The three women stuck around where they had been for a moment longer. After all, a lot of questions had now been answered. The ‘ghosts’ that the villagers of Aliglyn were talking about turned out to merely be the spectral memories of the slumbering Ysera, reliving memories of her life. At least, so far, they had seen the memories of her life from when she was still human, living here in this forest. Considering that this was also the place where she chose to build her own shrine, however, they were sure to run into memories from after her transformation as well eventually. It was still a little unclear why these visions were made of water, however.

Eventually, Rylla led them further down the river, towards the shrine which turned out to be only two river bends away. There were barely any traces that there had once been people living here in this forest anywhere, so to see the area open up before them for quite a distance around the metal structure of the ancient shrine to Alinavious was surprising to say the least.

There weren’t any plants or even grass that grew around it, likely due to the copious amounts of copper poisoning the land. In this case, that actually helped since it meant that the shrine was still intact. Well, mostly. The small building was circular much like their own church back in New Stepolis. Its entrance was on land but most of it stood on poles in the river. There was also a protrusion that stretched out over the water. This probably saw the most damage as the tide of the river had slowly eroded it over time. 

    There was a large clock over the entrance of the shrine that had lost its hands and was very much weatherworn. The doors had fallen out of its hinges and were now sprayed out on the floor. There were twelve pillars holding up the roof and there was moss growing everywhere.

    “By Alinavious…” Cassie mused.

    “This is Ysera’s shrine alright, no doubt about it…” Rylla said a little somberly. It was actually the first time that Lavini had seen Rylla express an emotion other than the endless supply of joy she seemed to radiate.

    “Is everything alright, Rylla dear?” Lavini asked.

    “It really has been a thousand years…” Rylla sighed sadly.

    Lavini nodded apologetically. It was difficult to imagine but it must be quite difficult to know that a thousand years worth of time has occurred in the blink of an eye for Rylla. Well, for Rylla and the other priestesses as well. And there would be no way back. All that they once knew was now either gone or changed beyond recognition.

    However, this was not necessarily something to be sad about. “It is… thanks to your efforts as keepers of time that time was able to move forwards. A thousand years have passed thanks to you,” she said.

    Rylla sank a little below the water for a moment. When she emerged, she was smiling once more. “You know what, you’re right!” she said with the same amount of energy she usually brought to the table.

    “And this is where Ysera slumbers?” Cassie asked.

    “Yes! Well… probably!... maybe? Who can really say,” Rylla said.

    “What?!” Cassie gasped.

    Rylla placed her index fingers together apologetically and looked down. “Weeell, things were kinda chaotic towards the end. I must have spent the final years entirely within the Spring of Aeons because my memory of it all is kiiiiinda spotty… I just know that I woke up thanks to you guys after all of that.”

    “Hmmm… well, it is still a decently good guess to assume that Ysera would be here, considering the visions of memories around the area,” Lavini mused.

    “Yeah!” Rylla said confidently.

    Cassie just rolled her eyes and started approaching the sight of the shrine. However, that’s when there was a sudden loud gasp from Rylla. “LOOK!” she shouted.

    Both Cassie and Lavini inspected their surroundings when they spotted what Rylla had seen. There, emerging from the forest just beyond the shrine, came the watery appearance of a horse-drawn cart. As they approached the group, their surroundings morphed like they had done earlier at Beaver’s Dam, and the feeling of two streams of time returned to Lavini once more. The shrine momentarily vanished and a dirt road appeared that the cart was riding on.

    The cart was being driven by two young women sitting on top. One of them Lavini recognized by now as a slightly older Ysera still very much human but the other was a stranger to her. She had blonde, kind of messy hair that was even longer than that of Ysera. She was dressed in farmer’s clothing and looked almost as bubbly as Rylla. Lavini looked to the mermaid to see if perhaps she knew her but she too seemed a little stumped. Of course, this was all from before Ysera’s transformation.

    “So… are you ready, Ys?” the blonde girl asked. She was holding the reins and made the horse stop.

    Ysera looked very anxious. Her eyes darted between the blonde girl and the river. “I… I don’t know…” she stammered.

    “Come on, you can do it! I’m sure your fathers will be super happy to see you again!” the blonde girl cheered.

    “But… when I left them… I feel so bad about the way I left…” Ysera said.

    “I know, I know… but you can’t really change anything if you just stay away all the time,” the blonde girl said encouragingly.

    Ysera sighed. She placed her head on the blonde girl’s shoulder and spoke a little softer now. “Please stay with me…” she muttered.

    “Of course, silly! I came with you all this way after all,” the blonde girl said as she wrapped her arm around Ysera’s shoulder.

    They lingered for a moment longer like that before finally moving on. And as they did so, their surroundings began to fade again, turning back into the present day where Lavini, Cassie, and Rylla had been watching the proceedings unfold.

    Rylla scratched her head and raised an eyebrow. “Spectral memories indeed…” she said.

    Cassie stared a little dumbfounded at the empty spot where the cart had been. “So who was that? And what were they saying?” she asked.

    “More importantly. Rylla, were you able to hear them talk?” Lavini asked.

    Just as she expected from a fellow time elemental, Rylla nodded. “I know what you mean now when you mentioned ‘two time flows’ earlier.”

    “It feels quite strange, does it not?” Lavini said.

    “It does!” Rylla agreed.

    Cassie simply sighed. She was clearly feeling a little left out by all of this. “Who do you suppose that blonde girl was?” she asked.

    “Well… I’d say it was Hestia,” Rylla said. “I mean, Ysera and Hestia have been a couple together for as long as I knew them.”

    “Hmm… and judging by how they looked and the way they spoke, this would have been some time after Ysera left Beaver’s Dam behind,” Lavini mused.

    “Oh, that’s right! Ysera met Hestia while on her journey, decided to join Hestia’s cause to make a church, and returned home sometime after that,” Rylla nodded.

    So Hestia and Ysera were the ones that originally started this church. It honestly reminded Lavini a whole lot about how Bridget and Akita worked together to make the newest iteration of the church of time. It sure made her wonder what else was similar between the old Keepers and the new ones.

    Cassie carefully approached the rusty old shrine and took a peek inside. “Good grief, this is worse than Estella’s room!” She wasn’t kidding when she said that. Aside from the ungodly amount of moss and mould growing everywhere, there were shards of glass sprayed out across the floor and many… many glass tubes. Most of which were actually still intact except for a few that were completely shattered. The whole system was actually quite reminiscent of Rylla’s Church of Eternal Currents. At least, that was the image Lavini got from the tubes still left. Considering that that church was built after this shrine, it was obvious where the merfolk got their inspiration from now.

    But there was no sign of Ysera anywhere.

    “What is it? I wanna see!” came Rylla’s voice from next to the shrine still in the water. She had climbed up on the shore but very much looked like a fish out of water.

    Lavini let out a sigh. “There is little to see…” she replied.

    Rylla puffed up her cheeks and leaned on her elbows. “So we came all this way for nothing?!” she yammered.

    “Not necessarily,” Lavini mused as she carefully took her first step inside.

    “Careful, Lavini! The floor may be unstable… and there’s so much glass!” Cassie called after her.

    All Lavini did in return was tap on her own glass body with an amused grin.

    “Right…” Cassie muttered, feeling a little stupid now.

    Getting inside was slightly difficult since Lavini had to stumble over the rusty old doors. When she managed it, though, she could see the inside of the shrine with a little more clarity. Just like in Rylla’s Spring of Aeons, the tubes gathered into one big tube at the ceiling and there was some sort of platform in the centre on the floor from which the tubes spread out again, only to climb back up along the walls. Unlike the Spring though, this shrine did not have people tending to it whatsoever, nor was there a ley line deep below.

    There was a door on the opposite side of the shrine that probably led back outside, to the protrusion over the river that was now broken. It didn’t matter too much since the door seemed completely blocked off by fallen debris.

    Looking around really gave Lavini a feeling of melancholy. Once upon a time, this shrine was active and lively. Ysera eagerly tended to it, receiving visitors and telling them about the teachings of Alinavious and time. Now, this was all that was left of it. It kind of reminded Lavini of when she returned to her own home in Alicendria after learning about the ‘disappearance’ of her mother. A place filled to the brim with memories that now lay dormant and abandoned.

    “Found anything yet?”

    The sudden sound of Rylla’s voice nearby sent Lavini jumping. It turned out that there was a hole in the floor near the blocked off door and the mermaid was currently poking her head through it to see inside.

    Lavini sighed and shook her head. “There does not appear to be much of anything here,” she said.

    “Awww…” Rylla yammered as she too looked around herself. “Goodie, this place has seen better days!”

    “Have you ever seen the interior before?” Lavini asked. After all, this place wasn’t exactly built to be accessible to merfolk.

    “Oh yeah, of course! Ysera could use water magic to keep me afloat,” Rylla beamed.

    “Hmm… but then, would she not be able to transport you to the other shrines as well?” Lavini proposed.

    “Well… it takes a lot of energy to do that and I could see the shrines from within the Spring of Aeons anyway, so we kinda never bothered,” Rylla admitted.

    “I see… that does make sense,” Lavini conceded.

    Rylla began inspecting her surroundings again while placing a finger on her chin. “You know, I feel like there’s something missing…”

    Lavini eyed her. “Well.. yes. There is a lot that is broken or has otherwise fallen over,” she said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

    “I knoooow, but I mean… aside from the broken stuff. Something super big and obvious. It was like… uh… aaaah, why can’t I remember!” Rylla grunted mostly to herself.

    “Is it perhaps Ysera herself?” Lavini proposed.

    “No! Well, yes, but that’s not the thing I meant!” Rylla huffed.

    Something that was missing? Well, what could it be? There was certainly no way for Lavini and Cassie to know. And if Rylla also couldn’t quite remember, then there was little they could really do. This would certainly be a very nice timing for one of those…

    “Thank you all for coming today!” came the familiar voice of Ysera. It came from outside the shrine. Looking over, Lavini could see that Cassie was now accompanied by quite a large group of people, none of which were truly there.

    “We proudly announce that the first ever shrine to Alinavious is now… open!” came the voice of who they had correctly presumed to be Hestia. The two women stepped aside to let the group of people inside, likely villagers from Beaver’s Dam.

    As the people entered the shrine, Lavini heard a yelp from behind her. Looking over, she could see that the hole in the floor through which Rylla was poking her head was now closed again as the area switched back to how it was on its opening day. However, Rylla was still visible, since the ‘fix’ was made of water. The tubes were now very much intact and water was flowing up through them.

    The middle of the shrine was quite different. The platform that Lavini had seen in the present time was actually a part of a bigger, much wider tube through which the water dripped down.

    The visions of the past were all eagerly looking around the shrine when Ysera and Hestia entered the shrine as well. They looked a little bit older than their earlier appearance, indicating that a decent amount of time had passed by this point. They were followed by Ysera’s fathers and who they presumed to be Hestia’s parents. It was Ysera who spoke up first.

    “From this day forward, I’ll be tending to this shrine to the best of my abilities half of every month,” Ysera announced.

    “The other half she’ll be with me at the main church!” Hestia added.

    “Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for helping me set this all up,” Ysera said while curtsying.

“Time be with you all!” Hestia called out. It actually surprised Lavini to hear her say that, considering that that was exactly what she and the others say at the end of each mass at their own church of time.

Thereafter, the scene started morphing back into the present-day situation, all moss-filled and rusted.

“Incredible…” Lavini mused to herself. Even though she had only seen Ysera and Hestia in these short bursts of the visions, they reminded her so much of Bridget and Akita. It was no wonder then that they were chosen to pick up the mantle of Keepers of Time much like their predecessors.

And to think that all of this happened in the distant past. All of this was now… gone. Forgotten by almost all. These people, those happy faces, those villagers dotted throughout the forest, this shrine. All of this would still be here if not for the passage of time. Was that… a good thing? Was the church even in the right?

No, Lavini couldn’t falter now. She was, after all, one of the Keepers of Time. It was her task to keep time flowing. Yes, all of this was now gone… but in its place were new things. New people. A new world. New changes. In fact, Lavini herself would not exist today if it weren’t for the changes that time brought with it.

“I got it!” Rylla cried out as she poked her head through the hole that had reappeared once more.

“Ah! Got what?” Lavini asked, having been roused from her mind palace.

“That big tube we saw in the middle! That’s the thing that was missing!” Rylla cried out.

“Hmm, well, perhaps it is safe to presume that it has shattered over the years. Or do you believe that it may be elsewhere?” Lavini asked.

“Well…” Rylla pondered. She looked around herself. Then, she actually disappeared below the hole before reappearing with the biggest grin. “It’s below the shrine!”

Lavini tilted her head. “Below?” she pondered. Why would it be below the shrine? “Could you see what was inside of it?”

Rylla shook her head. “It’s completely closed off… but she’s gotta be inside! I mean, where else would she be?”

“It does sound like a decently good guess but how will we get her out then? How do we wake her up?” Lavini asked.

“Euh… Well how did you wake me up?” Rylla asked.

“By restarting the Spring of Aeons… but we cannot do the same thing here with these broken tubes,” Lavini said.

Rylla lowered her head a little while thinking about that little conundrum. However, it was Cassie who spoke up now. “Can’t you fix this glass yourself?” she said from outside the shrine.

“As much as I would love to do so, I am only able to mend cracks. Restoring these tubes would require puzzling these glass shards back together which would take us weeks, if not months to do,” Lavini said.

“So… we need new tubes somehow. Where are we going to get those?” Cassie asked.

Lavini thought about it for a moment and then looked at Rylla as a smile formed on her face. “I may have an idea for that.”

Just like every morning, Pellan yawned as he began to open up his shop again. Today was shaping up to be much like any other day, last week’s encounter with the two strangers all but forgotten. There was little need to dwell on it after all. They had seemed very certain about their wish to enter that forest so who was he to try and stop them?

As he flipped his sign to ‘open’, Pellan suddenly heard an unfamiliar, rather squeaky voice from somewhere nearby.

“Excuse me! Sir?” she said.

Pellan turned around but didn’t see anyone standing there. He looked around himself, one eyebrow raised. Was he hearing voices now?

“I’m down here!” the voice said.

Now able to pinpoint where this voice came from, Pellan stepped closer to the riverbank and looked down. If Pellan’s encounter with the two women last week was strange, this one definitely took the cake. Within the river, looking up at him, was a mermaid. She was made of metal and her hair looked almost like dreadlocks.

“Good morning, sir!” the mermaid said eagerly.

Pellan couldn’t help but stare, completely dumbfounded at this strange sight. Was this still a dream somehow?

“Uhm… are you okay?” the mermaid asked.

Pellan rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times at what he saw. He even pinched himself but no, this was definitely real. He was awake and there really was a mermaid looking up at him from the river. “I-I… What?” he asked, completely puzzled.

The mermaid giggled. “Sorry, but could you be confused another time? I need some help,” she said.

Pellan gulped. He felt a little embarrassed now. It wasn’t exactly polite to stare at someone after all. “Uhm… what… would a mermaid need help with?” he asked, trying to look away now.

“Well, my friends and I need glass tubes! At least ten of them! And uhm… uh… they have to be… oh right! About a metre in length and 20 centimetres in diameter! I think I got that right,” the mermaid said.

Pellan couldn’t help but rub his temples. There were so many questions rushing through his mind and he couldn’t quite wrap his head around any of it. Forming words was almost impossible. “Why?” was all he could really ask.

“Oh! To fix up some tubes in an ancient shrine, of course,” the mermaid said proudly, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Pellan frowned. If someone had told him that this morning, a mermaid would come to his store asking for glass tubes…

“So can you get me these tubes or do I need to look further upstream?” the mermaid asked.

Now hold up. Despite how strange of an experience this all was, he couldn’t exactly let a customer of his store go to the competition! “I can get you these tubes!” he blurted out.

“Great! How long would that take?” the mermaid asked.

“Well… if you’re lucky, ‘bout a day or two,” Pellan said, thoughts whirling.

The mermaid muttered something to herself but then nodded. “Alright!” she said cheerfully while holding up a very wet but very much filled pouch of coins.

Pellan took it and nodded. “Uhm… make yourself at home… I guess?” he said, a little confused. Regardless, he had his work cut out for him!

It had been two days since Rylla went on her way upstream to Aliglyn. It was a bit of a gamble of course. There was no way of knowing whether there’d be someone able to work with glass there.

    While Cassie had resorted to fishing in order to pass the time with various degrees of success, Lavini was quietly sitting with her back against a tree. Her mind had been wandering throughout the day, thinking about various different things. Estella was of course very much on her mind but there was also this matter of the passing of time. She had always truly believed in her heart that it was a good thing and she still believed that. After all, time brings about change. However, change also means saying goodbye to what had been before it. Lavini already had to say goodbye to a lot of things in the past, such as her ‘mother’. She could only imagine how it must feel for Rylla and Ysera, to suddenly find yourself in a completely different, almost unrecognisable world.

    Her thoughts were only really interrupted by the various different spectral memories of Ysera that would appear every so often. Interestingly enough, there was still no memory of hers from after her transformation into a time elemental. Why this was, Lavini couldn’t quite tell. The memories Lavini saw were mostly of Ysera’s days spent here at this shrine. Her style of holding mass mostly involved talking about how time is like a river. It was actually not all that different from Lavini’s own view of how time flows down an hourglass. Occasionally, some of the visions even repeated themselves.

    “I’M BAAAAACK,” came Rylla’s excited voice. Sure enough, there she came dashing down the river with a huge satchel hanging from her shoulder. In response, Cassie instantly reeled in her fishing hook and hid it from view.

    When the mermaid arrived back at the shrine, she let out an exhausted sigh. “Swimming downstream is such a rush!” she said while panting. It was actually also the first time that Lavini had actually seen her get tired.

    While Cassie bent down to take the satchel off of Rylla, at least, to the best of her abilities, since it was quite heavy, Lavini gave her a warm smile. “Excellently done,” she said proudly.

    Rylla grinned. “Of course!” she said. However, mere moments after she said that, she simply collapsed and proceeded to just snooze with her face half underwater.

    Cassie lifted the bag up and inspected its contents intently. “Looks like the tubes survived the trip,” she said.

    Lavini chuckled. “Thank Alinavious for that, or this would have been for nothing,” she mused.

    Cassie looked at the barely conscious form of Rylla. “I don’t mean to speak ill but… she is quite a handful, I must admit,” she muttered softly.

    Lavini nodded while she bent down to help the mermaid sleep a little bit more comfortably and not on the sharp rocks here. “She tends to live by her own creed and time. She cares little for what others think about her, nor does she see much need to abide by any sort of custom or convention. After all, what may be considered perfectly normal today could become completely outlandish tomorrow. She is as timeless as time itself,” she explained.

    Cassie frowned while carrying the satchel towards the shrine. “I suppose it is a luxury she can afford herself as a time elemental. It makes me a little worried for what the rest of them are like… or what you will be like a thousand years in the future,” she said.

    “Oh, there is no need to be so harsh on her. Sometimes, it is a good idea to take after people like Rylla, or Estella for that matter, and simply have a little bit of fun,” Lavini said as she followed her lover.

    Cassie shrugged as she stepped inside the shrine. Lavini had cleared the floor of glass shards so it was a lot safer now to walk inside. “In any case… It’s time to wake up a priestess,” she said.