New Bonds and Farewells

The End of TF

The journey with Mimi was, at first, a fascinating adventure. Lizbeth took her to the most hidden corners of the world, teaching her how to move among humans—without attracting too much attention. During the first months, everything was really fun: romance, discovery, learning, laughter and complicity. At the same time she trained her to fight.

Shin had already taught her enough during their time together, but with Lizbeth she polished even more and in a matter of weeks she had become even more lethal than Lizbeth. Those appendages gave Mimi an advantage when it came to attacking and moving in a different way.

Mimi absorbed every experience like a sponge, and at the same time marveling at things Lizbeth considered everyday.

The sound of cars in cities thrilled her, the neon lights in Tokyo mesmerized her, the taste of foods passing back through different countries made her shiver with delight. And also the nights of passion left them exhausted but happy. Shin wasn't there, but the two felt good together.

But as time passed, Lizbeth began to notice something that made her worry about the relationship.

Mimi had stuck to her like a shadow. She always walked beside her, slept beside her, looked at her with a devotion that reminded her too much of her own relationship with Shin in the past. The same dependence, the same need to cling to someone. But, at the same time, Mimi looked at the world at times as if she wanted to go on by herself. She didn't seem to want to say it—but Lizbeth detected it.

No doubt Mimi loved her, but there was something inside her that told her she wanted to travel alone. She clung to Lizbeth but on the other hand she also wanted to take flight.

Lizbeth understood, with a pang in her chest, why Shin had forced her to stay away from him at the time. The situation was similar. The thought tormented her for weeks. Would she be able to do the same with Mimi? Would they be able to walk away without breaking each other's hearts?

Despite her doubts, fate saw to it that the decision was not up to her alone.

In 1987 they met Shin again. Once again, he did not come alone.

That reunion was marked in part by sadness. That same year Laren also died, during a mission for the magic organization he belonged to in Europe. John Without Eyebrows, for his part, went peacefully surrounded by his family and grandchildren in July.

Wingate Peaslee had died.

The old man had died peacefully, after so many years of struggle between the occult and the academic world. He had left behind him a trail of stories and adventures that the others remembered during his wake and that the feys would undoubtedly carry further.

The string of deaths made Mimi realize how many ties they had in the past, as well as the finiteness of human life even more. Lizbeth and Shin had tried to protect her from the violence of the missions, because she was not part of TF. But Mimi knew the danger.

It was during Wingate's wake in Arkham that they met Rein.

During the months he had been away, he had called briefly to make sure that the two were well and that they had also heard from Rein. It was becoming a habit for Shin to always show up with someone. Although in this case, Rein was different. Leon had also told them some details, so it wasn't a complete surprise when he showed up with the little girl by his side, the day before the funeral.

They met on the stairs on the north side of Mathers Square. Luckily, there was no one there at that time.

She wore a cap, a short T-shirt, and shorts that almost made her look more like a boy.

Rein was a fey young woman, about the height of a small girl, with short blonde hair and blue eyes.

But what surprised Lizbeth and Mimi the most was when Rein saw them arrive, her eyes lit up with childlike joy and, without a second's hesitation, she ran to them with open arms. The girl had thrown herself at both of them and caught them in a hug.

"'MOMs!"

Shin didn't even have time to greet them both. Shin stared at the scene for a moment and put his hand to his face.

Lizbeth and Mimi were petrified.

"I'm glad to meet you." The girl's English sounded a little strange in her pronunciation.

"We are too," said Lizbeth nervously.

"H-Hello..." stammered Mimi.

The girl hugged them both tightly, as if they were her long-lost family, as if they had been destined to meet. A shiver ran through them both. Mothers? Them? Since when?

Rein hugged them so tightly that for a moment Mimi couldn't breathe. The little girl lifted her head, her blue eyes gleaming, the slit pupils reminding too much of a predator and, at the same time, of a child who had just found a treasure.

Mimi pressed her lips together, nervous. "Did I hear that right, or did this kid just… call us moms?"

Lizbeth, still frozen, looked over Rein's shoulder at Shin, smiling. But that smile carried arctic winds. Her eyes said it all: I want an explanation. What exactly have you been telling this girl?

Shin scratched the back of his neck, avoiding their stares. "I… tried to explain it wasn't like that. But… I'll explain later."

"There's no need to wait, you can do it now," Mimi said, smiling in the same way.

Rein didn't seem to hear any of it. Pressed against them, she moved her arms as if making sure they wouldn't escape. Lizbeth noticed a faint magical tingle, as she though the girl was concentrating on hiding something else in her small body.

Lizbeth raised a brow. "Why are you trembling…" Then she looked at Shin. "Is she trying to hide something?"

"Uh… yes. She… has a few details she prefers to keep hidden."

"I'm going to stretch them out for a moment; I've had them folded up since Brazil."

"Don't take out the biggest pair," Shin warned.

"Yeah, I know."

At that moment, as if her words were an invitation, Rein's invisible wings fluttered under the strain of magic, releasing a couple of brief sparks. Mimi's eyes went wide. They were quite thin and small, black in color with a slight red tint toward the tips. The tail was also thinner with a thicker part at the end that ended in a series of spikes. Not to mention the small horns that peeked out from her blonde bangs.

"Are those… wings?! Tiny wings on her hips!? And… a tail!?"

"You never mentioned this. Neither did Leon…"

Rein, utterly innocent, looked at them as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "Papa said I shouldn't show them in public. But you're family . Mama and Mama can see them."

Papa...Mama. Lizbeth swallowed hard, the knot in her throat tangled with a strange warmth rising in her chest. "Rein… sweetheart… we're not exactly your—"

Rein cut her off with a radiant smile. "Of course you are. Papa told me stories about you two. He said you were always by his side, that you made him laugh, cry, fight, and keep moving forward. That's family, isn't it? And if he's my papa, then you're my mommys."

An odd silence fell. Mimi, still nervous, tried to wriggle free from the hug, but Rein only held tighter. That little fey was far too strong.

Mimi sighed in resignation.

Lizbeth, barely smiling, stroked the girl's blond hair and remembered that old talk with Michael so long ago. Then she looked at Shin, her expression sharpening. Don't even think about vanishing on us now.

Shin raised his hands, flustered. "I didn't plan this! Rein decided on her own how she wanted to call you."

Rein, oblivious to the others bewilderment, rubbed her cheek against Lizbeth's and Mimi's with the same natural ease as breathing.

"You two are just as he described you." Rein whispered to the two of them in a voice that was almost inaudible.

Then, in a whisper full of satisfaction, Rein finally let them go. She hid her slender tail and wings, and with a look that seemed suddenly older, said:

"I'm glad I finally get to meet you."

Her once-innocent face looked a little more adult now, and the tone of her voice carried a more mature tone that she had not shown until now. Lizbeth and Mimi noticed it but only exchanged a glance. After all, she might look like a child to humans, but there was a chance that girl was far older than either of them. Those wings and that tail—there was no doubt. Lizbeth knelt down, almost without realizing it, and took Rein's hands in hers. The girl's skin was warm—far too warm.

"We're glad to finally meet you too."

Her aura was unlike that of any fey Lizbeth had ever met before.

Finally came the explanation, while they were walking in the square.

There was something really strange about her, something that reminded Lizbeth of the dragon stories she had read in years past. The few times Lizbeth had seen dragons had been during some adventures in the past and on the island of the organization, but gave her the same feeling.

A dragon.

And that was exactly the kind of fey Rein was. A dragon-type fey in humanoid form. One of the rarest. It was not uncommon that she had just been taken prisoner. Shin, Leon and Van had managed to rescue her—after a few months of tracking.

When they succeeded they encountered another problem.

It was Rein's ability.

Rein could use magic and had no control over her ability to affect the weather and, to a lesser degree, produce tremors, depending on her state of mind. Or at least that was the suspicion, because when she arrived there had been an earthquake that caused considerable damage, and that was when she was captured. After the rescue Shin asked Van and Leon to keep her existence a secret—because she would be in danger if her ability became known.

So Shin took her in and the two traveled to desolate parts of South America, to help Rein understand and control her ability, while teaching her to speak Spanish, Portuguese and English. Rein was another sponge for knowledge. In a way, he had experience with the anomalies occurring around her—so he could become an instructor for her.

During all those months they had been living together in the jungles of Misiones and then later in the Amazon. Due to the humid and rainy climate it had helped them to remain hidden without Rein's ability to attract attention. Until in one of their trips to the city to communicate with the outside world Shin was alerted of Wingate's death. After that Shin and Rein traveled to just in time to attend to the funeral. And there, again in Arkham, they were reunited with Lizbeth and Mimi.

Lizbeth took a few seconds to process it, but when her gaze met Shin's, he simply scratched his cheek.

Why did Rein believe that she and Mimi were her mothers?

It turned out that, during their time together, they had lived with some Amazonian natives who had taught Rein about the bonds of family. They had taught her that Shin was like a father to her. And in Shin's case she would have preferred Rein to call him Shin—or simply brother at the most.

That didn't work and from Shin, brother, that had ended up turning into dad. Shin gave up trying to get her to call him something else. But since he had told her his story and about Lizbeth and Mimi, it turned out that she now thought of both girls as her mothers. Obviously it was partly a game for Rein, but Lizbeth had certainly been able to sense that the hug she had given them both was completely sincere.

Destiny had just handed them a new bond to experience—a new reason to move forward. In some ways she had never been serious about starting a family, because she and Shin had been estranged for so long. Other feys and humans had relationships, but fey children were not common. Rarely were feys born from unions between feys—or feys and humans.

Now she had a sort of adopted daughter. Mimi meanwhile did not know how to react. She didn't dislike the idea of a family. But the idea of something growing inside her and then coming out of her crotch terrified her—although that could well be because she had been frightened after she and Lizbeth had seen the film Alien. In that context, the idea of an adopted daughter didn't sound bad, but she believed it was too much responsibility for someone like her.

The group went to Michael's old house, which now seemed strangely empty. Many of his most valuable books had already been sold, donated to a private library owned by Gehirn, who had paid handsomely for those rare volumes.

Michael was genuinely surprised to meet Rein. She wasn't exactly what he had imagined years ago when he had given Lizbeth that advice about family, but then again—family came in many unexpected forms.

The next day was finally the day of his old friend's burial. The family—now composed of the three girls, Shin, and old Michael—joined the procession that made its way to the ancient cemetery.

The funeral itself was a quiet affair, held under the gray skies of Massachusetts. The cemetery in Arkham seemed smaller than Lizbeth remembered, the crooked stones leaning like old men who had lost the strength to stand straight. The smell of damp earth clung to their boots as the casket was lowered into the ground, and for a moment the only sound was the hollow thud of soil striking wood.

They weren't alone. Familiar faces appeared among the mourners—old comrades of TF, professors from Miskatonic, even a few figures from the organization in Europe. Each one carried their own weight of stories about Wingate Peaslee: weird arguments in dusty libraries, impossible expeditions into the unknown, nights of laughter and adventures when the world outside seemed too dark and absurd sometimes.

Another departure. Lizbeth remembered with sadness how old Wingate had been her teacher on Runen Island, how she had learned a little about strategy and psychology later on. They had never been her strong points, but Wingate had been truly passionate about teaching her. It seemed like centuries had passed since then.

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Leon and Nitocris were there too, keeping their distance at first, until Lizbeth caught their eyes. Leon's nod was brief but heavy, like two soldiers acknowledging that yet another battle had been lost. Nitocris, in her turn, approached Rein with quiet curiosity, the corners of her lips curving into something between melancholy and recognition—as if she saw in the girl something else.

Even Van showed up, her presence somber, though the way her gaze drifted toward Shin spoke of unspoken questions.

For Lizbeth and Mimi, it was strange to stand among so many echoes of the past again. Although Mimi had only recently joined the circle, it was as if she had known him for quite some time. They were part of this world, and yet apart from it—like immortal witnesses to the endless cycle of arrival and departure. When the priest spoke the final words, Lizbeth couldn't help but think how many more times she would stand in that very place, burying another fragment of her own story.

And it was in that silence, just after the casket disappeared from view, that Rein's hand slipped into Lizbeth's. A small, warm hand clinging to her like a lifeline. And when her eyes found Lizbeth and Mimi, still rimmed red from grief, she smiled as though she had just discovered a new beginning in the middle of so much ending.

The first shock of the reunion with Shin and the surprise of Rein's arrival had not yet settled in the next weeks, when one day the conversation took on a more serious tone.

Shin and Rein would continue to travel alone for a while longer. He needed to teach her how to control her emotions and they would travel to China—so that she could be with the other dragons and learn a little more. Lizbeth and Mimi planned to accompany them, but Shin didn't want them to. He and Rein were currently a magnet for anomalies and bad weather combined.

So they drifted apart again—even though every year the four of them would get together for a few weeks.

Sometimes it was Paris, sometimes Rome, sometimes a nameless town where Shin had decided it was safe enough to rest. Rein would throw herself into Mimi's arms the moment they appeared, calling her Mama with the same unshakable certainty as on the first day. Lizbeth would tease Shin about his terrible parenting and teaching methods, and he would snap back that at least Rein was still alive thanks to him. The arguments never lasted long—Mimi always managed to derail them with some absurd joke that had the four of them laughing in the middle of a rented flat or a café at midnight.

But the visits also had shadows. Rein's power sometimes flared unexpectedly, bending the air around her like heat over stone, forcing Lizbeth and Mimi to help Shin keep things under control. There were nights when the three of them would sit awake, talking quietly while Rein slept, sharing stories of what they had seen in the past months: Shin chasing fragments of old stories across Asia, Lizbeth and Mimi navigating Europe as though the continent itself were a labyrinth.

For all their differences, those brief weeks together felt like stolen moments of peace—fragments of a life none of them could ever fully hold on to.

Shin meanwhile had tried meditation to try to find a solution to his problem, and spent almost a year in retreat with Rein. In Rein's case it worked. Through meditation and mental mandala creations she was able to create a pattern of control of her magic. In Shin's case he could not find a solution to his problem—although he was calmer.

And Lizbeth and Mimi continued on their own.

Time passed and the bond between them deepened, but Lizbeth knew she could not prolong that dependence indefinitely, when Mimi was showing signs of wanting to continue traveling on her own. Then, in 1989, when they received a message from Leon summoning them to Fort Lauderdale, something inside them told them that this meeting would change things once more.

***

Fort Lauderdale was blazing in the July heat when Lizbeth, Mimi, Shin and Rein arrived at the rendezvous point. The city, with its smell of saltpeter and gasoline, told them nothing, but Leon's message did: there was a hunt in the Atlantic, a chase where the U.S.K Navy was after two mercenary ships that had stolen something they should never have touched. An object out of its time, an OOPArt in the shape of a cube. It wasn't the first time TF had encountered such things, but it was the first time Lizbeth had a bad feeling from the moment Leon uttered the word "cube".

A mission with the navy, after in previous years relations with sectors of the military had been sour.

They left Rein in the care of someone they trusted and set sail that same afternoon, after Van met with them, aboard one of the Navy's frigates. The pursuit took them to a region of the Atlantic where compasses failed and storms arose without warning. It was no coincidence. Lizbeth had heard stories about those waters since years: missing ships, lights in the sky, shadows beneath the waves. But no story prepared her for what happened when the mercenaries activated the cube. The sky became overcast in seconds and the storm began.

The sky was torn, as if something had ripped the stars asunder. Mercenary ships exploded, illuminating the northern sky. A roar emerged from the heart of the storm and what emerged from the cube defied all logic: a titanic figure, a colossus of water with a humanoid torso stretching to infinity in a liquid, murky mass. It was two kilometers tall and its presence was enough to unleash a hurricane. Its arms were tidal waves crashing into ships—and its every movement generated a rumble of thunder that shook the ocean. Lizbeth could hardly believe her eyes.

It had all the appearance of being some kind of elemental, like those in ancient grimoires. The cube was basically a containment vessel, and its contents had been released. If the legends were true, certain types of elementals could bond in a way that made it impossible to separate them from the vessel that contained them once they were created or captured, because that was the method used to control them.

The battle erupted in a symphony of destruction. The Navy opened fire with everything they had, but the bullets and missiles passed through the elemental's body as if it were made of fog. It was at that point that they realized that a stowaway had followed them from Lauderdale.

Rein.

She wanted to help and had followed them there. In that confusion Rein, with her magic, managed to deflect some of the lightning that fell on them, while Mimi and Van fought on deck against the living waves that the monster threw over the ships. Lizbeth knew that if they didn't find the source of all this, they wouldn't last long.

She and Shin dove into the water. Her skin recognized the change in pressure before her mind could process it: the cube was at the bottom of the ocean after the mercenaries' ship sank. Shin sank like a projectile, while Lizbeth, guided by her natural sonar, pointed him in the direction. Under the black waters, where neither light nor reason had any place, they found the OOPArt, vibrating with a frequency that rumbled in their bones. Shin did not hesitate. He gritted his teeth and used all his strength to shatter it with the help of the particles of his armor.

The cube exploded in a wave of bluish energy reverberating in the depths. Above, the elemental roared and crumbled in an apocalyptic cascade. But the price was high. When Lizbeth and Shin emerged, the sea was littered with flotsam. Two Navy ships had been swallowed by the storm, and TF, once a large force, was now down to a handful of survivors. Lizbeth looked at the drenched faces of those who remained - Leon, Van, Oxy, Akerbeltz, Rein, Mimi and Shin. She didn't need to count to know that many were missing.

And in that moment, with the ocean roaring around them, they understood that TF would never be what it was again.

***

The air smelled of gunpowder and the sea in the months that followed the disaster. The survivors of Tempus Fugit moved like shadows between continents, dismantling piece by piece the machinery of the cult that had brought horror to the Atlantic. It was a methodical, surgical hunt, without glory or heroic displays.

It was not about revenge; blood would not bring back the dead, and those who remained alive knew this only too well. It was about responsibility. About making sure no one else unleashed another inferno with artifacts that should never have been discovered. And, for the first time in recent history, the feys and a fragment of the U.S.K Navy worked as equals. There was no total trust in their ranks, only the certainty that both had lost too much to allow such a thing to happen again.

Operations were relentless. Hidden bases in the Caribbean and secret hideouts in South America, North Africa were eradicated. Documents, forbidden technology and every vestige of the organization were destroyed, as if they had never existed. Each mission left marks on those who remained, because with each fallen enemy they remembered their own, those who had died screaming in the middle of the storm, those who had been swept away by hundred-meter waves or struck by lightning without a chance to fight. Rein barely spoke, devoting herself to tracing the last of the cult's connections. Even though Shin had been angry, Rein also wanted to be part of it.

In the middle of all the news of Michael's passing arrived quietly, but it hit them harder than any mission could. Though he had never been officially part of Tempus Fugit, he had been family to all of them—a steady presence in their lives and a gentle anchor for Shin, Lizbeth, and Mimi. And, even if only for a short time, he had also been an uncle to Rein.

They traveled to his home one last time, carrying with them a sense of loss that made the usual urgency of their world fade for a while. The whole family was gathered when they arrived. The house was still filled with traces of his life: carefully stacked books, the lingering scent of his tobacco, photographs capturing smiles that were now gone. Lizbeth and Mimi exchanged a glance, both feeling the weight of the years that had passed and the people who had quietly shaped them.

At the funeral, under a clear sky, they stood close, drawing comfort from one another. Michael had always been a quiet force, a man who never sought glory, but whose influence had steadied the family through countless storms. They laid him to rest with softly spoken words, memories shared in hushed tones, and tears that were allowed to fall freely for the first time in months. Now he rested beside his beloved wife.

Even in the shadow of this sorrow, life demanded moving on. The world outside was indifferent to grief, and soon enough, the missions that defined their lives would call again. But for that moment, they allowed themselves to feel the simple truth: even heroes and feys needed to mourn, and the bonds of family—blood or chosen—were what carried them forward.

While they were dismantling the cult around the world, the Berlin Wall was falling. Walls that had divided nations crumbled, monuments to fear and distrust were reduced to dust—and Tempus Fugit was tearing down another kind of barrier, one woven of secrecy, obsession, and forbidden knowledge. They were dismantling the walls that hid the hidden horrors of the world, silently, without applause, without recognition.

Mimi had changed; her energy, once wild and carefree, now seemed restrained, like an animal that had seen too much. Lizbeth noticed that even Shin, who rarely showed remorse for battle, carried the weight of it all in his gaze.

The final blow came quietly, in a forgotten basement in Boston, where they captured the last ringleaders and destroyed what was left of the cult.

And it was dangerous work. The tentacles of the organization reached into governments. Shin was forced to cross lines he had never imagined, assassinating members of Parliament to prevent greater catastrophe. Leon's operations in Russia neutralized threats before they could escalate, while Van took command in the Pacific, cutting the organization's influence like a surgical blade. Meanwhile, Gehirn, without staining their hands, maneuvered carefully behind the scenes, leveraging support among the royal families of the West Coast to orchestrate a quiet change in power. The world did not know it, but their interventions had averted a new war.

No one celebrated. No one congratulated themselves. It was just the end of a hunt, a chapter closed in blood and ashes. But in that silence, Tempus Fugit understood a truth that no one wanted to put into words: there was not much left of them. Not only in numbers, but in spirit. They had been a secret fighting force, a group on the fringes of the world that had fought against the impossible. Now, with barely a handful of members, with Miskatonic University study groups in decline after the death of the elder Wingate, they had no backing, no resources, no clear purpose.

No one wanted to say it, but everyone understood at the last meeting. They met in an empty warehouse in New Orleans, where they discussed what remained to be done, no beating around the bush. The words "dissolve Tempus Fugit" were never uttered, but they were in the air. In the end, they simply looked at each other, one by one, and understood that it was the end. What they had been was no more. What would come next would be something else, if anything after that. The war was over for them, although each would carry its shadow until the end of their days.

On the other hand, the separation was a way to make sure in case of possible loose ends. Although they had worked with the Navy, it did not mean that it erased the past events and quarrels they had with the empire's army. Gehirn wanted to offer monetary support to rebuild the organization. But money was not the problem. The blow had been to the morale of those who remained. Many had been there for years. How many now?

Akerbeltz returned to Spain with Mari. who had plans to establish what looked like a sanctuary somewhere in the Pyrenees. Leon in his case said he had a plan for something to develop in Tierra del Fuego, between Argentina and Chile with some financial help from Gehirn and left. Van and Oxy said they would travel a bit for a while.

And so the four of them met once again. Shin was in charge of putting the nail in that coffin when the family traveled to Okinawa. It took a day for Shin to take care of it. The next morning he returned while they were finishing breakfast in the cabin they had rented.

"Did you... remove the anchor?" Lizbeth asked.

Shin nodded. "The island is still there, but it is now veiled. No human or fey will be able to see it unless they know the correct entrances. It's out of reach of anyone who wants to exploit it or search for what it held. At least no one will use it for bad purposes. Let's hope it stays that way for a long time."

Lizbeth gulped. Onigashima Island had been a crucial point for Tempus Fugit, a refuge, a storehouse of forbidden knowledge, a place where secrets that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands were guarded.

"So it's all over..." she murmured.

Shin looked into her eyes. "It's over, for now."

A heavy silence stretched across the room.

Lizbeth understood what Shin wasn't saying. Tempus Fugit might have fallen, but the Dark Events had not disappeared. Sooner or later, something else would emerge, someone would try to take advantage of the chaos they left behind.

"What now?" he asked finally.

Shin smiled. "Now...we take a break."

They spent a month in that place, enjoying the almost summer-like winter in the Ryuku Islands. But as the weeks passed, reality broke through again, and they all knew they could not stay long in that space that had been a bubble of peace and Shin was already thinking about the next step.

In particular the four of them were attracting too much attention among the people, although the level of foreigners in that part was quite high, due to the 7th Pacific Fleet bases. They had lied about being family, but the appearance of all of them made one think that they were a very international family. No, it was time to leave and cross off that place to live for at least a few decades.

One day, after sharing a rather heavy lunch, the three of them sat looking at the beach, watching Rein play in the water in the distance.

"You'll be gone in some time?" Mimi asked.

"Let's at least be a few weeks together. It'll do Rein good, she's still in a lot of pain."

"We could live together the four of us. Moving around the world…"

"It's not a good idea. Sooner or later it will happen as usual and then the three of you will start having problems. At least for one more year I will train Rein and then maybe I can leave her with you. She is not too far away from gaining full control of her abilities. It's when she sleeps that she has problems now because of the nightmares. But she's been with me too long now, I'm afraid it's becoming a backfire."

Lizbeth nodded. "I don't mind looking after her."

"I don't want things to stay the way they are. I've been thinking about this ever since I got back." Shin said, serious.

Lizbeth looked at him intently, while Mimi, at her side, watched silently. "What are you talking about?" asked Lizbeth, feeling the previous calm crumble.

Shin took a deep breath before continuing.

"I mean that I don't belong in this world. My presence, everything that has happened around me, the Dark Events... they're not a coincidence. At first I thought it was all due to a curse that someone put on me. Now I don't think so anymore."

Lizbeth looked at him, surprised, as confusion clouded her mind.

"The way the Dark Events always follow me... it's as if I myself am causing a disturbance in this world. As if my presence is disturbing the order. I've looked at some old texts, I've talked to others. And it seems as if I am the problem. This is a curse, but not like I had thought."

"What do you mean?" asked Mimi.

"The problems sometimes start when I stay still too long in one place. Well, moving around and being somewhere else should solve that. But here's the funny thing. If I am accompanied by someone else, the anomaly disappears from the place when we move, but my influence on the one who accompanies me does not disappear. It only disappears when I'm left alone."

"From the way you say it, it's as if... whatever it is, the curse wants to isolate you?"

Shin nodded. "Isolate me from others. Or others from me. I don't know which is which."

Lizbeth watched him silently, processing what he said. Meanwhile, Mimi was looking at her, and Lizbeth could feel the tension in the air.

"I can no longer be a danger to any, to everyone close to me. I know this is hard, but I'll do it."

Lizbeth gave him a deep look, understanding. Over all those years, she had learned to know Shin better than he knew himself, his desires, his fears. She knew that something like this had been haunting his mind for a long time.

"So...you're going alone again?" asked Mimi, somewhat anxiously.

Shin looked at her, his expression softening. "No. I'll take Rein and train her some more where I can, and on the way I'll talk to her to make my situation clear to her, so I could leave her with Mari's community or you guys."

Lizbeth nodded. "You know I don't care what you choose. If you want to go, go, I support you. If you don't find what you're looking for, we'll always be the same. You know how to find us."

Shin nodded.

Mimi then said something. "I've been thinking about something like that too."

"On what?"

"I think maybe at some point I'd like to take a trip alone. I'm not saying now, but in the future."

Lizbeth and Shin looked at her. They had expected it. Mimi had stayed by Lizbeth's side for five years, but Lizbeth had always felt that Mimi also needed a kind of experience that she wasn't going to get with the two of them. Being plucked from their time and place, and thrown into the world without parents, childhood, adolescence and adulthood, made the feys bounce back and forth depending on the state of the world.

Some achieved stability very quickly, while others were completely destitute. In Mimi's case it was understandable that she wanted to know even more. She had been on the island alone for over more than twenty years until Shin had appeared. Then, with Lizbeth, she had learned a lot more and had even helped TF on some missions.

But Mimi had recently, on more than one occasion, said that she wanted to experience the world for herself. A world full of people and at the same time seeming so lonely. That dichotomy confused her and she felt she had to experience it for herself.

"The same goes for you," Lizbeth said smiling at her. "In this relationship we have no chains."

"I don't want you to think I've stopped loving you."

"No one thinks that," Shin said and moved in to kiss her hair.

"I'm free to give my heart to whomever I want. Whatever you do, if you need us, just give us a call," Lizbeth rubbed her back and reached down to caress her tail.

Mimi smiled.

No one knew for sure what the future held, but they all understood that the bonds they had created, through the years and trials, were strong. It wouldn't matter how far apart they were.

It seemed that only death could separate them.

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