Serafall Sitri
I immediately jumped back, like a cat that had seen a cucumber, startled by the sudden change. Him? Was he extremely similar to me? Or was I a time traveler?
"Calm down, princess, you don't have to be afraid of me. I'm just an echo from the distant future, I'm like a shadow and I'm sure you're not afraid of your shadow so why fear me? Isn't that right, Serafall?"
What… It was supposed to know me?
The people around the room fell into a solemn aura, looking at him and then back at me. A silent judgment seemed to take place in their eyes. Meanwhile, my father asked a silent question to which the scientists shrugged and denied.
Don't look like that was supposed to happen.
"Just confirming…He will not jump from the mirror and kill me, right?"They exchanged glances and shrugged once more.
Well, I don't think anything will happen.
I mean, I'm pretty strong.
I'm a strong devil.
Right?
"Oh my, no! haha I won't do anything like that."He laughed seeing my reaction.
Reacting to my presence, the reflection began to change, its image soon resembling that of my father. A tall man with many similarities to my own appearance, with fluidity he changed again to one of the fat scientists in the lab, then to a thin one.
"I'm sorry miss, sometimes I forget what I look like. But I will soon fix it. Just wait a bit." The figure distorted and twisted endlessly, strange parts of people and animals merging and separating from its figure in chaos.
Finally, a tall, elegant but somewhat casual figure appeared, with crimson eyes and hair like a raven's feathers. His teeth were pearly and beautiful. Everything about him seemed harmonious, with a relaxed and intelligent air.
His crimson eyes were mesmerizing. certainly his most important quality
"Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you miss, I know many of your deeds. Many that have happened and many that will happen, I even feel at a loss as to which of your many titles I should refer to."
"As a time traveler, some things start to lose their meaning and sense."
Again the people in the room reacted strangely to that mention. I was scared and excited for a moment, so I decided to go ahead and talk to him.
"You can just call me Serafall. But more importantly, how should I refer to you?" Smiling naturally, he opened his mouth to answer, but as soon as the first letter tried to come out, his tongue seemed to get stuck in place.
He frozen in place.
He was confused.
Then tried again.
He failed…and he wasn't happy…
His reflection starting shaking and broking,
His eyes leaving shining with violence as his teeths grind.
His hands began to crack with barely contained fury.
Then he froze.
Strangely, he ignored this fact with a light sigh.
It only made me scared of him. I don't want someone like him knowing me in advance.
"Sorry, I'm a bit tired after traveling so far, for now just recognize me as a companion experienced and eager to share experiences and knowledge." He looked interesting, I must admit. His aura was mysterious and enigmatic, every word, every movement.
But dangerous at the same time, he was trying to hide that.
It was exciting.
taking a deep breath, I approached.
"So, Mr. eager and experienced… What can this naive girl do for you?" For some reason my father slapped himself in the face, which sounded more like thunder, eliciting a few chuckles from the background. "What can I offer you? I have a few things that might interest you... and I'd like to know about the future!"
The price might be expensive, but it was worth knowing about the future!
"What about the future? I can give you a free sample, but I don't think that's what you need to know right now. You have more important questions at the moment. It would be wiser, therefore, to ask about the present moment."
"Don't you think my dear princess, for example, that's a better question. What… for example…do Bael…and Uhm… Agares exactly want with your family… Or better…with you?" A small commotion started behind me, the scientists began to whisper among themselves and fidget.
"With me?"He smiled, but chose to look behind me.
"Sorry miss, I guess we are out of time." Without giving him time to continue, the mirror quickly dimmed as the chains around it began to glow with pale light.
Looking back, one of the scientists had triggered some formation, preventing the traveler from speaking any further.
"He tends to talk more than he should, but he's not always reliable, as he's not human as it looks. I'll let you talk to him more later, of course, but we have more to discuss at the moment and give some... warnings about the interactions with him." He approached my father and me and coughed a little. The other scientists followed suit.
"You see, we had a lot of questions at the beginning of the experiment. And a lot of the answers... And… Well, them came to us earlier than we expected..." From his tone, it was easy to tell that they had discovered them by accident.
"That man, he's not a man at all, he's a thing. He may look like a lot of things, but as he said, he's just an echo of a brilliant man from a distant future. The man in question suffered a terrible fate that I wouldn't wish on anyone, having his body and soul destroyed by what we call space-time pressure."
"Simply put, just as fish of different depths die when they go up or down, people die if they move from one point in time to another in one go. Physical bodies as well as souls aren't designed to make that kind of journey. I would only add that water kills quickly, but time likes to make people agonize."
My father quickly interrupted him.
"Wait a minute, if you're telling me that the soul and body died, then what the hell was my daughter talking with? What kind of freak survives after losing everything?" The scientist shrugged.
"We need more analysis, but it seems that it has somehow adapted by creating a new kind of thing that doesn't even look alive, a strange life form that looks a lot like a malicious micro-organism, a kind of virus, in fact. I would never say it's alive but it still continues to adapt and react to the environment, in a very basic and fundamental state."
"Despite this, it still has the reflexes of when it was alive, memories and desires. It could be the key we need to travel through time or at least exchange messages, he's clearly capable of that with some help. As well as, of course, having knowledge of unique technologies from the future."
I stared at the scientist's emotional speech, which clearly, if true, would win him an incredible prize. But at the same time I was still a little skeptical, since they always gave a speech like that and above all…
"I think your speech went wrong when you compared it to the cause of a disease rather than a person. Like, is it going to spread and kill us too?" He rolled his eyes at my mention.
"I'm not done, miss." He sighed as he continued.
"And this is the part where I say: we've actually been with him for some time now and It's safe. A lot of his knowledge is already well-rooted in our society. He was the one who gave us the very concept of a virus."He then addressed me.
"And answering the miss question. Actually, it's very likely that it could, hence the chains." Again a shiver ran through me.
"His first words were literally: I'm going to rip your guts out and eat them with milk for breakfast. And the next few were no more pleasant.I mean. Of course he has some impulses.We basically trapped him here."
"It doesn't look right.He doesn't seem like the type to share knowledge.He doesn't look like he would teach your enemies anything." My father pointed out, pulling me closer and looking at me troubled.
"And he isn't, at least not before I 'pacify' him. We did a circuit of punishment and reward and only then did he start talking, lucky for us. Now, as long as you comply with some of his unreasonable requests, he responds."
"What kind?"
"Simple questions about our society, habits and common interests. The kind of knowledge that historians would love, it's clearly a reflection of when he was alive. So it raises no concerns."
"But what is of concern is, of course, never ask who he is, where he came from or where he is going. His name should never be questioned in the future. Man, I don't even know where to start tomorrow. He's not going to be in a good mood."
***
We spent a long time in that room discussing the topic; the idea of using a dead man to satisfy our curiosity was strange to me. But morality still didn't matter in the face of the benefits.
It was simply too tempting to have something like that around.
My father's opinion seemed to change after this discussion, and it was clear why. Before, openly supporting a rebel faction would have been strange, but now it seemed the right thing to do. It was literally a difference that would make them win a war.
Being the first would show loyalty and later turn into benefits.
As for me, all I could think about was what he wanted to tell me right then. What should I know that I didn't already know? Unfortunately, that would have to wait. After all, he was stuck there.
It would be a long time before we had another chance to talk. In the meantime, I had to ask myself why I had so many titles and what kind of magical charlatanism this was.
Throwing myself on my bed, I looked up at the ceiling, the experience seemed unique and mystical even for someone who practiced magic. As usual, I was left with more questions than answers.
Sometimes I still doubted everything, could all that study be a lie after all. It could be a way of luring us in. But Ajuka had believed them, so it had to be true.
No matter how idiotic some scientists seem, they can still get lucky and discover something even by accident. That group of idiots seemed to be the lucky kind.
"So it's an anomalous life form, so how exactly do we manage to interact with it? What is its natural habitat? What does it eat? How does it reproduce? He tried to talk to me a lot, does he still have an interest in women?" Sighing, I just let my wildest thoughts take shape.
If I didn't have any answers, I'd have to let my creativity take shape.
Slowly many ideas came to me, for example. He could live in a private pocket dimension like the mirror world and feed on temporal particles and in this way acquire knowledge.
Once he'd fed enough he'd clone himself and then let the other repeat the process while after making two or three more of himself he'd die... or could he do it with his clones? If so, there would be a new variable and more little cute reflections.
As I relaxed, my breathing became rhythmic and the once bright room became dark.I felt my body sink along with my mind comfortably.
Everything seemed to lose its logical meaning…
"What a creative imagination you have..." I laughed at the mention, looking away, but there was someone watching me in a dark corner.
two crimson eyes watching me...
***
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