Alcina Cheery stood on a transparent road. A crystal stood in the middle of this transparent terrain. A woman encased, holding her knees, and sleeping soundly.

“CHILD,” a figure of storms and light stood before Alcina. “HAVE YOU COME TO VISIT?”

“Eon-Father,” Alcina bowed. “I’ve heard of what you did.”

“YES,” the figure nodded. “THE CHILD OF GAIA IS NO LONGER WITH US. I HAVE SENT HIM BACK.”

Alcina tightened her fist. “Why?”

The Eon-Father tilted his head, his storm eyes staring. “THE RULES WILL BE FOLLOWED. THE CHILD OF GAIA WAS AN ACCIDENT. HE IS RETURNED TO HIS HOME, CHILD.”

“I,” Alcina stammered, “you took all of his traces. How could you?”

“IT IS THE LAW, CHILD.”

Alcina faltered. She bit her lower lip. Her eyes became a still pond. “I understand, Eon-Father.”

The Eon-Father left within plain sight. Alcina stood in front of the crystal. Her eyes reflecting the War Maiden of Time and Space, not an inch of her power dwindling, not a single drop had fallen out of her.

“You have become too powerful, Ciara,” she said. “The Endless New World will become a world with multiple realms if this continues. You are merging the places you call home. And I’m afraid you can do it because you are too strong.”

Her voice was flat. She glared at the crystal with fish-like eyes. She shook her head and warped into a new scenery where a woman was wrapped in thorny vines. Blood flowed out of her and her ashen air had turned back to its obsidian color.

“Tania of the Obsidian Flower,” Alcina said. Tania, who was wrapped in thorns, raised her head and eyed Alcina. Her blood tainted face inspecting Alcina.

“You,” Tania’s shrill voice sounded. “I remember you. Yes, I always thought it was odd that a normal human could survive the light’s war without help. My human, whose words I cannot even speak right now, wasn’t as unblessed as he thought.”

“So why?” Tania added. “Why do you help a normal human despite being an Observer, a specter that should judge with an unbiased eye.”

“Pity,” Alcina said. “It is pity, Tania.”

Tania snorted. “You lie.”

“I care not for what you think. I care for him, and his sufferings were something a foreigner does not deserve.”

“Yet you watch for long, not caring, and not minding about what that woman was doing. Pity, that is a stretched out pity, a pity of a being watching her favorite pet.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’ve lived long enough to know what people see in him. I know what people see in the Biggest Fool of Oasis City, and his struggles, you relish on it, you are a bored watcher, a being that watches a man’s pitiable adventure, and now that he’s no longer here, you shudder, and realize something.”

Alcina stared flatly. “You seem to be projecting, Tania.”

“No, I am simply staring at my kind!” Tania growled. “That’s why I don’t like you.”

Alcina folded her arms. “Because you see in me your actions.”

“You are dangerous, another being who wants him to be a toy. Oh, I know your case, and yet I wonder, why do you bother someone like him?”

Alcina hissed. “I am not malicious. I merely don’t want to die before I put down the War Maiden. She’s a blight to those who are chosen! She has violated every law of the world! She’s a destroyer of worlds! A World Ender and you think I am the same as her!”

“Then answer me!,” Tania took a step closer to Alcina. “What did you want from him!?”

“Do I have to explain myself to a woman who would become the mother of devils?” She glanced at the thorns. “You’ve been given the right to be the next demoness, the ruler of those who calls themselves devils and demons. Your time with him is over.”

“Answer me, Watcher,” Tania demanded. “Why him?”

Alcina stood looking Tania’s eyes. “It’s the little things. You wouldn’t understand. Like how I wouldn’t understand why you choose to be with someone who had turned you into a weapon and imprisoned you for a billion years. It does not make sense that you do not harbor such hatred.”

“You avoid the question!”

“Like how you avoid reasoning how and why you would choose to protect a man that bounded you into your soul. The moment his soul shattered into many fragments. The bounding of your souls was broken as well. Or do you want me to continue this discussion?”

Tania said dismissively, “And you try to use that train of thought to avoid the answer. Alcina Cheery, Watcher, and Specter, and Observer. Why do you care so much about him?”

“A tavern girl, a wheat farm, and a brave nobody who rose from his deepest despairs, unable to accept the wish of a death’s end,” Alcina spoke. “Do you remember that?”

Tania’s brows met. Alcina shook her head. “Then you know nothing. Ah, I see, it looks like there is a certain point that you did not observe.”

Tania growled. The thorns around her raked her skin as if she was being flayed alive. Tania made no grunts, made no sound, and stared venomously.

Alcina warped out of the world and turned her attention to the memory encased inside an ethereal orb. Touching the orb, she vanished from where she was standing and found herself standing, no, she was acting a role, and that role started with a woman who saw a strange person begging in the streets, unable to speak the language, and without any hope other than the scraps the people threw at him.

She stood in place with time seems so slow. Missing three fingers, and bruised all over. Alcina stared at this person, her watchful heart that would not even budge, rippled, trembling her insides as she looks at the person who begged with an unknown language.

“Alms, please,” said the beggar. Alcina watched her hands reached out to her pockets. The same man stood near the backdoor of a tavern he was begging, and she demanding his right inside the tavern.