Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

22 || the New Evelia

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Last revision: 4/24/2013

At first glance, several things were immediately and noticeably different about Evelia. Her characteristic light olive colored skin now carried that hauntingly familiar quality of subtly glowing – and it glistened.  This was particularly evident because she was dressed in her white swimsuit with light peach designs on it.  Although it was particularly modest for a swimsuit – it had one of those stretchy, strapless tops with large ruffles all around and it had a matching bottom with ruffles around the waist so that it looked more like a skirt than a swimsuit bottom – Blaze was startled to see her dressed like that and immediately felt uncomfortable as if he had walked in on someone who hadn’t finished dressing.  Without thinking, he found himself looking away from her, subconsciously checking to see if anyone else was present.  As he did, he caught a view of the window.  Already, he could see that the view of the earth was less than spectacular: he had waited too long – it was now so small that it was only barely identifiable.

Looking back upon Evelia, he could discern that she was breathing – although her breaths seemed shallow, they were steady.  He now noticed Elayuh and felt relieved that she seemed to be happily sleeping.  Maybe I should just go back to my room, he considered, all of a sudden feeling a bit like an uninvited voyeur.  Or maybe I should make sure she is okay, he reconsidered.  While there was nothing about the room that Blaze couldn’t dismiss as relatively trivial, he couldn’t help but feel strangely about Evelia’s skin.  Just like the magic woman’s, he remembered without any effort at all, and it is shiny too … And while that didn’t seem to offer any rational reason for being worried about her, something inside of him began to feel deeply concerned.

Blaze! an excited voice echoed inside his head.  He recognized that voice but it sounded somewhat different when he heard it within his mind compared to when he heard it in a memory.  His eyes shifted to Evelia’s eyes to meet her beaming smile.  It worked, huh? 

Blaze didn’t answer.  Surprise should have been written all over his face but all that showed was a blank stare.  He couldn’t decide whether he should be happy she was okay or extremely stressed that she was speaking to him telepathically.  Conflicted because part of him wanted to try silently speaking back to her while another part of him wanted to pretend that didn’t just happen, he answered her vocally, “Evelia, are you alright?”

I am great!  Did it work?  Can you hear me?

Now Blaze was feeling more awkward because he was looking straight at Evelia, speaking to her with his mouth, and she wasn’t speaking back to him in a normal way.  But her enchanting, charming smile quickly calmed him and he couldn’t help but want to make her happy so he answered.

“Yes, it is working but,” he paused, still feeling awkward and not knowing what to say, “could we just talk normal?  You accessed her memories, right?”  She was nodding his head, parroting his own gesture.  “So … what is going on?  Why are you dressed like that?  Not that you look bad … but…” If Blaze normally lacked eloquence, he was announcing it with a bullhorn now. 

But she understood.  She had reviewed all of his memories the day before.  They were in the first batch of information that the magic woman had shared.  If Blaze held any secrets from Evelia before, there were none left.  She experienced most of his life and memories the day before and understood him very deeply now – in some ways, she may have understood him better than he understood himself.  If their bond of friendship had only began to bud over the past several days, she felt like they had been friends for a lifetime now – but she also understood that he knew none of this and couldn’t feel quite the same way – yet.