DEAREST

PART 5: PLATINUM BRILLIANCE, Ch. 3

3

During the preparations for the opening of the portal, I explain to Luciana my visions during the manifestation ritual.

"So you say I'm the Platinum Knight?"

Of course, one has to go through a bit of Atavic history to clearly understand this explanation.

"The Lightning Scepter is a very powerful relic, especially because it's part of an unknown world. We could gather a lot of beneficial information if we knew more, such has been the ambition of our family for years."

I tell her everything I have studied since I was a child about the Crystalline Dimension and the power that originates there. Although I was young, I always understood that the stories they told me, like the deeds of heroes that are heard in history class, should have some degree of importance in my future life, so I tried to memorize and remember everything I could, absorbing the narrations like a sponge.

That's how they told me stories about great-grandmothers like Stepha von Einsiedel, who seemed to enchant the rest of us so that we can adore and feel proud of what we do, her precocious daughter Juna, who wrote many life journals about her dreams, the foundations of the magic circles, the properties of precious stones, herbs, and so on. Luciana listens to me in silence while I tell all this in the same clear and calm tone that my mother used when she told me all this in her time. And most likely, I'll have to tell this, once again, to a daughter who is waiting for me in the future, but I haven't thought about that part of my life yet, so I can't imagine myself feeling comfortable with a baby in a bright future. Somehow, my mind seems to have made a certain decision before I knew it, so there's no real future for me, something I can begin to plan and anticipate. I can only think of things like "tomorrow we'll be somewhere else," or "I might not come back," or "if I come back, I'd like to sleep all night, and then spend some time in the garden during the afternoon." In those small plans, I still feel like today, with Luciana at my side, and talking about this or that specific topic. We are still trapped in this moment, for eternity.

I don't know how Luciana feels about it. Is she already making plans for the future? Does she know what will she do when she returns (because she will come back)? Is she looking forward to returning already? Would she like to stay with me a little longer? Take a walk in the garden? Am I in any of those future plans?

I tell her that we may not return. I tell her about the disintegration of the body, but I tell her with a carefree tone, something that seems to be a lie, and that she shouldn't worry about those things because I know she'll come back. It's my wish.

Somehow, even if we should stay in this cold stone room making plans, preparing ourselves, I would like to spend more time with her. But time goes by so fast, that a whole day goes by like this. This feeling, that we could be fine, is the same feeling I had when we were in Vadena, riding the motorcycle, waiting. It's such an irritating sensation. But why do I hold on to it so much?

Also, she tells me that she saw nothing while she was in the center of the magic circle. Her mind was in a space of complete emptiness, and then, she opened her eyes in a warm room with a sweet smell, and I was close.

The air is full of a mysterious fragrance. We both know something that the other doesn't know.

At night, I can't sleep. I feel uneasy, tossing and turning in bed, the soft sheets are entangled in my legs, and then I begin to sweat. Are the sheets tangled, curiously, in her bed too?

When I get out of bed, it isn't to look out the window and to wish for a good weather, as I have been wanting recently, is to open the door to Luciana.