Pierre sat quietly on his chair, nursing his chin. The girl claiming herself as the legendary warrior 'St.Aardig' stood on the opposite side of the room, thumbing through a small hardback book. It had - After being slapped across his face - Struck Pierre that his comments towards the young woman (lunatic or not) might have been a little impolite, insensitive, maybe even a touch trite.

As such he had decided to take a new tact, handing his intruder the very book she was so clearly grifting from. Said girl now stood perusing a few choice parts Pierre had highlighted for her.

"Well?" Pierre asked tentatively - His jaw stung where she had hit him, and he intended to avoid a repeat of that.

The white-haired girl cleared her throat before responding;

"If I understand this, your wizards--"

"Scientists."

"--Right, your 'sigh-ent-hists' created this N-T-M-E contraption that allows them to look into my world, and you as a storyteller wrote these 'visions' into a book?"

Pierre nodded;

"Neutral-TransMissive-Experience, yes that's the one. The machine allows us to see another world of humanoid peoples, and in turn I wrote that into a book called UnderCurrent. One which you have based your costume around."

A grin spread across this Aardig's face. Like all her facial features, the grin seemed slightly off. It looked almost like the expression of a cheshire cat - Still an attractive face but ever so slightly 'in-human'.

"Well there you go then, you didn't actually 'create me'; you simply heard people talk about me through your magic box! Meaning the information you heard was inaccurate and I am the genuine article!"

She announced far too pridefully. Pierre could feel his temper slipping away from him as his voice rose, clearly tired of this drawn-out farce, "For the last time you can not be her. What of your physical form, hmmm?"

The girl frowned before clumsily placing a hand on her breasts. Pierre blushed as he averted his eyes. He suddenly felt very old.

"I see no reason why my form could not be aptly hidden under the right suit of armour."

‘Th-that's true,’ Pierre realised with a shiver down his spine. ‘She always used to wear a large plate armour chest-piece, you could hide something under that....’

"What of your age, you're too youn--" Pierre tried.

"Now who is being ignorant, I’ll have you know, my good man, that my family line ages sl--"

"--Slower than others. I know that, but you didn't used to age bloody backwards!"

He finished on her behalf.

The girl frowned, "And how would you know? You only have second-hand information about me, yes?"

Pierre let the fists he had subconsciously clenched fall to his side and sighed, "Alright then, one final test and then I really shall call the police this instant - Aardig was the greatest mage of her time, maybe of all time. If you are her then--"

A feeling of numb vertigo overcame Pierre. A lurching of his whole body, a blurring of the ceiling moving further away. In a moment his elbows hit the floor with a heavy thud, catching him from slamming his head.

He stared up at the study's ceiling as he felt the soft carpet underneath him.

"What The Bloody Hell Was That!"

'Aardig' didn't answer but instead nodded at the chair before offering her hand to Pierre. He hesitated momentarily before taking it and allowing her to help him back to his feet. ‘Soft’- Her hand was so very small and soft – ‘Too soft for a warrior perhaps?’

He was about to demand an explanation from the girl, but his eyes grew wide as he looked back to where his chair had once been.

 The back legs of the leather seat were gone, no that wasn't quite it. They were lying next to the fallen furniture like two pieces of firewood. On the chair itself remained only small wooden stubs.

Pierre stepped over to it, running his hand over the stubs. They hadn't been cut, and there were no splinters - Indeed, it looked as though it had always been this way, the wood was flush and pristine as if it had never been any other way. There was absolutely no sign of damage.

Pierre felt his knees go weak, wanted desperately to sit down. Behind him the girl smiled that slightly cat-like grin once more.

Slowly he picked up the stricken seat and propped it up against the wall before sitting cautiously on it, using said wall in place of back legs, "J-just a trick of the light. Yes, yes that's all it is. You came here, cut the legs, then fixed them back. There must be a cord here somewhere that you simply pulled. Yes, simple really!"

As if in response, one of the two pieces of wood that had once been his chair's rear leg rose into the sky.

And then it split clean in half without so much as a flash.

Then into four-quarter pieces of flush wood.

Then eight.

Before Pierre could even process this impossibility of physics, the girl drew her sword. From the clear sliding screech of the metal, to the way it cut cleanly through the air: Pierre knew it was no mere prop.

He braced but it came no nearer to him, instead 'Aardig' dropped it.

It didn't fall.

  It hung in the air as though held by some invisible hand or other. Simply floating there until finally she picked it back up and sheathed it. There had been no magic incantation, no deep concentration or wizard's wand.

  It had all just happened - 'Untenable, on this planet there is no magic. Completely impossible for any human, any from Earth at least...'

"Now will you finally acknowledge me, Mr. Havelock?"

"Yo-you, you can't, you can't--" Pierre mumbled, head in his hands.

"Speak up man, I do not flaunt my powers so openly for just anyone you know, feel honoured in fact!"

"You can't be her because I was there - damn it!"

Pierre roared as his anger at last boiled over. Standing out of his chair, which once more fell off balance and hit the floor with a loud clatter.

The girl recessed back, "Calm down man, you were where exactly?"

"There on Bhaile, I was Aardig's companion! I watched her grow, watched her defend her countries' borders, fight dragons and armies. Watched her become Empress of the whole damn world! And then I-i--I got, well, the Japanese people call it being 'Isekaied'.

I was taken from my home, my place by her side and placed on this god-forsaken lump of dirt and sea they call Earth! I was forced to leave everything behind against my will. To spend thirty damned years in this alien world, shunned by society and hidden away in this house like some societal reject.

And when I'd given up all hopes of going home, I get this job, a job to archive the 'UnderCurrent'- I couldn't believe it, suddenly this world's humanity had proven its worth, and I had a chance to see my home again but what do I find? That millennia have passed!

I don't know how or why but the UnderCurrent solar system, my home - Has moved forward thousands of years from when I lived - My family, my friends, everything is gone, dead and long forgotten.

And that you darn harlot, that is how I know for certain that you are not my Aardig, that you are not the person I used to know!”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

A silence fell over the small room as the two composed their respective thoughts.

"I'll admit you must be from the same world as me and the real Aardig, maybe even thirty years after when we lived..." Pierre said, breaking the silence his voice back to a calmer tone; "Your magic ability proves that you are not from Earth - But you can not be my Aardig, you are too young, too feminine and well... What is your name?"

"My name? Lady Aardig--" The girl began.

"Exactly," Pierre said through a now thoroughly disheartened sigh, this last comment dissipating the remains of his short-lived angry outburst. "That name, is the name she gained, a title but it wasn't her actual name. How can you be her when you don't even know her name, woman?"

The girl’s face scrunched in thought - "You say you knew me and if I take your story as fact rather than delusion - That you were my friend--"

'She always used to call all her retainers 'Friends' in the early days...'

"--Then is it not possible you really have in your mind turned me into a 'Waifu' in these three past decades you spent away from home? This image of an older woman, who, although flattering - You have imagined as 'Empress of the World'. This person of no gender, of ultimate purity perhaps? And now when I have returned to you in the flesh after all this time, I no longer match what you had painted in your head of me?"

The girl finished while planting one hand on her hips and gesturing with the other to the room around them, filled with books brimming with such imaginative tales.

'Is that possible? That I imagined her as different, as a form of coping with losing everything I once had, of getting isekaied to this Earth? But that would mean Aardig, my sweet Aardig is standing before me?!'

"...That's not possible, I refuse to accept this!"

The girl shrugged but then jumped in surprise as Pierre laid his hands on each of her shoulders.

"That's it!" He exclaimed with desperation rather than triumph, lacing his voice. "It would make sense if you were her daughter. The silver-white hair, the powers, your age, all of it! You stepped through that portal thing, lost your memories and to compensate your mind has filled them in with stories of your legendary parent. Ha! That must be it!

I wonder who the Father was..."

The girl offered the man a look of pity. At first she had been confused by her new surroundings, then offended by his comments - But now the look of distress on his face and his bizarre life story made her feel only sorrow for the strange man. It was clear this lengthy introduction was causing him quite a lot of upset.

"And yet in your book there is no mention of a daughter, nor did you know of one."

  The girl shot back with underlying sympathy.

Pierre mused on this for a moment before becoming even more pale, "So the Empress's line simply ends with no records because her daughter ends up here?! In my blasted house?!"

The girl simply giggled at this - Actually giggled - Not laughed but giggled in a fashion Pierre had never observed from a real adult before.

"I wouldn't worry about all that my dear fellow, for I am not my own 'Fictional daughter' - I am Saint Aardig. My memory of how I got here is admittedly a little foggy. One moment I was at a camp with my compatriots, the next I appeared in this bemusing 'office' of yours. But the rest of my life I can see as clear as day - Every face and every place, just like all those in my family can."

"Photographic Memory..." Pierre mumbled, he had by now let go of the young woman's shoulders and stood slightly swaying in the centre of the room.

"What memory?"

"Oh umm, you wouldn't have had the phrase where you came from but I often thought that might be what it was ran in your family..."

"Ah-ha! So 'your version' of Aardig had perfect memory too then, yes?"

The girl purred. Pierre looked as though he might faint at any moment.

  "Bu-But you can't be..."

"Oh enough of this talk already man!"

  Aardig huffed before perching herself atop Pierre's large mahogany desk, her sword's scabbard scratching against the pristine furniture piece, her arms folded across the elegant frame of her body.

  "And what of you? Do I not get to ask any questions in return? You say you were one of my friends, well which one then? Thirty years has clearly not treated you kindly."

And like that, the girl 'Aardig' began to list names of legendary warriors that Pierre had not heard spoken of in decades - That he believed he would never hear spoken again.

Warriors who could cleave the thickest trees in a single strike.

  Mages who could atomise the very air around their opponents, archers who could hit a target whole towns away - Martial artists who could defeat a platoon of armed men with just their bare hands.

"Oh and of course, Gem Havler. He, ah-well, he doesn't have the powers and prowess necessarily of the others, but he is as loyal a man as one could ask for and an exceptionally talented swordsman - Even with a hand tied behind his back!

  Indeed the others come and go, they return to their own duties and kingdoms but Gem has been with me for years now--"

"That's me..." Pierre uttered half-heartedly, in a voice of defeat - 'No one has spoken my real name in so many years now…’

"You? But just before I found myself here, he sat beside me around the campfire! And the names on all these books you made, an-- Oh? 'Pierre' in the southern tongue means 'Precious Gem' does it not?"

Aardig said. Pierre nodded, "And Havelock is a simple romanisation of my original surname."

The girl clasped her hands together in a cute and pleased understanding;

"I see, like a code in case others from Our World ever came here. I feel the fool for not realising all the sooner, it seems so obvious now. But still, you were there with me."

  This time it was Pierre who shrugged.

"Then do you now see that I must be who I say I am? After all, if I am to stay here until you find a way for me to get home, we must decide on what names to use," Aardig asked encouragingly, trying to get Pierre to cease frowning and finally move the conversation past the introduction stage.

The man in question was silent for a few moments, "Stay here?"

"You are my friend still, no? Or has thirty years shaken our bond so much that you would abandon me in a world I do not know dear Gem? Would you be that embarrassed to have a so-called 'Waifu' like me as a companion, at least for a time?"

Pierre looked into her intent eyes, her brown eyes –‘The wrong colour eyes’ - He lamented bitterly and yet he couldn't deny it.

  That those beautiful swirling dark eyes, in this moment, were one of the most breath-taking sights he had ever seen. He couldn't deny that he’d dreamt of someday being reunited with the woman he had once--

The girl calling herself Aardig clasped Pierre's hands in her own – ‘Her hands are so very warm and soft’.

"Apologies for striking you earlier, old friend. It would seem age has not blunted your sharp wit and lack of tact, eh? These may be strange circumstances we both find ourselves in, but I do hope we can still be friends in this bizarre new place, yes?"

Pierre just stared into those brown eyes, entirely at a loss.

The woman smiled, like her grin earlier, it was an almost artificial affair: a broad, kindly smile that seemed to fill Pierre with immeasurable warmth; "My name, good fellow, is the Lady Aardig and you are my most faithful of companions Pierre Havelock - No Gem Havler, who has somehow followed me across entire worlds untold! I apologise you had to wait a little while on your lonesome for me to get here, but let me just say - How very good it is to meet you once more, old friend."

‘A waifu, the Japanese call it hmm?

Made real in the image of ‘That Girl’ - Whatever is 'this' world coming to. And my peaceful daily life for that matter!?’

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