Early in the morning, the two sat across one another with both hands on the table. Mavin stared at Natalya, she stared back at him. The two were quiet as they looked at one another. The curtain on their right was blowing as they gave a rather awkward stare off.

“Wendy should be back. Gaul, I can trust him since he’s Aunger’s protégé. Thank you for doing this, Mavin. I really do like that we are trying to somehow make this work.”

Mavin nodded. The two held a rather stiff expression still. Fifty-seven years was still a long time. For Mavin it was only weeks while for Natalya it was long, but she had enough time in those repeated nightmares to have the patience and wisdom to understand. Of course, the one thing that she didn’t have patience with had destroyed the hotel bed. It wasn’t exactly subtle how she was hiding the marks on her necks. Mavin had no marks because of his regeneration, which she was quite envious of.

Still Natalya was praising herself inwardly for being calm. She had experienced a repetitive nightmare, and though she hated the fact that she was calm about seeing him. She did spend time in those nightmares, repeating the same nightmare, watching him die over and over again. She even had time to kill and the only reason she believed that Mavin was sitting across her was that he didn’t personally experience it. What she did to him. What he did to her. It was all nothing in her head. Who would sit down with a woman who had done that to him? Natalya knew that she was using guilt, obligation, and the promises he made to keep him around. To make him sit down and actually talk it out. She had years of experience dealing with people, and she would have been far stupider if she had lost her composure instead of taking time to think and actually get what she wanted. Natalya could sense that he understands what she is doing, but wasn’t talking about it mainly because of said guilt. It was easy for her to deduce that if he was telling the truth, then he had read information about her, which she assumed because of Aunger, had written a journal or diary about what she had done because he mentioned it. As much as she wanted to truly know if he was lying. The memories she slightly saw had told her that the fifty-seven years of agony wasn’t a lie. Even if it was a lie, Natalya couldn’t pull a gun, and shoot him. Perhaps, she had cases where she had killed someone… but this was a man she had married once. The man who had done so much for Lazon that he’d fought a full-powered exiled one and survived. She had seen what a lesser exiled one and it took Aunger’s sacrificing his health, the death of hundreds of the magiborne to make it work. He managed to do it and it caused him fifty-seven years to recover. A lifespan lost because of how he had to fight a threat they barely defeated.

Natalya had been leading for years. She had experiences in other nightmares as well. It would have been far too idiotic for her do something so reckless, especially to someone who she had affections to. What kind of an idiot would just shoot a man without reason? Yes, perhaps she might have done it, but since it was Mavin. She was looking for many excuses inside her head to do it.

The craving was still around. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And although her warped heart told her so many reasons to do something about him. The fear that she had for losing someone so familiar, her husband, the reason she was protecting Lazon and the descendants of Lazon was because of him. Of course, she had many complaints, and yet she was still afraid.

Afraid of what she might say out loud. What she might do that would make him vanish. She can live without him, she had done that for years, but what kind of idiot would willingly break their heart when they can get what they want instead?

She  had made compromises that even he should understand. If anyone sees how much she was compromising, they would have been dumbfounded, struck madly wondering why the woman that had been known to be like steel and deadly had allowed so much. If it was any bastard, she would have not said a word and had been done about this. If her mother and Rosa was around, they would have called her the foolish girl in the world. Then again, she had already accepted her screw looses, and she couldn’t let go of what she had lost. She had mourned him. She had visited his grave and took time to clean it up in honor of him. Truthfully, would she even have protected Lazon if it wasn’t for him? She doubts it. Despite all her excuses, Natalya truly wanted to be rewarded.  She knew it in her heart as well and she couldn’t pretend about it. How easy it was to lock him up and keep him around, but someone who had improved as well in the years would take time to defeat and what she saw before knowing he was the Ghost killing her enemies made it clear which path she should take. She felt obligated to have this. And considering that despite   what she had, no one would understand her better and if she was going to live a long life. She rather risked it and fixed a marriage that was quite troublesome from the very beginning.

At the same time, she simply didn’t want to make the same mistakes she had done in the nightmares she had experienced. Those ‘visions’ where she had repeatedly tortured a man and grew to love him out of loneliness and fear. Twisted as it may be, those experiences just didn’t go away.

Nonetheless, she didn’t know where to start with this. How she should persuade him. How she would even start. All she could hear was the sound of the curtain flapping about. His eyes remained on her, patiently waiting as well. She hated the silence. Fifty-seven years was a long time truly, and the best thing that they had done when they finally reunited was to break the bed.

She had let her own passions speak for herself. He didn’t hold back either so Natalya didn’t bother asking why. For fifty-seven years she had protected Lazon and its interests. Even with his return, Natalya  doubts she can easily hand it over, knowing him. He would run off, find some sort of agenda through whatever he had seen in those visions of him and chase after it, leaving her alone again.

“Well?”

Mavin said to her. Natalya thought about what to reply and said. “Sorry, other than what we did, it’s been so long that I just don’t know where to start.”

“Me too. I… understand that there are things that can't be glossed over. As much as I like to pretend to have the moral ground, you, who have every right to leave the family, stood with them for years. I don’t know how to repay you back just for staying with Lazon.”

Natalya nodded slowly while keeping her gaze on him. She looked down for a moment before speaking as if it was a matter-of-fact.

“Truthfully, I had a choice to leave, truly. But when I heard the little girl, though saddened, battered by the war, she wanted to be believed. That someone would be around. Elna is brilliant on her own, but I doubt the two could have done better. I admit that I had my hesitations and there are times where I want to give up this duty, but my students were so adamant that it was hard to give up on them.”

“It must have been hard.”

“Of course it was,” she replied curtly. “Everyone was after the resources of Lazon. We have many enemies and there are many who demand the weapons and resources that we have at our disposal. For fifty-seven years, I kept our secrets, defended Lazon, and as much I had hoped things had gone perfectly. I just wasn’t enough. I made my mistakes as well. In a way, it was because I wanted to keep my mind off things. I have times where I sought companionship, but it’s impossible for me to relate to anyone and the young men of this era aren’t exactly to my taste, and even if they are, I simply didn’t have time to make it all work. What we have achieved, what Lazon can do, the industries, the people that we have and the technologies we have made throughout the years didn’t come from nothing. I had made it happen.  I toiled for it. I helped it happen because they were family to me.”

On Natalya’s face was a visible pride over what she had done. Mavin stared at her as if ashamed of what he had done over the years. Natalya found it amusing that he would even have such a reaction. 

“Aren’t I amazing?”

“You are.”

“Praise me. I did good, right?”

“Yes, you did. I don’t think anyone would have done as magnificently as you have.”

“That’s right. I should be rewarded for it. I should have at least had the right to do that after so many years.  You know how hard it was? The war, the problems with the confederate, the rebuilding effort, the enemies who wanted to know our secrets, the sparks, and how the magiborne and the hounds were created. It was so tiresome that you should be glad that I was around to deal with it.”

Natalya stared at his eyes. She compared it to the eyes she had seen in those memories. That heartfelt devotion that she had seen on the Mavin in those ‘memories’ made her jealous. She wanted to be looked at just like that. But the way he eyed her made her think that she was nothing more than a ‘responsibility’ that he had not taken care of for years. She could sense admiration and shame on his demeanor, but there was simply no love on it. She hated it. She hated the thought of it, but yet she felt like she wanted to be praised.

“You are the only worry in my mind right now.”

“Huh?”

Mavin composed himself after saying that. “Like I said, uh, at the moment, you are the only thing that I care about right now,” he briefly explained what Aunger did to him as an excuse. “Truthfully, I wouldn’t have even dared to think of sitting it down. Not when I know that pride wouldn’t help settle it down, and responsibility is something that I couldn’t run away from.”

Natalya could sense that there was something more that he wanted. Nonetheless, she didn’t want to lose anyone. The thought of losing anyone ever again made her mind hastily conjure anything that might help. Nonetheless, she didn’t need to. He would need her as much as she needed him. Now that he knows that they were still alive, she knows that he couldn’t pretend not to know about what may happen.

She beamed him a smile. “I guess you'd be stuck with this woman now, eh?”

“Looks like it,” Mavin leaned on the table. “Cousin Derrick would have punched me in the face if he knew how neglectful I am.”

“He would.”

The two looked beyond the curtain flapping about on their right.

“Mavin.”

“Yeah?”

“I liked you the moment when I saw you help that soldier on the train years ago. I like the dance we shared, not knowing anything about each other, and it’s strange how far we have come despite all that has happened.  And here we are back at Flost. Makes you think that fate has some strange way of mocking us, no?”

“Now that you said, it really does,” he gave a smile.

“I told you years ago to never leave me. This time, try not to leave, okay? It’s really hard to find a long-lived partner, oh my, I’m going to make my students so jealous.”

“Do you think they’ll be mad at me?”

“Afraid that they’ll scold you? Of course, I’ll allow them. I might tolerate you, but I don’t know about them.”

Mavin nodded and leaned back. The two tried their best to make small conversation, trying to know what happened, and what they could share with another. Natalya dominated most of the conversation on which Mavin was happy to listen. For once, Natalya didn’t feel the need to act so domineering. She didn’t have to be Bellatrix De Ziba, just Natalya Tomas. She couldn’t pretend in front of him.

For her, it was a start.