"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror."

― Kahlil G.

Something must have done her head in. Passing worlds, skipping universes, and trotting along magical orchards could have devastating effects. She knew the tribespeople were insanely strong, enormously tall, and ran faster than a seasoned athlete. Something must have made them that way. Evolving to that much defensible functionality and improved immune system, they must have acclimated to unfavorable environmental conditions.

And she wasn't spared, she must have been susceptible to it. What normal breathing atmosphere for tribespeople could have been devastating for a human like her. Presumably, toxic radiation levels like the ones they talk about in sci-fi shows. Because, that would be the only reason her mind would ever go there. She was losing her mind. She needed to return to normal, right fucking now.

Who was to know that the air they were breathing in was even oxygen? She's only human, she needed oxygen.

Who was to know that this world even had oxygen?

What if she got poisoned again after having been cured by Crow?

"I need to leave" she said, hating how her voice sounded breathless and weak. "Are we good?" Clearing her throat, she crawled away from the bent apple tree and stood up once she was in the clear.

Maksim didn't make a sound as he followed her, glued to her heels with no intention of separating.

Trying to put a healthy distance between them, she put both palms out in a bid for more space and asked "Are you going to be ok?" When he didn't answer right away, she quickly added, "I need to see a healer soon. Crow, preferably, can take a blood sample and see if I have any averse reactions to the apple we just ate. He will be able to tell if I'm going to be sick." Or if I'm already sick because my mind is a lovesick jumbled mess right now. "You know what, you should come with me, too. See if you got sick from eating the uh.." she looked at the discarded apple on the floor, blackened in decay. "the eternal fruit."

"The false behagthi" his white-marbled eyes narrowed, inspiring a shudder to run a course down her spine "He will not welcome me. As I am the one who has set his cursed chains for imprisonment."

She licked her lips, a movement that he followed with his sobered gaze "Believe me, that was uh.." her mind drew to a blank, this guy's attention had her stammering to a fault "..intentional. You see there was this prophecy that said he needed to be imprisoned, so yeah. I mean, he can't possibly fault you for delivering his desire to fulfill that prophecy. Although he is still peeved about you taking over his castle. Apparently, there were lots of treasures hidden there that he didn't want to be disturbed."

"It's been sorted and distributed throughout the villages over the past hundred years. Its resources disabused the village from the brink of economic collapse."

"He will be uhh.." she blushed when she attempted to meet his eyes, "He will be happy to hear that. He's been wanting to set right the wrongs he has inspired. W-we should go?"

Pearce was giving pats to the trunk of the apple tree, giving encouragement as it sat straighter, unfolding and untwisting.

She swallowed audibly, crossing her arms. Something happened under there. Like she might have given something away but she wasn't quite sure what that was.

Maksim took her by the hand, his roughened palm pressing into her softer skin. She blushed, looking anywhere but him. Even the way he touched felt like a claiming mark.

"Will you be showing the behagthi your portal gate, my Lord Highness?" Liona asked "I would advise not to, it hasn't been sufficiently charged since your last passing."

"There is no need for it." he said, "River has a more efficient way of passing."

"Does she?" Liona said, her hunched body jerking in surprise. "That I gotta see."

He raised an imperious brow at River "Now do it."

"How about I—" she bit back her retort, took a deep calming breath and started to sing.

The song that came to mind was a nasty one. And a tad bit rebellious. It was about people calling her a little wicked for being an aspiring kingslayer with her hands red, full of nasty crimes and underhanded machinations "One of these days a'coming," she sang "I'm gonna take that boy's crown."

What bad singing she might have intentionally done, it invited a faster speed of summoning doorways. As pitch-black shadows pervaded the skies and distant horizons, a heavy fog whirled out of thin air circling around them to close a protective boundary. Outside of the boundary appeared a larger span of doorways with images from otherworlds and every one of them faced River.

"Unrestricted access to thousands of doorways," he said, glancing down at her, impressed. "you can take my crown anytime you like, River. I can promise you that."

"Thought you said your tribe means more to you than anything." The way her words sounded out loud made her cringe. When he opened his mouth to reply, she hastily said, "Wait, no. Don't answer that. I don't want to hear what you have to say. Let's just go to wherever it is."

He moved slowly, guiding her with a painstaking patience that annoyed the hell out of her. "What you are looking for.." he started.

"What?" she bit out, annoyed. He sounded like one of those laid-back, tourist guides that took their sweet time enunciating their words. "And don't touch me." she pushed away from his hand on her lower back.

As if lashing out at him was amusing to him, he smirked in a heart-stopping way that deepened his cheeks to showing two dimples on the sides of his mouth. Something in her belly fluttered, a shameful reaction that she had to tamp down. Cursed princes shouldn't be this distracting.

"Close your eyes." he ordered.

Setting her jaw, she closed her arms together in a cross, ignoring him. If she could just find the adequate doorway that would take her to where she needed to be, that would be great. But there were about a thousand doors facing her, and they were smack-dab at the middle. The thing is, she can't even see each door clearly. Its doorframes were made of white fog and the vision to another world, to another place was hazy and clouding their viewpoint from where she was standing.

"Oh?" she heard Maksim say behind her. "Have we developed an adequate sense of self-preservation?"

Her cheeks flushed bright red. "There is no development!" then his words sank in, he must have seen her memory of Crow telling her to grow some better sense of self-preservation. She pressed both palms against her cheeks, wishing it would cool back down. Why am I so high-strung? she thought. This isn't me. It must have been another damn sickness I caught from passing worlds without protection. Damn it, any star trek fan would have known to wear protective equipment before coming into contact with unknown alien environment.

"You're having trouble seeing," he said, sounding much closer than she would like.

On instinct, she took a step away.

He continued "Focus on opening your senses. Once again, I'm gonna have to ask you to close your eyes."

"Yeah. Of course. Obviously." she murmured, doing as he told. "What am I focusing on?"

"The false behagthi. Try to picture him in your mind. Think of the place where he could be right now."

"It's not working." Liona observed.

They studied the visions in the doorways, it portrayed a hazier more blurred image of its intended place.

"Cease what you're doing, River."

Liona said "If she keeps going like this, the doorway images will disappear completely."

"I'm not doing anything. I'm just thinking real hard." she turned to Liona, "I'm right here in front of you. Quit talking like I'm not." She grumbled in frustration, circling the wide-open space clearing inside the boundary. They weren't in the orchards anymore. They were somewhere else that was devoid of color and light. What little light came from the doorways. Even then, its blurriness shadowed any clear source of light. The atmosphere around them threatening to swallow them up in darkness.

"You're losing power" Liona said as the doorways outside of the circle were beginning to dissipate into regular mist.

"The throne room." said Maksim "I saw you and the children charging up a leyline."

She chuffed an impatient breath, "Are you saying our awful singing was powerful enough to super-charge a leyline full of doorways between otherworlds?"

"Most excellent, yes."

"Well, what the hell. I'm always looking for a chance to embarrass myself." she said dryly.

"What an awful special way to live, my behagthi." he noted, looking at her, pleased. Like she was an endearing pet that figured out how to bark on cue for the first time.

Bristling at his expression, she squared her shoulders. "Don't get attached. Once I'm done with this prophecy, I'm returning back to normal to fix my own problems."

He chuckled, "The eternal fruit transformed us. It gifted us and it has taken from us." Behind her back, he covered her eyes with both his cold palms. "Perhaps, it's all the better for you to feel it, instead. Take a deep breath and feel. There is something in you that isn't your own anymore." he murmured into her ear, brushing the shell of it. "It's mine. What power do you think an eternal fruit can give? More than you can ever hope to imagine. Its very legacy can bridge distances between multifarious universes. No matter where you go, there I am. For always."

"Not if I had anything to do with it." Brushing off his touch, she whirled around to face him, "Listen to me, and listen to me well. I'm only here to help. I'm not looking for anything serious like a life-long commitment to another person. People are in desperate need for help and that's what I'm here for. To help and fix whatever I can. And once I'm gone, I'm gone."

Liona gave a derisive sneer.

"What?" River snapped, there was a coiling tension rising up between her shoulders. Something electrifying that threatened to burn her.

"You're not helping anyone with that attitude." she replied.

Groaning in outrage, she coiled her fingers into tightened fists, and it emanated a burning sensation that fired upwards unto her arms.

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Let it flow, River.

Dr. Malia's words came to her.

I can't. She remembered saying to her in reply. I'm just so angry. So tired. Exhausted. I don't want to let go. It's the only thing I have left for me.

The truth of Dr. Malia's words had been cutting to her, It's deadweight. This anger lies to you, River. You must see it for what it is, a deadweight that is keeping you from truly living. Tell me a truth, right now. For once, tell me a goddamned truth.

She remembered sobbing to her, I don't want to be angry anymore.

Then you have to let it go, and put it down. Leave it.

Where do I put it?

You put it here, Dr. Malia pointed to her own lips, this anger you put it here. But you swallow it, every single time. Swallowing anger until it rots the heart of you. It's time to spit it back out.

River made a hysterical laugh, Do you want me to spit out all and every cursed words I know? And that will help me?

She mulled over the thought and said, Words have power. With cursed words, all the more so. I'd recommend that, yes. But I was thinking more along the lines of grace and dignity.

No. Hard pass.

Try it. You might like it.

No, she said, drying her eyes with the front of her palms. I'd rather fall on my face, hard. On a brick wall, multiple times over. Than have to sing a goddamned song.

Please. Dr. Malia snickered. Songs are overrated. Don't bother putting yourself through that garbage called musical theatre or whatever pop songs they're putting out there. It's a shit ton of whiny angst that is completely pedantic and trite. Do me a favor, and don't get involved with those lot.

Dr. Malia, River said slowly, Your husband is a critically-acclaimed Broadway singer and a former member of a teenage boy band.

Performer. She corrected, Let's not dredge up whatever shame I have over his dark past. This is about you, not mine. she said, uttering a long-suffering sigh while waving a dismissive hand. I'm putting you up for opera lessons. You will be singing vocal arias for the next couple of months.

No. I'm going to sound like a dying whale and I'm not putting anyone to suffer through that.

Her therapist gave her a patronizing glare, As a woman who has been through all walks of singers and wanna-be artists, I can wholeheartedly say without a shadow of a doubt that anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

River's jaw went slack, The audacity. Of throwing my words back at me. I shared that to you in confidence.

I'm a well-functioning therapist, it's my job. You pay me to do it.

Fuck you. Fuck you, very much.

Dr. Malia gave a glittering smile, encouraged. Our professional working relationship hardly allows endearments, River. Unfortunately.

She shot to her feet, gathering her sling pouch bag over her head until it rested across her chest, I know what you're doing. You think to provoke me until I lay it all out, don't you? Fuck that, I'm not falling for it. Oh and guess the fuck what? I'm telling your husband. she said, walking away to leave.

We'll be expecting you soon for dinner, then?

You bet! she shouted from the doorway, indignant.

Dr. Malia's smile was audible when she shouted back, Be saving you a seat, then.

A chill raced up her spine, grounding her back to the present. She opened her eyes to see a wall of bare chest, a sight that startled her backwards, raising up a hand between them as barrier.

Maksim was unperturbed, closing the distance between them again until her palm rested squarely on his bare freaking chest. He gripped the side of her jaw, pulling up and forcing her to meet his eyes etched in concern, "Better?"

"Yeah" Releasing a shaky breath, "Just needed to take a moment."

"Will you please sing for me, River?" he rumbled in a voice that weakened her knees.

"As opposed to just ordering me about like you do?"

The pad of his thumb skittered over the edge of her lips, "I'm willing to learn many things. Especially, in regards to your happiness."

Raising an index finger between them, she pointed it at him. "There you are again with your strange words. I told you I don't want to hear it."

He gave a disbelieving chuckle, "What's so strange about it?"

"Oh, for goodness sakes!" Liona said, "Quit bickering like an old married couple. It's hardly the time and place. Sing, behagthi, sing!"

"Fine" she said, pouting. "But I'm not going to be pretty about it."

The song she began wailing had stressed about her as a woman whose life was meant for adventure, taking control, and feeling like a dangerous woman, "Somethin' 'bout you makes—" she stopped.

Coming from the doorways, vivid visionary images brightened with vibrancy. The mist strengthened to a heavy fog, solidifying the threshold between other-worlds.

"Liona." Maksim uttered, stark horror gripping his tone.

River turned away from the doorway that looked to be the garden gate for the brothers' graystone igloo. Liona and Maksim were wrapped around in tentacles of smoke.

"Familiar" Liona hummed, her aged eyes clouded with cataracts began spilling color. The wild bushy hair framing her gaunt face turned from grey to fresh yellow corn "Familiar. Familiar." she said, until she disappeared completely inside the heavy fog that began surrounding her completely.

A giant white-scaled anaconda rose up from Maksim's mist, looking pissed.

"T-through here!" River stuttered, pointing to the correct doorway.

When no one moved, she took Maksim by the arm with both hands, pulling him away from the mist and into the threshold between worlds. His guardian animal nipping behind his heels.

Liona called after them, "I'm going through this portal back to my husband. He'll be waiting for me." her voice sounding way younger, less scratchy. When she moved outside her mist, the elderly hunchback woman was gone. In her place was a proud-looking warrior woman that had a wealth of blond shining tresses of hair curling down her back.

River stopped. "Liona. Alli'ona."

Her lips curled down, "That name sounds like ten lifetimes ago."

She sucked in a breath. "They celebrate you, the sun tribe. The whole of sun tribe at every cycle of seasons. They don't forget. Especially, your brother U'tu. Your sacrifice was not in vain."

She grunted, glancing at Maksim "Not much of a sacrifice."

"What do you mean?"

"The tribes are cursed, no matter what a behagthi can do. No matter what you can fix. Or help create. It's no use. The princes will still be cursed. Brumcia will still spin in madness. It's how it is. At least, in the orchard, it's different."

River looked to Maksim, then slid back to Liona "What do you mean different?"

"The eternal fruits are older than the gods. Its divine powers are evermore, powerful enough to sustain the world for a sustainable ecosystem for all of eternity. Back in the orchards, Brumcia cannot spin her madness. We're safe there. No curse touches us."

"I don't get it." she said, "If the orchards are safe, then why don't you let your snow tribespeople to live there in peace?"

"River" Liona murmured quietly, "The orchards are for dead people. All manner of spirits and souls live there. No other. Not even tribespeople."

She laughed, "Right. That can't be... right." sobering down, "I got there."

Liona shrugged, throwing her arms upwards. "Look around you. Everywhere is darkness. This empty space we're standing on is only lit up in this dreary drab light because of you. This is your light. The light of your spirit."

"I don't.."

"I asked you if you were tribe or spirit." Maksim murmured low, "And you told me that you were both. As I am."

"Linguistic misunderstanding." she said, breathless. Nursing her forehead with a hand, rubbing it. "Spirit has a different connotation back in my world. I can't be.. dead. I don't feel any different."

Her words were met with silence.

"I didn't die!"

With his tall height, he easily ate up the distance between them in one stride. "River."

Emotions lodged in her throat, she looked up to him, begging for sense.

"That lake was poisonous to the touch. You couldn't have made it."

She licked her lips, shaking her head "But, Crow. He cured me."

"It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough for you to develop an immunity for it."

Running both hands through her hair, pulling it back, she stuttered, "But we can go back, right? I can pass through worlds, we can still—" she gave a sharp inhale, her voice breaking "I can still go back home, right?"

Maksim's white-scaled anaconda began hissing then moved to the vision image of the graystone igloo's garden gate where the damned brothers lived. Using its tail, it pushed her towards it.

She didn't have the strength to resist. Guided by the pale anaconda, she raised a tentative hand on the doorway.

An invisible pressure blocked her from coming through. "I.. I don't understand."

Maksim closed in behind her back, raising an arm forward, his hand passing through the invisible barrier. "As I had feared."

"What's wrong? How can we fix it? W-what do I do?"

His features grew tight. "This is the universe where you died. Your body lays dead back there. Chances are, it most probably have been disintegrated."

"B-but you're alive! I saw you in that lake and you looked fine. Well, you looked dead but you didn't seem hurt."

"Brumcia's curse allows me to shift between living and the dead." he said, his voice dropping low, almost reverently "You must understand. Mine is the curse of eternity. You— River, you are mortal. You couldn't have survived the lake of sorrow. The poison there is pure, undiluted. When you first dived in, you couldn't have survived it."

"I'm not dead." she whirled to Liona, "Tell him I'm not dead."

"You are not" she replied, "In spirit and in soul, River. You are alive."

"Not in body." he said, his piercing gaze growing worried, "I must be there for my people when they hand over the cure to the poison. They won't be able to take an outsider's word for it, not even Crow's. I have to be there for them. Tell my people that what these strangers bring to us are authentic cures. Make it so that everyone gets to have every lick of it."

"Do you still want to go with the cure? When it didn't work for me?"

"You're a behagthi, River. An outsider. Your biology, what you are, even your spirit and soul are different. It's nothing I can recognize. It's how I got confused when we first met. You are different. I realized too late that you are entirely human, not tribespeople. Not even Crow could understand."

A lance of pain pierced her chest. His words held a stinging poison that bore the weight of a thousand weary sighs. The feeling was an oddly memorable wound. A wound that bore the semblance of crushing disappointment. And this wound.. this old wound was the reason she could never find her place in her own world. This old wound was the reason why she never belonged. It was the reason why she had been alienated in the first place, ever since she was young.

"But Crow knows tribespeople," he continued, growing fervored in his passion. "He spent hundreds of years collecting research. Heck, the man even has a private library trove full of sacred knowledge, allowing him to a broad understanding of the other tribes, and that was only before his imprisonment. I've been to his castle, I can tell you he knows far enough to create cures effectively for every tribe there is across all lands."

"Just not for me." she said, feeling numb.

"I must go, River. My people need me. They have been needing for thousands of years and now I can finally free them, save them. For the first time in thousands of years, they will finally break out of the clutches of poison. They will be able to travel outside the snow mountains. Socialize and trade with other tribes. Unite once again, and become strengthened for it. It's too good to be true and I cannot pass this up. River, don't you see, this is a miracle." he said, running a hand through his hair, agitated "No more dying children. No more snow tribespeople passing through a dreaming sickness in order to enter the orchards where they wait to be reborn into a non-toxic tribe."

Tears fell down her cheeks, You're leaving me? she thought. Her voice too strained to spill words out loud.

He paced around, "My people have been living through centuries of poison and suffering, poverty, endless pain. I know my people, they won't just take anyone's word for it. Not Crow. Not Aidan. Not even the god tribe enforcers living under the tunnels. It has to be me, they will believe me. River, I have to go to them. They are going to need me to lead them, guide them out of this millenia-old misery."

His words tore open old wounds, re-igniting them again in a burning fire that strained her voice into silence.

She swallowed, her gaze traveling down to watch the floor where her feet stood upon. If Dr. Malia could hear him now, she would have torn him down to pieces with a piece of her mind. Those are not the words you tell to an abandoned child, River thought her therapist would have said to him.

She wiped a tear-stained cheek with the back of her hand. But, the abandoned child has already grown up now. That child has put in the work in therapy.

She got stronger.

"Go," she whispered, fearing her voice will break if she put more strength to her words. "Go." she said weakly, her words sounding distant to her ears as if someone else was saying it. "I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. Didn't you say that whatever bond or connection we have through that godforsaken apple.." she lost her train of thought, then continued "You said it bridges through universes, so perhaps, we will see each other again. Aren't you eternity, or whatever?"

"We will see each other again." he snapped, his voice hard as steel, "I promise you that."

It took everything in her to keep a straight face. However, more tears broke out falling freely. Promise, was such a triggering word. Promise is the word her demons used to haunt her with during sleep when she's vulnerable in her nightmares. Promise, was the biggest lie that broke the spirit inside her when she was just a child. It used to have the ultimate power to destroy her heart and innocence, but, it's different now. She was bigger and stronger. She has to believe that. Otherwise, what good will she be?

Past experiences have taught her that her only value to life and to everyone else was that of her usefulness.

She bit her bottom lip hard before giving him a brave smile "Go ahead and save your people. I'll be fine."

He went frozen even as his jaw was grinding tight. Then he blinked twice, his brows closing in together. He was about to say something before his guardian animal re-entered his body in a unifying blizzard of snow that flew around him.

"I'll be seeing you" she said, pasting a smile on her face that only went skin-deep.

Suddenly, with a cutting speed she couldn't follow, he passed through the doorway in a blink of a second without saying a word for good-bye. And when he went, the lights seemed to go dimmer and darker like he took all the warmth with him.

Which is ridiculous, she told herself. And scanned around for the warrior princess Liona, but she was gone too.

"I guess," she said out loud to the dark empty space around her, "That was the end of my usefulness to them."