I almost did not recognize her.
It was a warm late summer afternoon. Natty and I were strolling through the Arlesten town center when I noticed her standing by the fountain, watching us approach.
She looked different from when we had last seen her, in a way that was hard to define. More relaxed, perhaps.
"Brianna?" I asked. "Brianna Vercours?"
The woman smiled. "Catherine, and Natalie. It is good to see you again."
"It is good to see you, Brianna," Natty replied. She squinted. "You look different," she added, putting into words my first impression.
"Three years have passed since we met," Brianna told us. "For me, that is."
"And a mere five days for us," I retorted. "But tell us, what brings you here? Did everything turn out as you hoped it would?"
"I would like to show the two of you something," the woman explained. "Not here, though. I would invite you to visit me and perhaps stay for a day or two." She smiled. "I promise you will return in time to catch the bus back to your school."
"Sure, we are game," Natty said, speaking for both of us.
Taking care to be out of sight of the tourists and other late afternoon promenaders, the three of us stepped behind a small delivery van. Brianna tapped a button on what could have been mistaken for a wristwatch but on closer inspection appeared to be a miniaturized ansible. A faint blue light engulfed us.
The next instant, we found ourselves on a large bridge with a nice view of the Eiffel tower.
I heard Natty whisper, "Oh my."
Larissa Montreve was standing next to us.
"Natalie, Catherine," she greeted us. "We thought you might like to see Paris again."
"Larissa. It's good to see you again." I looked around in wonder. "Is this your New Paris then, or perhaps Paris-reborn?"
"We don't call it that," she replied. "For us, it is Paris. Just Paris, the City of Light."
"Did you rebuild all your Cities in less than three years time, then?" Natty inquired.
Brianna laughed. "Not completely, yet. But as you can see, we made a good start."
"So your migration to the deep future succeeded." I grinned happily. "But what happened with the autarchy? Did they cooperate with you?"
"Not exactly." Larissa smiled grimly. "The autarchy ... well, suffice it to say that it collapsed."
"Good," Natty remarked. "That means that I am safe from them, at least."
"We have reserved a table in that little restaurant, over there." Brianna pointed. "There are quite a few people who are looking forward to talk to you. Let's slowly walk there, shall we?"
The restaurant in question turned out to be a fancy place. We found Celia Graham and Xavier Torc seated at table large enough to accommodate twelve or fifteen people. As we approached they rose to greet us.
"Victor would have liked to be here too, but he had other obligations," Larissa told us. "He will try to catch up with you tomorrow."
Natty smirked. "Yeah, I am sure he will."
"Please don't be too harsh on him, Natalie," Brianna said. "I'll admit he behaved rudely when you met him. But he was two years younger than you at that time, and also a bit jealous of you."
Natty shrugged. "It's okay. I am not in the habit of holding grudges."
"So what happened to the Seipra inside that cave? You know, 'The Adventurous Ones'," I asked, after we had all taken our seats.
"They were gone when we returned," Natty added. "And so were the men who had been attacking them."
"We sent special forces there," Xavier Torc explained. "Apparently it took little effort on their part to solve that problem."
"Mind you, not all living descendants of the original Seipra who went to the year 1000 AD were trapped in that cave. Only the ones who lived in the UK used to assemble there, and not all of those, either. Nevertheless, all descendants of the Seipra that we managed to locate were given a choice to either move here and become citizens of The Alliance or else to stay in the 1960s," Celia told us. "One of those who chose to stay was your classmate's grandmother, Ceridwen Morgan. Most of them elected to migrate here, though." She smiled. "One of the latter was planning to join us here tonight. I wonder where she ... Ah, there she is."
I felt somebody lightly touch my right shoulder.
"Bonjour, Croissant," a vaguely familiar voice greeted me.
I turned around. "Great Gauss! Hannah! Or is that not your real name?"
"It is my real name. It's great to meet you again, Catherine." The young woman hugged me. She waved at Natty. "Hello, Natalie."
Natty waved back. "Hello, Hannah."
"You girls know each other?" Brianna asked.
"Catherine chased me at high speed halfway through Paris until I agreed to talk to her," Hannah explained, laughing.
"So you were the one the Seipra put in charge of keeping an eye on Cathy and me during our school excursion to Paris," Natty summarized.
"Actually there was at least one other person charged with that task. She ought to be with us any minute now." Hannah was scanning the people crowding the plaza outside.
"Really? Who is she?" Natty wanted to know.
"She asked me not to tell you in advance," Hannah replied. "It's supposed to be a surprise. So I must ask you to have some patience."
"Why don't we look through the menu first, and then place our orders?" Xavier proposed.
I had barely finished reading the first page of the menu – in spite of Ms Mallet's best efforts, my command of the French language could only be described as lousy – when I heard Natty mutter, "I don't believe this."
I looked up to see a girl I would never have expected to see here.
"Cauchy's cough drops! Marianne!" I exclaimed.
Indeed it was none other than our erstwhile French student tour guide.
"Bonjour, everybody." Marianne smiled. "Hi there, Natalie and Catherine. You remember me, no?"
"Of course we do," Natty assured her. "We learned a hell of a lot about Paris from you."
"Merci beaucoup. I learned a lot from you too," Marianne told us.
"Really? Like, what?" Natty prodded.
"For instance, I learned that I can't always get away with everything," the French girl replied. "Such as when I took a day off without asking, and guess what happened?"
Hannah raised an eyebrow. "Nothing happened?" she guessed.
Marianne laughed. "I wish. Non, I received une bonne fessée at the hands of the head girl of their class."
"Une bonne fessée? Seriously?"
"Mais oui. Une bonne fessée, cul nu."
It was Hannah's turn to laugh. "Mon dieu! You got your bare bottom spanked?"
"Oui. It was a new experience for me."
"I daresay." Hannah looked greatly amused. "During our basic training, I used to think that you would benefit a lot from that sort of discipline "
Marianne glared at her, but you could tell she was doing that mostly for show.
Their friendly banter was cut short by the arrival of yet another person. One whom I was truly happy to see.
"Jake!" I yelled and "Oh my god, Jake!" shouted Natty.
Both of us rushed to him and hugged him.
"Natalie! Catherine!" He laughed, as happy to see us as we were to see him.
"But how on earth did you get here?" Natty asked.
"They gave me a lift." He grinned. "When your people's Special Forces arrived, they appeared to know right away who I was. After making short work of those heavily armed thugs outside the cave, they discussed with the leaders of the Meddling Natives – that is to say, your classmate's grandma and a couple of other women – how to proceed."
"Eventually, they also talked to me and asked me if I wanted to 'go home', as they jokingly put it. Boy, did I ever want that, especially after I learned that the autarchy already was history, and that it was Natalie who had made that happen. So, here I am. And this here is my dad." He turned to an old gentleman who was standing a few steps behind him. "Dad, meet Natalie and Catherine."
"Oh my god! You look just like Jake!" Natty exclaimed.
She was right. His father looked like an older version of Jake himself, only with wrinkles and considerably less hair.
"I am so glad to finally meet you girls," he said.
"Dad is a delegate of the newly created constituent assembly of Karr," Jake told us.
"Congratulations! That's great!" I said.
"Did you find out what became of that girl you left behind, Jake?" Natty asked. "What was her name again? Lucy?"
"Lucille and I are together again. We have a one-year-old daughter whom we named Natalie Catherine, in honor of you-know-who." He smiled. "The kid has been grumpy all day, so Lucille decided she had better stay home with her tonight. But we would like to invite you girls to our hotel suite tomorrow in the morning, so we can have breakfast together and talk. You can say hello to your little namesake then."
"I am looking forward to that," Natty said and, "So am I," I added.
Larissa took it upon herself to introduce Jake and his dad to the rest of the party. Then we all got seated, finally ready to order dinner.
"Incidentally, I did some research on that epic poem about The Alliance that I quoted to you girls some time ago," Jake remarked "The one they made us memorize in school. I only recalled the first part of it, about the rise of the City States in the aftermath of the Cataclysm. That poem goes on to describe how the people of the Alliance supposedly sacrificed themselves in order to vanquish a terrible, otherwise unstoppable foe. Turns out there exists a final stanza, one that we never learned about in school. The author of that poem, Bertrand, was forced to flee and live in exile for writing that particular last stanza. It goes like this:
Return they shall, or so it has been foretold.
Return they shall, in splendor and in glory.
Destroy the tyrant and with him his evil minions,
bring hope and freedom back into the world.
I suppose there were too many people who considered the tyrant mentioned in that stanza as a reference to the Autarch of Karr."
"Sounds like yet another prediction that came true," Natty drily commented.
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A / N : I hope you liked that relaxed meeting of several of the characters.
As always, I would ask you to consider adding your comments or voting for this chapter.