The world outside Ina's shop was a cacophony of alien wonders and terrors. After the sacred, scent-filled silence of "Lavanda," the assault on Juraj's ancient senses was near-physical. He stood on the marble steps, the bundle of lavender held tightly in his hand like a talisman, and felt the modern age crash over him like a cold, polluted wave.
The first and most immediate assault was the noise. It was not the noise of his world—the wind in the oaks, the roar of a bear, the crash of thunder. This was a shrill, constant, mechanical whine. It came from the sleek, colored metal boxes on wheels that careened down the narrow streets, belching a foul, acrid smoke that stung his nostrils and coated the back of his throat. Cars. The word surfaced in his mind from some collective unconscious knowledge he possessed of this new era. They moved with a frantic, purposeless energy, their horns blaring like enraged metal geese.
And the people. So many people. They flowed around him, a tide of brightly colored fabric and exposed skin, their faces hidden behind strange, dark lenses. They spoke a babble of tongues, but their attention was not on each other, nor on the beautiful, ancient stones of the city around them. They were staring down at small, glowing rectangles held in their palms. Smartphones. Another flicker of knowledge. They tapped and swiped at these shining slates, their faces illuminated by the cold, blue light, their expressions blank, disconnected from the very reality they had traveled so far to see. They were like souls who had traded the warmth of the sun for the glow of a captive star.
He took a step, and the ground felt wrong. It was paved in smooth, hard stone, sealed and unyielding. He could not feel the heartbeat of the earth through it, could not sense the worms turning the soil, the roots seeking water. It was dead. Sterile. A tombstone over the living world.
A group of young men, loud and boisterous, bumped into him without apology, their laughter grating. Juraj stiffened, a surge of primal power rising in him. A part of him, the old, wild god, wanted to flex his will, to have the very stones of the street rise up and trip them, to have a gust of wind tear the ridiculous hats from their heads. But he restrained himself. He was an observer here, a ghost from a forgotten past. To reveal his nature would be… complicated.
He wandered, a mountain lost in a river. He found himself in a small square where a café had spilled its tables onto the pavement. The smell of coffee was familiar and welcome, a dark, rich aroma that spoke of roasted beans and fire. But the sight of people sitting, staring at their little screens while the real world lived and breathed around them, was a profound sadness to him. Where was the connection? Where was the reverence? They documented the moment for some unseen audience instead of living within it.
His eyes fell upon a young couple. They were holding hands, but their attention was on their phones, thumbs flying. They were together, yet worlds apart. A deep, resonant ache filled Juraj's chest. This was not passion. This was not the fierce, consuming connection he remembered, the kind that sparked life into being. This was a quiet, digital death of the spirit.
He needed an anchor. He needed the scent of sun-warmed lavender and the sight of sea-blue eyes.
The pull towards her was a physical force, a golden thread tied to his sternum, tugging him back the way he had come. The excuse formed in his mind easily, naturally. The oil. The small bottle of concentrated essence she had on display. He needed it. He needed a reason to stand before her again, to feel that shocking, life-giving jolt of her presence, to hear the soft, breathy sound of her voice.
But first, he had to navigate the gauntlet of modernity once more. He approached the shop, his heart—a organ that had not beat with such human urgency in millennia—thudding against his ribs. The bell chimed, a sound he now associated with crossing a threshold into a sacred space.
She was there. Ina. She was helping an older couple, her back to him, but he would know the shape of her anywhere. The way her light brown curls cascaded down her neck, the slender strength of her shoulders, the quiet grace of her movements. He waited, his presence once again drawing the silence and the light towards him. The other customers seemed to subconsciously give him a wide berth.
When she turned and saw him, her reaction was a symphony that only he could hear. Her breath hitched, a tiny, caught sound. The impossible blue of her eyes widened, a flicker of that same fear and fascination he'd seen in the field dancing in their depths. A delicate flush painted her cheeks, the color of a wild rose at dawn. She was terrified of him, and yet, she was drawn. It was the most honest and intoxicating thing he had ever witnessed.
"You're back," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
He held up the bundle of lavender he still carried. "The scent is… potent. But fleeting. I was told the oil is stronger." The words felt clumsy in his mouth. Lying, even by omission, was not a god's natural state.
"Oh. Yes, of course." She moved to the display of oils, her movements slightly flustered. He followed, his larger frame making the space between the shelves feel intimate, crowded. He watched her hands as she selected a small, amber glass bottle. They were trembling, just slightly.
"This is from the same harvest," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "Cold-distilled. It captures the true spirit of the plant."
The true spirit. His lips quirked. If only she knew.
"I am a traveler," he said, the pre-planned introduction feeling absurdly inadequate. "My name is Juraj." He gave the name its full, old weight, the 'J' soft, the 'r' a roll like distant thunder.
"Ina," she replied, as if he hadn't already stolen the knowledge of her name and tucked it away in his soul.
"Ina," he repeated, and he couldn't stop the pleasure from warming his voice. He reached for the bottle at the same moment she extended it to him.
Their fingers brushed.
This time, it was not a jolt, but a wave. A slow, warm, honey-thick tide of energy that flowed from her touch into his. It was not shocking, but soothing and stimulating all at once. It was the feeling of a parched riverbed suddenly filled with cool, clear water. It was the satisfaction of a seed finally breaking open to greet the sun. He saw her pupils dilate, the blue of her eyes darkening to the color of a twilight sea. She didn't pull away. She was as captivated by the sensation as he was.
He held onto the bottle, his fingers covering hers for a moment longer than was necessary. "I am… unfamiliar with this place," he said, the truth slipping out wrapped in a half-lie. "It has changed much."
This seemed to ground her, to give her a role to play beyond being the stunned recipient of his attention. "Korčula? It's busy in the summer. But it's still beautiful. The old town, the walls… it has a lot of history."
"History," he mused, his gaze drifting around the shop before returning to her. "I am more interested in what grows in the present."
He saw the confusion on her face, the struggle to parse his strange, archaic way of speaking. A young man, a tourist in shorts and a loud shirt, approached them, holding up his smartphone.
"Excuse me," the young man said in heavily accented English, his attention on Ina. "Could you tell me where I can find the Marco Polo house? My GPS is useless in these alleys."
Ina, flustered, turned to him. "Of course. You go to the end of this street, take a left, and it's just past the…"
Juraj watched the interaction, a foreigner in more ways than one. The young man was not really looking at Ina; he was looking at the screen, waiting for the data to be input. He was treating her like another piece of the city's infrastructure, a human search engine.
A low, protective rumble started deep in Juraj's chest. He took a half-step closer, his presence an unspoken boundary. The young man glanced up, saw the dark, intense look in Juraj's earth-brown eyes, and instinctively took a step back.
"Thank you! Hvala!" the young man said quickly, and scurried away, already tapping on his phone.
Ina looked from the retreating tourist back to Juraj, a new kind of understanding dawning in her eyes. He was different. Not just a handsome, strange man. He was something else entirely. Something that made modern gadgets and casual inquiries feel trivial and profane.
"People are always in a hurry," she said softly, almost to herself.
"They run from one shadow to the next, never standing in the sun," Juraj replied, his voice a low murmur. He paid for the oil, again handling the coins with a faint distaste, as if they were soiled. He pocketed the small bottle; it was not the oil he wanted, but the connection its purchase had facilitated.
He made no move to leave. He was a rock in the stream of customers, and the stream parted around him. He asked her about the lavender, about the distillation process, about the island. Each question was a pretext to keep her talking, to watch the play of emotion on her face, to hear the music of her voice. She grew gradually more comfortable, her passion for her work overcoming her shyness. She spoke of the soil, the importance of the sun, the rhythm of the seasons. And as she spoke, he fell in love.
Not with the idea of her, but with her. With her knowledge, her quiet dedication, the light that kindled in her eyes when she talked about her field. This was no mere mortal. This was a priestess, though she did not know it, tending the last true altar on this noisy, distracted island.
Finally, the flow of customers ebbed, and a silence fell between them. It was not an empty silence, but a fertile one, filled with unspoken words and the lingering energy of their touch.
"I have kept you from your work," he said, though his every instinct screamed to stay.
"It's alright," she said, and she meant it. She was looking at him not with fear now, but with a dawning, profound curiosity. "Will you… are you staying on Korčula long?"
"That," said Juraj, a slow, sure smile spreading across his face, "depends on many things."
He turned and left then, the bell chiming his exit. But this time, he did not wander out into the bewildering modern world with the same sense of alienation. He carried a new warmth within him, a focal point. He had a name. He had a reason. He had felt the echo of his own power in her touch, and he had seen the first green shoot of something miraculous and wild beginning to grow in the fertile soil of her soul.
The god had introduced himself. The courtship had begun. And Juraj, who had once made entire forests bloom with a thought, now had a single, perfect flower he was determined to make his own.