Mark of the Fool
Chapter 607: A Simple Proposal

“What does forever mean to you, Theresa?” Alex Roth asked Theresa Lu as they floated away, hovering above sand and crashing surf.

“That’s a strange question.” The huntress said, cocking her head to the right, while pulling her raven hair back as it tumbled down her shoulder. “What does it mean to you?”

They flew higher, the scent of brine wafting in the breeze. Below them, Brutus picked up where he’d left off, chasing screeching gulls along the shoreline, blissfully unaware of life-changing events unfolding above.

“I asked you first,” Alex smiled, still holding Theresa’s hand, taking her higher. “No fair, you can’t answer a question with a question.”

“Baelin does.”

“Baelin can, he’s a super ancient wizard.”

Theresa chuckled, glancing across the sea. The sun lit up the distant water, lighting the surface like a thousand torches were floating beneath the waves. She smiled contentedly. “Well then, I guess I’d have to say it means being able to see and experience things…for all time. Or whatever all time means to us.”

When the couple stopped their ascent, they were high enough that the gazebo looked like a large dollhouse, and Brutus a three-headed squirrel snapping at giant flying ants far below them.

“I think we’ll die one day,” she said, though her voice wasn’t grim. “Or at least I will. Life enforcement extends life, but only for so long. Even if my body looks strong, my internal energies will diminish one day, according to Professor Kabbot-Xin. So even if I look like I’m thirty when I reach a thousand, I won’t feel anywhere near that young, and in time, my life energies will shrink away until I pass on.”

She sighed wistfully. “That’s the way It happened for great-grandfather, and I’m sure it’ll be the same for me. Maybe your magic can let us live longer, but…” A frown took her face. “The thought of my parents never seeing my face in the after-world…or my brothers…makes me feel a bit lonely. I don’t think I could be like Baelin and stay in this world forev—” She paused. “For all eternity.”

“There’s a difference?” Alex asked softly, thinking about her words. They were true: if he decided that immortality was what he wanted—like Baelin seemed to have chosen—that would mean he’d never see his parents again, or meet Hannah in the afterworld. Anyone he cared about who didn’t want a life that lasted forever, would die long before him. And, if he chose to live for all eternity—that’s if he even could—he’d never be with them, never see them, again.

The thought…made him feel lonely too.

It suddenly dawned on him why Baelin seemed so melancholy at times.

“There is a difference, if I think about it,” she said. “When I first started life enforcement, I remember thinking that it was like finding a new forest to explore. When I was younger, the Coille seemed endless…but one day, I suddenly found I’d explored almost all of it. Life enforcement also felt endless in the beginning. But it’s not. One day I’ll stop increasing the power of my lifeforce and I’ll hit a wall, and that’ll be as far as I can go. It’ll be the end,” she slowly breathed in. “But I believe that there are certain things that are truly eternal.”

She looked into the sky. “Time, maybe. Some deities might be. Demons, engeli, other spirits all live for eternity…but that’s different from what forever means to me. Eternity will go on after I’m gone. Maybe ‘forever’ means—” She paused again. “I guess it means ‘for the rest of my life’. Like if I decided to explore the world forever…it’d be until I got too sick or old to do it anymore. That’s what my personal ‘forever’ is.”

Alex smiled at that. “There’s a bit of philosophy in thinking that way. A bit of romance too, I think.”

“Really?” she laughed at herself. “I don’t know, now that I’ve said all that, it feels a bit silly. Like, I bet if you told any of your fancy professors what I just said, they’d just laugh at me.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Alex said. “I don’t think Baelin would, and…you know what? I think I agree with you. ‘Eternity’ means all time… but ‘my forever’ means ‘for as long as I stay in this world’. That fits, somehow. It really does.”

She looked at him sidelong, her hand squeezing his. “You’re not making fun of me, are you?” she asked quietly.

“No, of course not!” he cried. “I wouldn’t. Not for something like this. I just agree with you.”

“Oh.” She blushed, looking away.

For a time, they floated there in the sky, surrounded by a warm wind and the scent of the sea. Brutus barked below. Waves crashed. The sun was warm.

It was perfect.

It couldn’t get any more perfect.

And Alex couldn’t let this moment pass.

He took a deep breath to steady his pounding heart and the blood rushing through his ears. “Theresa…”

He paused.

“Yes?” she answered, still looking across the Prinean.

“If I asked you to be mine forever…what would you say?” his voice hovered just above a whisper. “I…in return, I would be yours. Forever. For all eternity if that’s how long I live.”

Silence.

The breath after he’d said those words felt like an eon passing over the world. All seemed to slow to a crawl as sound fell away like the world was disappearing around him. There was no ground. No clouds. No sky.

Only sun.

His breath.

And her.

Time stopped until finally, she turned to him. Never had he seen her so quiet. Cloaked in utter stillness. Her eyes were wide and shining. Her face glowed.

Her free hand slipped across her mouth. The other one never let go of his. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

In mid-air, Alex Roth dropped to one knee.

Theresa Lu gasped.

“Theresa, whether it’s for my forever or all eternity, there’s no one I’d rather spend the rest of my life with than you.” His green eyes locked on her brown ones. “No matter where we are, or even when we are. What we face, or who we face, I want you to be there. Even if we have to part physically, I want us to always be together. If I live as long as Baelin, I want you by my side in one, or even fifty millennia from now.”

He stood and wrapped both arms around her. “The world might be different. The universe might be different…but even if it is, I want us to be the sameto each other. No matter what changes, I just want one thing: for us to be husband and wife.”

He took her hands in his. “I want you to share my life with me…to marry me, Theresa. I think I’ve always known that.”

Silence washed over the beach like fresh rain.

And Alex looked into Theresa’s eyes; not daring to look away lest he catch sight of her body language. He didn’t want to see a ‘no’ reflected in her mannerisms, or the way she held her body, he didn’t think he could take it.

He didn’t want to know.

Not that way. Whether she told him yes or no, he had to hear the words come from her mouth.

He stood before her as her expression crumbled, emotion claiming her face, her lip quivered as her eyes held his. Tears came next, silently running down her cheeks as the salt air blew them away.

Her voice caught.

Then she was a blur.

And in his arms, kissing him, whispering. “Yes, yes, I’ll marry you! Finally!” Then she started giggling. “You remember the first time you told me you loved me? We were at Isolde’s cousin’s ball, remember? Well, your proposal might be just a teeny bit more romantic than that was!” She squeezed her thumb and index finger together, giggling and crying at the same time.

In Alex’s state of mind, all he could do was laugh helplessly.

She said, yes!

He could hardly believe it.

He was as giddy as a small child who’d been spinning like a top, and couldn’t stop laughing.

“You had to bring that up, didn’t you?” He hugged her fiercely. “You know you just ruined the moment, right? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

And they kept laughing and kissing and holding each other in the sky.

…until a cold wetness slapped them across their faces.

“Gah!” Alex cried, coming face to face with Brutus as the cerberus floated beside them, whining and staring at them worriedly from three sets of eyes.

“Brutuuuus!” Theresa laughed. “Come on boy, don’t worry, mommy and daddy are okay. These are happy tears. The happiest tears!”

She kissed one of the giant pup’s cheeks.

“The stupidly happiest,” Alex was ready to burst, laughing with joy and patting Brutus on a head that kept swivelling back and forth from Theresa to him, and back again. A grin spread across the young wizard’s face. “Actually, Brutus, your timing’s kinda perfect. You’re right in time for Theresa’s engagement present.”

Alex beamed at the two of them, chuckling as the huntress and hound tilted four heads in total at him.

“What present?” she asked.

“That’s ridiculously cute,” he whispered, tilting his head in turn.

She blushed. “Stop it. Now what’s this about a gift?”

“It’s important,” Alex beamed. “Very important and I think you’re going to love it.”

“What? Alex, I don’t need a gift. You’re the gift.” She hugged him tighter.

“Trust me, when you see the gift, you’ll change your mind.” He pat Brutus on his centre head. “Stay here.”

With a pulse of the Traveller’s power, he teleported to the gazebo, picked up the picnic basket and teleported back beside Theresa and Brutus. “I packed a bit more than food.”

Looking like his hands were trembling, he took a leather bound booklet from the basket, and handed it to Theresa. “Go on, open it. I didn’t want to give it to you earlier and have you start thinking that I was trying to bribe you into accepting my proposal.”

“Alex, I would never have said no,” she said, opening the book. “What is this? A book on travel or some…” Her eyes grew wide, turning to Alex. “What is this?”

Written at the top of the very first page were the words: “Operation Brutus Forever.”

Below them was a neat, detailed diagram, showing all the paths of life force that ran through the cerberus, including pressure points where energy would flow in and out…if the right rituals were applied.

“Turn the page,” Alex encouraged her excitedly.

“Okay…” she said, slowly turning the page then gasping. “Is this me?”

On the second page was an incomplete diagram of Theresa: and sketched within her silhouette, were a series of life pathways as they appeared in most humans that he’d drawn in graphite which could be erased asneeded.

“It's getting there,” Alex said. “I couldn’t study you without making you suspicious, so the diagram is only temporary: we can finish the real one with a bit of an examination later. But…turn to the next page.”

She flipped the page. Her jaw fell open.

There were two diagrams: one of Brutus and one of her, as well as a pathway of lifeforce linking the two of them together. Below them, he’d written instructions and a list of ingredients.

“Remember last year when you and I talked about something called a ‘blood familiar’? He asked. “Remember it meant making a familiar through blood magic?” he continued. “Which means we would basically set up a deep blood connection between you and Brutus, binding your lifeforces together. His lifeforce would flow through you, and yours through him: in other words, that means…if you die, he’ll die. And if he dies, then it’ll greatly damage your lifeforce. In return, though…” He paused. “Your lifeforces will resonate together, and—because he’s a beast, and a lot closer to nature than we sapient mortals—your reinforced life energy will flow into him, reinforcing his.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You mean…? Brutus will live as long as I will?”

“He absolutely will,” Alex said, petting the hound’s head once more.

“And! And! He’ll be a lot stronger, faster and healthier. His skin will get tougher and…heck, there might be additional mutations as your nature-empowered lifeforce interacts with his bestial nature. Kinda like…” He paused. “...it’s a littlelike golem evolution, but a lot less drastic. My point is, the transformation might have additional pluses for good ol’ Brutus here. And uh…I know some men give their wives jewellery, houses, horses and stuff like that for engagement or anniversary gifts. But, this felt right.”

He smiled warmly. “If you want, Brutus will be part of our forever too. As long as you live.”

“Aleeeex!” Theresa screamed, jumping on him and hugging him so hard that his spine cracked dangerously. “You are the most thoughtful, amazing boyfrie—No, the most thoughtful, amazing fiance in the world! Do you hear me?”

She threw her head back. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world!”

Her voice boomed across the ocean, echoing through campus.

Now that? That was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“Can we start right away?” she asked him excitedly. “I’d love to get started right now.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll just need to examine your life force through blood magic…and then we can finish lunch, go back home and do the ritual.”

“This is the best day of my life!” Theresa cried.

Brutus cocked his heads, then gave them both a thick, sloppy lick.