She did not mind Xander and Lyanna here in her world, in her apartment. For some strange reason, she had grown used to them. But this feeling of beginning familiarity shattered when Xander did that magic trick on her mind. She was reminded that he was not, nor would he ever be, just a normal guy. What did she expect if he were a normal guy anyway?

Xander could do tricks with people's mind. Sorcery. On her mind. That sentence ran in her mind like a breaking news broadcast on tv that just kept repeating in a loop.

The day crawled with excruciating slowness. She could not focus in her teaching that day, and for some reason the kids seemed to be particularly difficult today. Even the calmest kid in class was throwing a tornado of a tantrum today over a slightly-chipped tip of her new red crayon. She had raised her voice a couple notches, something she so rarely, if ever, did. Not only to the kids, but also to her class assistant.

Airin chugged along through the whole day, taking many deep breaths that became more and more useless to calm her down, to help her battle the tiredness that she felt.

<<<>>>

That night, she slumped on the couch after dinner. They all had fastfood dinner, and after that Xander took Lyanna outside, to look at the metro trains passed by on the rail right above her head. That seemed to be a calming activity for Lyanna for the past few days. She loved her time in the classroom still, but she also grew noticeably sadder and quieter. She would whisper to Airin that she missed her father, she missed Nydda, she missed her own home.

Airin would hug her and let her just settle in the crest of her arms. Sometimes the little girl ended up crying in soft gasp, and Airin felt like crying with her.

How heavy it must have been for a young child to be uprooted, just like that, from her home, from all that she knew and familiar with. The thought alone made Airin realize that she would try her best to help Lyanna face her time here, in her universe. If that meant she would try to also get along with Xander, she would do it. If that meant she could help create a peaceful home situation for Lyanna, then she would look past the sorcery of Xander.

When Xander and Lyanna got back, Lyanna had fallen asleep on Xander's arms, and he put her to bed.

He then sat on the other end of couch. Quiet. Pensive.

After some minutes ...

"I am sorry," Xander took a deep breath as he said it, and he turned to look at Airin. "That is what I want to say. I should not have done the ... sorcery ... on you. There is no other excuse."

Airin was caught off guard with the honesty in the apology. The suddenness of it too. She ran out of words to say. Am I still angry? She asked herself quietly. She was not sure, but she felt the pressure, the knot in her chest that seemed to want to go and explode had disappeared.

"Like I told you, Airin. I have a gift. But something happened in my life long ago, and since then, I can't use the gift. I was broken. Until I get here. In your universe. With you."

"I hope you also understand that human like me, human who lives in this universe, without magic elegarii, without the gods of Olympus meddling in our lives ... I am scared of what you did. I don't like magical things like that ... done ... to me."

Xander nodded. "I will not do that anymore. I am sorry."

She did still find it hard to find more words to say. Only a sigh, and a barely there nod. That was it. Even though she did get more and more curious about Xander and his life in Halgard. What had happened to him there?

But Xander had retreated back to his own mind, his quiet world. He sat stiffbacked for a moment, before reaching to the table and grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. He also took a box with color pencils that Airin had also let him borrow. He started drawing.

Airin stood up and went to the window.

The night sky was cloudy. Half a moon peeked from behind some thick bulbous cloud. She was busy in her own thought.

Dad came into her mind. She had not thought much about Dad. Dad had sent her a chat message yesterday, only saying: We need to talk. She did not reply, and she honestly did not think she was ready to do any kind of talking with Dad.

Would he apologize about his affair with May? She did not think so. Dad never apologized to anyone about anything.

And she felt fine. In fact, she felt strangely relieved now she had a reason, a good one, to avoid Dad, to stay away from the bistro, from him and his criticisms and tirades.

Sometimes Dad would drift into her train of thought, and brought with him refreshed anger and fear in Airin's heart that she quickly shook her head, tried not to think of him more, or his betrayal of Mom, or his rudeness, or his complete lack of belief in what his daughter could do or should do ...

She stood and got lost in her own maze of mind. A maze filled with black and white documentaries of Dad, then of Mom and Dad, and then of Mom and Dad and herself. Until Xander called her.

She turned around, and Xander already stood two arm-lengths behind her. Xander handed a piece of paper, the one he used to draw just now, to Airin.

Airin gasped, her jaw almost dropped as she saw what was on the paper.

On the sheet of paper was a drawing. No random, haphazard, shaky pencil lines like what she saw before. Not at all.

It was in fact a stunning piece of work.

It was a color pencil drawing a river, clear blue, with orbs of different colours under the surface. There were trees and guard posts along the two banks of the river. Mountains far in the horizon, and green grass in rolling hills around it. The drawing looked so real Airin could have sworn she could see the flowing of the river and the orbs were flickering lights of colors swimming below the surface.

It was not just a beautiful drawing, but it was so realistic it was breathtaking.

"This is ..." Airin tried to guess.

"The river of inspiration. Elegarii, Airin. The treasure of Halgard. I thought ... maybe ... you want to see what the river looks like," Xander sounded unsure, his eyes darted from Airin to the floor.

Airin examined the the painting again, and shook her head. "No, I mean ... you can draw? What were those pencil lines, pages after pages of it, the ones you showed me last night? What ... what were you trying to do? You can draw so ... so beautifully, Xander."

Her brain could not put the two together. Pages of lines, shaky hands, he did seem like he was trying so hard to learn how to draw, and what came out of it was pages of lines. And this. A masterpiece of drawing work, done within minutes!

"I can draw. It is really complicated to explain to you what happen to me, Airin. I do draw ... draw everything," Xander stuttered a bit, with widened eyes when he said I can draw.

"This is so beautiful, Xander. Seriously. I could see the movement of the river, the flickering of the flowing orbs ..." Airin paused a bit and let her sense of vision embrace the drawing even more, she could even feel gentle brush of wind on her skin just by looking at the trees in the painting. She clicked her tongue in awe, and said, "Thank you, Xander."

Xander nodded. "Those orbs are inspiration. Magical animals, beautiful words, musical notes ... all will then flow to the waterfall, then to the well of elegarii ... then here, to your world ..." he explained.

Airin kept staring at the drawing. "Elegarii must be so awesome in real life, isn't it, Xander? Wish I could see it ... really see it," she whispered while her fingers caressed the drawing in front of her.

"Would you like to?" Xander stepped closer to her, tilting his head, asking in low voice.

Still fully mesmerized by the drawing, Airin nodded her head. She looked up to Xander, and the warrior's blue eyes seemed to glow now.

Airin looked at the drawing again, and the drawing really moved. Really, really moved.

She blinked her eyes a few times to make sure. No, she did not dream it. Each color, each wave of the water, each blade of grass, each orb, seemed to detach themselves from the paper, and flew all around Airin.

They encircled her.

They flew, got bigger, and bigger. Airin felt the wind around her, breezy gentle spring wind, and the smells of flowers – faint fragrance that calmed her.

Everything kept turning slowly, and she felt like she was in a virtual reality installation at a museum, except everything just happened around her without her having to wear a VR goggles.

Then she just stood there. At the bank of elegarii.

Everything that flew about her now had settled down.

The river of inspiration, elegarii, flowed just a few meters from her feet.

The water was as clear as a new glass, and so beautiful with glowing colorful orbs floating, swimming by, just underneath its surface. The sky was perfect blue. The bank of the elegarii was grassy, and rolling hills gently dotted the area.

She could hear waterfall. Somewhere at the end of the elegarii to the southerly direction. Fresh smell of clean water filled the air. She was in awe from all the view. She wanted to take photos of all, but she did not have her camera with her. In fact she was just in her shirt and long cotton skirt she wore today for work. Barefooted. But strangely, she did not mind it.