We Might Be Inseparable

Chapter 2 We Might Be Inseparable

The song kept echoing down the hallway, clearer with every step, and Teresa was no longer paying attention to anything else.

“Hurry up, Lord Nefer!” she called without slowing down, picking up her pace as the sound of water against glass blended with that impossible melody. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Don’t run!” Nefer replied, quickening his pace to catch up. “You could get hurt.”

Teresa didn’t hear him, or chose not to. She turned a corner and stopped dead.

The hallway opened into a circular chamber where the water from the aquarium formed an indoor lagoon, still and luminous as a mirror. At the center, perched on a smooth-edged rock worn soft by time, was her.

She was a woman of a beauty that was difficult to take in all at once: a fish tail of deep turquoise that caught and returned the light of the water with each slow movement of her fin, skin of a soft rose, hair and eyes the same shade as her tail, as if everything about her had been designed to harmonize. She sang with half-closed eyes, with no audience in mind, for no one, or for the water itself.

“Is that what I think it is…?” Teresa murmured, without moving. “Or am I still dreaming?”

“It’s a mermaid,” Nefer confirmed, appearing beside her a moment later, slightly out of breath. “And I knew it was you, Lirielle.”

The mermaid opened her eyes. Her tail stilled for a moment, then began to swish in a nervous, uneven rhythm that contrasted with the serenity of the rest of her body.

“Friend Nefer, what a coincidence running into you here!” Lirielle exclaimed, with a smile that tried to look unbothered. “And you’ve brought your peculiar guest along too.”

Nefer studied her. Studied the tail. Studied her again.

“Based on the way you’re moving your tail,” he said calmly, “I’m going to assume you’re nervous. And the fact that we’ve ‘happened’ to run into each other suggests you were excited to meet Teresa and came looking for us instead of waiting.”

“Not at all! You’re completely wrong!” Lirielle protested.

The tail kept swishing.

“Well… yes,” she admitted, lowering her head with a smile she couldn’t hide.

She turned toward Teresa, who was still standing a short distance away with the expression of someone who hasn’t quite decided whether what they’re seeing is real.

“Hello. I’m Lirielle, mermaid goddess. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Teresa blinked. She came back to herself.

“Hello… my name is Teresa. The pleasure is mine.” A pause. “Lord Nefer,” she added, turning to the cat god, “please tell me this is completely real.”

“If you keep asking that,” he replied with a slight edge of annoyance, “you’re going to make me start questioning my own existence.”

“Ha!” Lirielle looked at both of them with genuine delight. “You two clearly get along very well.”

She clasped her hands in front of her chest and flushed just slightly, with the shyness of someone about to ask for something that matters a great deal to them.

“You know, Teresa? I’d like to be your friend.”

Teresa stepped closer. She took Lirielle’s hands in hers.

“I want us to be friends too,” she replied, with a simplicity that needed no further decoration.

Lirielle’s smile was immediate and overflowing. Her turquoise eyes grew bright with tears.

Nefer watched them both for a moment. Then he cleared his throat.

“By the way,” he said, “your being here has something to do with Palas, doesn’t it?”

Lirielle blinked. The tail stopped swishing.

“Ah. That’s right.” She brought a hand to her mouth. “Miss Palas requests the presence of you both in the meeting room.”

“How long have you been here singing instead of delivering that message?” Nefer asked.

Lirielle didn’t answer. The tail resumed its nervous movement.

* * *

Nefer exhaled slowly and turned to Teresa.

“Well. This is where the tour ends.”

Teresa looked at him. There was something in her expression that was hard to name: a mix of genuine gratitude and something softer, more personal, that she didn’t quite know how to put into words.

“Since I arrived, I’ve experienced things I never could have imagined,” she said at last. “Some of them frightened me. Others left me speechless. But what I’m taking away most from all of this… is the people who live in this crazy palace.”

Nefer looked away. He crossed his arms with the automatic gesture of someone who doesn’t quite know what to do with someone else’s feelings when they’re kind.

“In the end,” he said, quieter, “it turns out that ridiculous dream of mine wasn’t so bad after all.”

Lirielle watched them from her rock with the calm, bright expression of someone witnessing something worth remembering.

* * *

The meeting room was the same as always, but with more people than usual.

Carlos stood by the wall, hands clasped behind his back, with the posture of someone who has been waiting long enough to have spent the time better. Excali and Brunilda occupied two chairs at the far end. And at the center of the room, standing beside the main table, was Palas.

Palas was difficult to describe without reaching for words that didn’t quite get there. Guardian of a part of the universe, leader of the pantheon that inhabited that palace: the titles were accurate but insufficient. There was something about her that the air recognized before the eyes finished seeing her, a presence that filled the room without any apparent effort.

Lirielle arrived through the water channels that ran through the palace like veins, emerging naturally from an opening beside the window.

“And what’s with all these people gathered here?” Nefer asked as he entered. “Did someone die or what.”

“Lord Nefer,” said Carlos without looking up, “that is not befitting of a god.”

Palas was already approaching Nefer with a smile that contained more history than most books.

“I see you’re still getting yourself into trouble, old friend.”

Nefer scratched the back of his head with one of his front paws, with the gesture of someone who accepts the reproach but only so much.

Palas then turned to Teresa. She studied her for a moment with eyes that seemed to see past the surface, with an attention that was calm but unmistakably powerful.

“So you’re the visitor from planet Earth.”

Teresa held her gaze as long as she could. Palas’s presence wasn’t hostile, but it carried the weight of something very old, and that was enough to make her feet want to take a step back.

“Hey!” Nefer cut in. “Stop showing off, you’re scaring her.”

Palas let out a genuine laugh and took a step back, raising her hands in apology.

“Sorry. Old habit.”

“Miss Palas,” said Carlos with surgical delicacy, “I believe we should get to the point.”

Palas nodded, recovered her composure, and positioned herself in front of the group.

“As you may have guessed, I called you here because we have been deliberating on how to proceed with returning Teresa to her home.” A pause. “Those who did not participate in that deliberation are Nefer, Lirielle — who took a considerable amount of time delivering the message — and Teresa herself.”

Lirielle looked away.

“Why not just use one of Lord Nefer’s portals to send me back?” asked Teresa, raising her hand carefully.

Nefer hesitated for just a beat longer than he would have liked.

“Portals are a power that I… don’t control with complete precision.”

“Furthermore,” Palas added, in a tone that left no room for argument, “by bringing you here, Nefer broke several fundamental rules. Using our power to move mortals between worlds, let alone bringing them to this plane, is strictly forbidden.”

The silence that followed had the texture of something inevitable.

“Taking all of this into account,” Palas continued, “and given that Nefer is responsible for the sector that includes Earth’s solar system, we have reached the following decision: he will accompany Teresa back to her world and live alongside her for an indefinite period of time. He will be her guardian, as part of the responsibilities he has been neglecting for far too long.”

The silence shifted in texture.

Teresa and Nefer looked at each other. Then at Palas. Then back at each other.

“How could you possibly have arrived at such an arbitrary conclusion?” Nefer burst out.

“Your irresponsible behavior has been causing consequences for some time,” Carlos said calmly. “Living among mortals will help you mature as a god. It’s what’s best for you, my lord.”

Teresa moved closer to Nefer. She looked at him with that mixture of disarming warmth that the cat god had not yet learned to handle well.

“I would like to spend more time with you.”

Nefer looked at her for a moment. Then at the others. Then back at her.

“Fine. I’ll go.” A pause. “You’ll all see how much you miss me.”

“Since transporting mortals is still technically illegal,” Palas announced, already turning toward a machine of improbable appearance in the corner, “I’ll send you by an unconventional route. For the sake of discretion.”

“Lord Nefer,” said Carlos, because he never forgot a detail, “before you leave, please don’t forget to finish cleaning up.”

Nefer flew out through the window without a word. Four seconds later he was back. The sky around the palace was perfectly clear.

“Done,” he said, landing beside Teresa.

* * *

The farewells were brief but weighted.

Excali approached Teresa with a calm, faintly mischievous smile.

“Take care of Lord Nefer. He has a tendency to get into trouble.”

“I will,” Teresa promised.

Brunilda placed in her hands a small bag of colorful candies that smelled of something warm and indefinable.

“They’re divine candies. I hope you enjoy them.”

“The portal is ready,” Palas announced.

Teresa and Nefer approached the luminous threshold pulsing at the center of the room. Palas addressed Teresa one last time.

“Forgive me for not introducing myself properly earlier. I’m Palas. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Teresa,” she replied. “The pleasure is mine.”

“We’ll get to know each other better,” said Palas, with the calm of someone making a promise they know they will keep.

Then she turned to Nefer.

“There will be dangers along the way. You’ll need to look after her.”

“Count on it,” he replied. His voice was steady. So was his gaze.

Lirielle, who had been holding back tears with heroic concentration, finally surrendered to the emotion.

“We’ll see each other again soon,” she managed to say.

Palas positioned herself in front of the machine and began the countdown.

“Jump on three… two… one… go!”

A flash of white light enveloped them. The floor vanished beneath their feet. The palace, the lagoon, the meeting room, the faces of everyone who had stayed behind watching from their places — all of it shrank to a point of light and then was gone.

Silence returned to the palace like water filling a glass.

Brunilda stared at the empty space where the portal had been.

“I just hope they don’t get into too much trouble…”

“If we’re talking about Nefer,” Excali replied with a soft laugh, “that’s a lot to ask.”

Palas’s machine powered down slowly, leaving only a faint hum that faded until nothing remained.

No one in the palace knew it yet, but somewhere between the stars, falling through an illegal wormhole with a bag of divine candies and a cat god at her side, Teresa was about to discover that nothing she had experienced that day was even remotely the strangest thing that was going to happen to her.