Eurilia
It was rather sad that she was trailing after him again. At least, that's what the other scientists thought. But Novah had secluded himself in the wreckage looking for answers that, cearly, weren't there and Astrid was the only one who cared about him enough to knock some sense into him. She maneuvered around the debris awardly. It was hard to find a path to move. No one had bothered cleaning the crash sight, or at least put the more heavy rabble away. Her foot caught on a wire that was lying undetected and her body jerked forward causing her to almost fall onto the sharp end of a broken iron pole. Astrid saw her life flash before her eyes. Coming so close face to face with what would\ve been her end, the Dinneilean swallowed hard and blinked her widened eyes. Her heart raced a hundred miles per hour at the fright and she briefly wondered what she had thought when she decided to walk through this death-trap. She decided to be extra careful the remaining of the way And fortunately, no more accidents befallen her.
The inside of the crashed spaceship was in a slightly better condition than the outside. In hindsight, that was probably because all the inside rabble were thrust outside. Astrid had not been inside the spaceship since they crash-landed. She hadn't even wanted to look at it. But after Novah's back healed from the accident, he became obsessed with the place. He had been gone for days...or atleast, Astrid thought it was days -it was hard to measure time when time didn't exist in Eurilia. It was ironic really, Astrid mused. That the birthplace of time was void of it.
It was easy to locate Novah. Astrid followed the only sound that came from inside the spaceship to where the scientist was working. When his form came to view, it surprised Astrid how easily she could read him. Even with his back to her, she could see the tousled hair, like a rat's nest. His clothes, that were wrinkled and dirty, spoke of sleepless nights. He was mumbling to himself like some kind of crazy person. Astrid sighed with sorrow.
"You know sleep is fundamental for both body and mind." she anounced her presence.
Novah jumped a little from fright. A testament of how absorbed he was in his thoughts. He turned to look at her and she could immediately see the dark circles under his eyes.
"You'll be no help to anyone -much less yourself- if you fall apart by your own stupidity." she told him smartly.
Before this, before they crashed, she would've been horrified to speak to him like that. Now she found that she didn't care. Someone had to tell him the truth to his face. Plus, she had grown familiarly close to him over their stay in Eurilia.
A tired chuckle left his lips. A lopsided grin graced the corner of his mouth and despite his obvious exhaustion, his green eyes sparkled a little with mischief.
"If it isn't my favorite apprentice. What are you doing in these parts?"
"Looking for my wayward teacher. You are way too smart to be acting this stupid, Novah." she scolded disapprovingly.
"I need answers."
"You're not going to get them if you run yourself to the ground. When was the last time you slept? Or ate, or had a bath?" she demanded. "I can smell you from here."
Novah's lips curved into a frown. "I don't have time for any of this. I need to make sence of what happened."
Astrid felt the fire in her veins flare. "It's been MONTHS and you haven't found anything." she raised her voice. "Taking some time off to take care of yourself won't make the data go away." she reasoned. "On the contrary, it'll clear your head. Right now, you can't even see straight."
Novah lowered his head in shame. His fingers tightened on the equipment he was holding. A piece she couldn't see properly. She took courage from his posture and approached him.
"It's not that simple." he whispered miserably. "The white hole....it doesn't make sense." he lifted his head and stared pleadingly at her.
As if she had any answers that he didn't. She could see that it was eating at him. The lack of knowledge. These baffling events that didn't make sense.
"The white hole. We should have never been able to enter it." he explained desperately. "It's impossible. They're the polar opposites of black holes."
It pained her heart to see him this confused. This brilliant man to have been reduced to a madman.
"Maybe we were sucked into a black hole and exited the white one." she offered softly.
But he was shaking his head before she could even finish the sentence. "We would have noticed the black hole and more importantly, we wouldn't have survived it. We would've been squashed like flies by its gravitational force."
Astrid took a moment to reply. "Have the data you're salvaged shown anything else?"
"NO!" he gasped, diving his fingers into the wilderness of his hair. Astrid saw his eyebrows pushed together and his lip tremble. He truly looked like a lunatic right now. "This is why it doesn't make sense."
Her heart broke for him again. If only she could help him. But if HE couldn't figure it out, then SHE definitely couldn't either. Hesitantly, she places her hand on his arm comfortingly. She wanted to show him that she was there for him. And then offered softly:
"Maybe some answers we're not meant to have. Some riddles are supposed to be left unsolved."
The look he gave her was one of a defeated person, and it held so much desperation that it almost overwhelmed her. She wondered how he was able to still stand on his feet, for she would most certainly crumble over the weight of those emotions.
#
Convincing Novah not to do something is like convincing the stars not to shine. He broods and mops and does whatever he feels like doing. In the end, Astrid has to leave him alone. The other scientists have taken to exploring the new place - Eurilia. She had been reluctant to do the same because she felt out of her depth and she didn't have any other friends besides Novah. Leaving the wreckage was just as dangerous as entering it in the first place. Astrid does her best to not hurt herself on her way down. She almost cuts her hand on a sharp piece of metal and she wonders again the logic that made her follow the wayward scientist in the first place.
It's one thing to be told of Eurilia and entirely another to experience it. To see it with your eyes, to smell it with your nose, to feel it with your fingertips. Astrid feels as if she has stepped into another dimension. She laughed as fast as the thought is formed. She is after all in another dimension.
In the end, Novah concedes. She sees him from afar as he makes his way towards her, lean and tired but not less authoriated and graceful. He looks beautiful, she realizes. Not beautiful like Amora, he doesn't make her heart about to explode or her stomach full of butterflies. But objectively speaking, he is ethereal. Perhaps it's because she has witnessed the power he holds in the future and is responding to that. Or perhaps she admires his kindness, his intelligence, and his vigor.
"Finally decided to come out of your hole?" she teased him, grinning like a lunatic.
He returns the grin lightheartedly. "A wise person told me I was wasting my time in there."
"Must be indeed wise. You should listen more often to them."
He giggles and shakes his head. "I'll be sure to do so." he plays along. "I'm sorry I've been so difficult lately." he sounds sincere. "And for leaving you alone, to practically fend for yourself against the wolves."
Astrid wants to giggle, but all that comes out is a breathed chuckle. She couldn't deny the truth and he knew he was spot on. The other scientist still didn't like her and that translated into being left out.
"Well I'm here now, you young apprentice." he jokes lightly and wraps an arm around her shoulder. "How will you ever forgive me?"
She looks up to him and winks. "Come with me to the tree in the pool and I'll think about it."
He laughs but let's her drag him with her to the giant golden tree. She knows what it is and what it's capable of, but these scientists have yet to figure it out. But still, Astrid is still worried that time might me more malleable than theorized -even in this place. SHe dreads to think about what horrible changes will happen to the timeline is one of the other scientists discovers the purpose of the tree before Novah.
She needn't worry, though. Novah is sharp as a tank and it only takes a few looks in the time pool for him to put two and two together.
"It's a time-pool." he announces.
Everyone is looking at him as if he's grown three heads. So he explains that what they're seeing reflected in the water is past, present, and future events happening through all creation. The enthusiasm of the discovery is heartwarming. It still leaves a bitter taste in Astrid's mouth knowing how that fervor will evolve.
And soon enough, it does.
It takes a horrible event for everything to change. The scientists that had been sworn to record their visions in the water, to be the Time Keepers, riot when they witness the malice of the Eternals.
"Such evil should not exist in any world." many insist.
"It's not up to us to play Gods." Novah counters.
"There is no God." Caxavians are atheists after all. "If not we then who is going to rectify this abomination? Why were we brought on this plane if not to change the world for the better?"
"Power has consequences and we don't understand well the one we have been given. Who are we to manipulate and control the lives of others?" Novah had told them sternly.
In the end, it didn't matter. Astrid knew it wouldn't, yet it was more painful to live through it. They jailed them in the same ship that brought them to Eurilia. The irony of that!
The first week of imprisonment, Novah is like a caged animal. He is angry and fuming of their betrayal and Astrid can somewhat understand him. These people were meant to follow him, to be guided under him and now they have rebelled and thrown him aside -imprisoned him in his own ship. But Novah is no damsel in distress -at least not this version of him. Astrid is still stuck with the image of him being tied up and helpless in the Vampire dungeon to remember that he is super smart and capable. The crashed spaceship is like a technological heaven to him. So he goes back to looking at incomplete data, white holes and answers that are not there.
Of course, he comes up empty again. She can hear him roar with frustration and smash things. On rare occasions she hears him cry silently after that. Her heart throbs for him and her mind breaks. Until one day, a miracle happens.
She can hear footsteps coming close. For the life of her she can't imagine why the Time Lords would visit them now. But when they reach them, it's not their voices that reach her ears.
"I'm sorry it took me so long, my love."
Astrid can't believe it. Her head snaps up faster than she could blink. She can't deny the vision in front of her. That pale face, those long white hair, these cold eyes staring right at her. Astrid cries and lunges herself at Amora like a koala on a tree.
"I can't believe you're here." her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Yes, well, it took me a while to find you. But I brought the cavalry with me." she can hear the smirk in her voice.
As if on cue, another set of boots enters the room. "Oi, lover's reunion is over. Raven has put them all to sleep and is about to open a portal."
Astrid giggles at Noemi. She can hardly believe that she is so happy to see the terrifying Bounty Hunter. Even sweet Ramiel is here. He stands behind Noemi, like always, to protect himself. She is curious as to why he's not by Raven's side as he usually is, but the Witch most likely is surrounded by crazy Time Lords and Noemi is just as safe and ten times deadlier than his usual companion.
"Did you hear that?" he's staring right at her.
She looks at him confused. "Hear what?"
"That!"
There's a loud bang and Astrid jerks awake. It takes her a moment to realize that it was all just a dream and that no one had come to rescue her. She feels teals in her eyes and she purses her lips to swallow down a sob.
"Astrid!" Novah calls her from a distance. She blinks her eyes to get gid of the last remnants of sleep and follows his voice. That was a change in their routine. Novah usually works alone. He concentrates better that way. But she's glad that he wants her near this time. She needs the distraction -especially after her last dream.
She finds him lying on the ground, eyes staring unblinkingly at the cracked top. Whatever project he had been working on is forgotten and abandoned. It takes her by surprise. it's not like him to give up. She joins him sitting squatly on the floor but doesn't lie down like him.
"So..." she doesn't know how to continue so she lets her voice fade away.
"The white hole is a dead end." he says softly without looking at her.
"Wow!" and she feels every sense of the word. "I never thought I'd hear you say that."
This time his green eyes moved to her. There's an amused sparkle in them that almost makes her mouth twitch into a smile.
"A wise person once told me that some answers we're not meant to have."
"Hmmm. I wonder who that could be."
That brings a chuckle out of him. "I'm ready to accept it now. That I might never know how we really came to Eurilia. Maybe not everything can be explained by science." he said it too softly, but he might as well have screamed it in her ear.
"I can't believe that sentence came out of your mouth."
He snorts. "Me neither."
She plays with a hole in her trousers just to give herself an excuse not to look at him. "What you just said, it goes against everything science stands for. Are you going to tell me God exists next?"
She means it as a joke, but the silence she receives as an answer makes her shudder. She tears her eyes away from the hole and locks them with his. Novah is somber, thoughtful and serious. In the past, it made her feel stable and secure. It hasn't changed.
"Maybe He does." And she knows he's dead serious. "As a scientist I believe in what has been proved is real and not real. Until now, there's no concrete evidence that the theory that God exists is real. But there's no evidence that disproves it either. So how can I advocate for either side? Religions were made by mortal people. And science can only take us so far. There's so many things that are still unknown, so many we still don;t understand. The more I learn about the Universe, its mechanics, the way everything works in perfect harmony. I see the most complicated design. Everything has a purpose, nothing goes to waste. And I find myself wondering how canTHIS be random? How could it possibly be caused by an accident? When it's clear that someone made it. It's too complex and too perfect to be otherwise."
He quiets after that. Astrid is left to ponder over his monologue. He had touched on some pretty valid points. His point of view is deep and frustrating because he raises more philosophical questions that give logical answers and Astrid's mind has been conditioned to accept only those.
"I see you've thought deeply about that."
He snorts again and then laughs loudly. He raises his head just enough to rest his arm underneath it, and turns to his side. His whole body is turned to her now, and for some reason that breaks the spell of nirvana she had been under.
"Yes, well, that's what happens when you're left staring at the ceiling for hours upon hours." he jokes. "But lest cease this talk, it makes me gloomy."
He grins at her wickedly and she knows he's up to no good. A shiver runs down her spine. She can't help but return it.
"I thought of a way to get out of here."