Lost Possibilities

     Their parents would have smiled, dreaming too of the past for a while. The ruins would have stood miles inshore, demanding a repeat of the times before.

     Lisha surreptitiously wiped the drops from her glasses as the spell faded away. She hoped, once, that just as she emerged from the future, others would too: family, friends, but the years passed, and the memories faded, and she was left with almost nothing.

     Which was better than what the others retained; her older brother seemed completely uninterested in "the future," having moved on to bigger and better things. The friends that came with her were likewise apathetic.

     "I don’t really feel like I've lost anything," Kayla had said. "This is the life I always wanted to lead."

     And Lisha was quite sure she had always wanted to become a mage, and in fact, until now, that was its own reward. But when her own brother had shut her out of his life after she had risked everything, she started to feel it, the hollowness that came with an unknown history.

     "Are you okay?" Roberta's voice pierced through her thoughts.

     "I'm fine."

     "Hey," said the robed blue Acara, "don't sweat it. I still can't get it to work, no matter how hard I try. Mother's notes weren't exactly comprehensive."

     "I suppose they aren't," replied Lisha.

     A slim notebook sat on the wooden table between them, and stories of filled shelves spiralled to the ceiling. Its pages were faded, and even the notes sticking out of it were almost disintegrated. Even deciphering its contents took days at a time, and the spells... well, some of them could take years to execute correctly.

     This one was a divination spell, intended to show possible futures of an action. The two mages had tried casting it dozens of times. Roberta hardly experienced anything except the irritating smell of chalk dust, and Lisha remembered.

     She didn't remember faces or names. Just the vague silhouettes of a family she could have perhaps possibly once have had that one day, on a sunny beach. Maybe they never existed. Or...

     "We have to try again," she said.

     "I think this is getting to you." Roberta covered a yawn and tried to straighten out the bags under her eyes. "We haven't even had dinner."

     "But--"

     "No buts," she said, "we're having a proper meal and some tea. Come on. If we don't hurry, we'll almost miss Tor's post-supper dinner."

     "You can go."

     "I'm not asking. As a princess of Brightvale, I hereby forbid your continued presence anywhere but a dining room, and I am willing to lay down the law, as it were."

     Lisha gritted down a yawn. "That would cause an international incident. I'm technically something of a princess myself."

     She was the sister of Prince Jeran, and that was close enough. If he wasn't going to talk to her, the least he could do was allow her to throw around his title.

     "Uncle Skarl will forgive me."

     So it was that the mages went downstairs for the night, and as Roberta expected, Sir Tormund Ellis was patiently waiting in the dim light with a stained tunic and a half-eaten drumstick in each hand. "Robbie," he greeted, "and Lady Lisha."

     "Just 'Lisha' is fine." She took a seat on one of the garish gold-and-green cushioned chairs, helped herself to some silverware, and slowly moved the peas from one side of her plate to the other using the tip of her fork.

     "Of course, uh, Lisha. I'm guessing you two smashed that time magic you were working on, right?"

     "Something like that," said Roberta, who proceeded to consume her meal very royally.

     Once again, she dug the requisite spell circle into the sand, and once again she filled them with white magical chalk. The flow of time briefly stopped within the circle's radius, and again she saw the scene.

     It was just as dreamlike, just as unreal. She'd hoped the change of location would change that, but...

     "Come on, Leesh, this is supposed to be a break from working."

     "I just needed to try something."

     "Well, just so you know, you don't look very scholarly in a onesie."

     "It's more like a wetsuit," replied Lisha. "And it's very efficient for swimming." As if Kayla, the red Zafara interrupting her, didn't come to the beach wearing cartoonish waterproof wizard robes!

     "You're not swimming right now, are you? I don't know how you can stand the heat."

     Only now did Lisha realise the sudden dampness underneath her armpits and the sweat pooling on her brow. The sun was harsh today; she could hardly look at Kayla without her seeming like an apparition. Maybe what she really needed to do was adjust the time of day...

     "I suppose I can't," she said, quickly casting a half-spell to create a breeze around her. For a moment, it was like she had been transported to a cosy little village in Terror Mountain.

     "That's not really what she had in mind, I don't think." Morris, a green Quiggle, had evidently been overhearing their conversation. The sun had turned him into a shadow, too.

     "Fine, fine; I'll swim, but only for you guys."

     Lisha waded into the sea, stopping at the point where her feet could just barely touch the ground. Little balls of saltwater accumulated on her glasses, and a school of tiny fish whirred past her legs. She trod water for a little bit, facing the shore when she had completely cooled down.

     She saw the world only through muddled lenses. In the distance, Boris was on a picnic rug beneath a beach umbrella. She could hear the frantic yelling of boys and girls chasing each other in the water. Someone had built a Meridellian sandcastle modelled after the real thing.

     Then someone splashed her from the side. She reflexively splashed them back.

     "Hey! Hey! Truce!"

     It was a blue Lupe dressed in a striped one-piece swimsuit, the water having flattened his cowlicks to his head. He grabbed her in a one-armed hug. "Hey, don't drown out here, kid. You know, Mom and Dad don't like it when you go too far."

     "Jeran," she whined, "you don't like it when I go too far. I'm fine. Stop trying to protect me."

     "Eh." He shrugged off her statement. "Anyways, they're making sandwiches. Come on!"

     She followed him onto the shore. Two figures, always in the centre of a water droplet, distributed food to the entire group. "There you are, Leesh," said one—she wasn't sure which one—"I've got something else for you, you know."

     "You do?"

     The figures produced a plastic replica of a Wand of Ultranova. On the other hand, it would be a piece of common trash. Technically, it was nothing compared to a real wand of ultranova, but… it was the thought that counted.

     Her parents really had latched onto the idea that she had wanted one, ever since she drew that silly doodle of herself in grade school. Ever since then, they have always made sure she has one. Fine by her; she lost her last plastic wand while…

     While…

     While doing what, exactly?

     No, she thought. This isn't right. This isn't right.

     With that, the illusion was shattered, and the spell finally faded. Lisha was transported back to the library, in the dark of night, where the only thing she could hear was her own frenzied heartbeat and a familiar voice:

     "If you really wanted to break my decree," said Roberta, "you could at least be subtler about it."

     "That's the cost of research, I suppose," she replied. "It worked."

     The End.