heal, but what had happened to make him look so... shaken?

Turo just sighed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand.

« Him.» he pointed a shaky finger towards Winged King, who hissed happily.

« He... he ate so much food. » he groaned, then pushed the lizard away with the same hand when it perked up and came near him to sniff him at the word "food".

... that wasn't the answer Sada had been expecting. She tried to keep her composure, to remain serious. She made an honest effort.

« Pff--»

She couldn't help but to start laughing, so hard that it made her stomach hurt, and she had to sit down in front of Turo as she kept laughing even more at his half amused, half annoyed reaction, at Winged King and at the whole wonderfull absurdity of the entire situation.

She... she loved it. And she loved him, she realized as she finally managed to take a deep breath and stop laughing enough to look back up at Turo.

What he had just done for her... what he had done for her since their very first meeting... in such a short time, he had made her life so much more... vibrant. Interesting. Exciting.

They stared at each other for a short moment, and this time, he is the one to lean forward first and kiss her softly, his arms embracing her and pulling her close.