Nyxis gaped as Denara whipped up her brush, finishing a painting in a matter of minutes.

To pass the time, Denara had suggested that they do a portrait battle. It would be rude to refuse. Especially when he was set on making up for his behavior to the girl.

He wasn't a novice to painting but he wasn't good, either. At least, from what his mind was able to remember, he wasn'. Didn't he use to have tutors for this? What was the master's name? Master Avorne?

Before starting, Denara had led him to a cave connected to the kitchen and started with gathering the materials. From there, Nyxis had marveled at the diversity present in this cave system and at Denara's ingenuity, too. Who knew bupwings could produce various hues of paint-like substance from their bodies? He should take note of this and probably start an art shop. Someday.

Once they got the pigments right through mixing bupwing extracts together or diluting it with ocean water, the painting session ensued. Nyxis had gotten close to finishing a backdrop of blue and white when Denara gave a loud whoop and turned her canvas to him.

It was of his face. "That is not fair," Nyxis frowned as he waved a hand towards Denara's painting. "You already did my face at the mural."

"I did that four hundred years ago," Denara pouted as she sat back down and propped her canvas back on the makeshift easel. "I do not have everything memorized."

"But you—"

"Look," Denara stood back up and shoved the drying painting to his face. "You and Ceris do not really have the same features so I have to adjust a few things. For instance, his eyes were...not green. Plus, he has no, um...scar."

Nyxis pursed his lips at the reminder. Yes, he had a scar. He's still trying to come to terms with that. He sighed and pushed it all at the back of his head. He couldn't lose it again. Not when Denara was with him. "But it is still unfair," he concluded once he found his voice. "Paint something different. This one is null."

Denara crossed her arms and harrumphed but she picked up her brush again as she stalked back to her seat. As Nyxis drove his brush in quick strokes, he found himself asking, "How long have you been here?"

She didn't answer. Okay, that's a question ignored. After a few minutes of silence, her voice rang from behind the new canvas, "I witnessed how the barriers came to be."

Nyxis paused. "Seriously?" He looked over his easel to find Denara doing the same. "How have you managed to stay alive?"

"Because I was cursed to do so," Denara went back to her painting.

Nyxis went back to his, now cross-hatching some vague shade of brown with black. "Cursed?"

"Yes," Controlled annoyance colored her voice but she forged ahead. "I am what you call a fallen race."

Nyxis raised his eyebrows even when he knew she wouldn't see it. "Like Humans?" He dipped his brush back into a bowl of water to wash off some of the colors. "Humans do not live that long, though."

Denara chuckled, the sound of bristles scratching a canvas complimenting it in a soft ring. It's like she's purposefully trying to tear a hole into her work with her strokes. "I was cursed to do the opposite, it seems. Nymphs are cursed to live forever."

Nyxis leaned sideways once more. The painting had slipped from his mind. What was he trying to do in the first place? "I have never heard of those before."

"Understandable," Denara replied, giving Nyxis a dismissive wave of her hand. "We...could not move to assert our presence unlike you humans going to war and everything."

"Why?" Nyxis asked. What Denara said to him before rang in his ears. Was that what she meant by not being able to leave this cave?

" 'Nymph' is derived from a word that means 'rooted'," Denara exhaled through her nose in a brief blow. "Go figure."

A stone of pity dropped in Nyxis's gut. Denara probably didn't need it anyway. "Are you 'rooted' here?" He set his brush against his makeshift palette carved from the cores of levier fruits—the same material that made up the bowls they used for eating.

"You could say that," came Denara's muted reply. Nyxis leaned over to find her dipping her brush into a pot of paint again. "Nymphs are rooted to their natural core. I had an affinity towards the water so it is only natural that I will be dragged into somewhere close to the sea."

"Are there others like you?"

"Of course," Denara's soft voice floated in the dim cave, both ominous and wonderful. "Synnavaimis are not specialized in my time. Anyone can do what they want, practice any magic they wish. I have loved the water ever since I was a child. When the races fell, my friends and other people who joined us ended up like this."

Nyxis knitted his eyebrows. There was nothing strange with Denara at all. "Like what?"

"Cursed," Denara spat the word out with enough acid to melt through an efrasix's tough hide. "I was stuck in this cave, unable to die. Fairies who could control the wind got turned to breezes. Others who chose to weave trails became intangible trails themselves, sometimes here and sometimes not, but existing. Some others blended with trees, animals, and even objects. We are everywhere."

Nyxis nodded along. Then his eyes widened at a sudden wild thought. "So when people say that they can hear the wind singing or an animal connecting to them, does it mean...?"

"Most probably there is a nymph trapped somewhere in them," Denara said. She met his eyes from her seat. "Do not think about it too much. You will only hurt yourself."

Nyxis hummed. "Fine," then, another question popped into his head. He dragged his stool past his easel. "How do races fall? All other accounts were either really absurd or just contradicting."

Denara raised an eyebrow as she set her brush down against her palette. "Races fall because they are ambitious enough to think that they can change the world with violence," her tone darkened. "They fall because they think they can fight destiny and win."

"Does that mean that your synnavaimis are also locked? How come you can use your magic without spells?" Nyxis said.

"Locking me away in this cave for a thousand years is enough of a punishment, I suppose," Denara dipped the bristles into the blue pigment a little harder. "It is probably to stop me from finding a way to break the lock on my synnavaim."

A conversation he had not long ago with someone flared back to his mind. It was with a man with a silky voice and was dressed in green all over. There is a way to unlock synnaimis, the man had said. But I am not going to tell you how.

Was this what that man meant back then?

Nyxis edged farther away from his easel. "How does one unlock the synnavaim?"

"Oh, that is easy," Denara rolled her shoulders as she moved back to doing strokes once more. "You just have to find another member of the fallen races and have yourself bonded to them."

"Bond?" Now, that's anticlimactic. Nyxis scratched his head. "People from where I am from are being bonded to each other all the time. I do not recall them having their synnavaimis freed."

"Then they did not do it right," Denara's tone suggested that she thought of the whole thing as if it's that simple. "It is not just being bonded by blood and oath. No. It is the act of surrendering to one another control of your soul and your future. It's a different kind of bond, I think—one bound by life, death, and magic."

"Huh," was all Nyxis could muster. A sigh escaped his lips as he raised his eyes towards Denara. "How do you even know this?"

"The sirens told me."

Nyxis blinked. "Sirens...?"

"Kidding," Denara giggled when he pouted. She waved her hand in the air. "Look, I just know stuff, okay? Let us keep it at that."

Nyxis nodded. It slipped his mind that Denara had avoided yet another question. That wasn't an issue, right? Denara had told him things about her in return. That should be okay...for now. "What was Ceris like?" Nyxis blurted after some time.

Denara paused before sighing. "It is a long story and I would prefer to tell it in a proper setting," she dunked her brush into the bowl of water with a vibe of finality. She cracked a grin at him. "Oh, and this time, you lost for real."

Nyxis's eyes snapped back to his portrait of a girl with tan skin and blue hair, painting inside a cave. Only the eyes were missing. Damn, Master Avorne would be proud. He had never finished a painting before and this was the closest he had come, so far. A lazy smile spread across his lips, sensing a flurry of movement to his left.

He looked up at Denara who regarded his painting for a few silent seconds. The corners of her lips curled up like she was suppressing a laugh. Then she clapped his shoulder lightly so as to not jostle him to the point of pain. "Not bad," she jerked her chin at Nyxis's fingers stained by pigments. "Clean up. We have got a long night ahead of us."

By long night, Denara meant lots of singing and story-telling.

Nyxis tried to keep his eyes open as the fifth candle he had lit snuffed and died out. He proposed to get some glowing plants from the garden but Denara forced him to sit down and listen. Ceris's tale unfurled from there.

There were no borders back then and Ceris took advantage of that by sailing the waters and living his life. It had taken Nyxis a while before realizing that these stories Denara was telling weren't recorded anywhere—not in historical accounts, not even in Ceris's alleged journals.

Denara had told the story from her eyes—how she felt things, how she saw things, and how she lived through things. At the center of it all was the man who encouraged her to live without regret and shame. In short, she adored Ceris in a different way than Nyxis adored his ancestor.

These were the songs Denara had been singing during the times Nyxis was here. These songs were neither in Keijula or Ylanenla but rather of a much older language than the Ancient language. Denara had written her songs in a language called Majienla, which was the one spoken by all races long before the Hundred Years' War. She had been working on translating them into every language she knew.

"How did you manage to learn so many languages, anyway?" Nyxis interjected before Denara could launch into a new chapter.

Denara rested her fingers on the losu's fretboard. The musical instrument propped on Denara's lap reminded Nyxis of a dushim but with a greater number of strings and a flatter hull. It emitted a sound that sounded like ringing bells and was played by running fingers down the fretboard with one hand and plucking the strings with the other.

"You are not the only one I saved from the waters," Denara said in a hushed tone. Her eyes burned brighter against the candle's dim light. "Some were victims from a shipwreck, others, victims of their own thoughts. Some were merchants driven into the edge by the fog or a rival. There are still others who sought treasures in places they should not have had," a wistful smile played on Denara's lips. "But every one of them had a story behind them and as payment for helping and saving them, I asked that they teach me their language."

"So you must have heard of many stories," Nyxis pursed his lips as he tilted his head at Denara. "Why do you need mine?"

Denara looked at him, then—orange eyes against green ones. "Because not one of Ceris's descendants ever made it here," she said. "Not one of them found their way to me. Except you."

Nyxis's throat dried like he had been drinking saltwater throughout the night. "Do you think it means something?"

"I do not know," Denara strummed the losu, giving off one colorful chord. "Ceris asked me that question once, you know?"

Nyxis raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes," Denara said. "It was a peaceful night and I found him leaning against the ship's balustrade. He was thinking about something. I asked him about it. After he told me, he asked me, 'Do you think it means something?' like he wanted my answer."

Denara chuckled like she was both amused and saddened at the memory. "Ceris was an impatient man," she continued. Her eyes narrowed as if the floor was pissing her off. "He does not like waiting but for my answer, he did. No matter how long it took. I guess he is still waiting for my answer up to this day."

"What happened?"

"Ceris got into an impossible quest," Denara blew a heavy breath. "I warned him to not go but he would not listen to me. He left me on the harbor and sailed on his own. He...never came back. The next thing I know, the War struck and devoured everything I have ever known about this world."

"I am sorry," Nyxis blurted as if it would fix everything, if not, anything. "Why do you think he asked you that night?"

Denara drew her eyes towards Ceris's mural. "I have spent hundreds of years thinking about that," she whispered. "Up to this day, I do not have a clue."

Nyxis fell silent. "And you?" Denara whipped to him. "What do you mean by your question 'do you think it means something'? I cannot spend another thousand years pondering your question."

Nyxis snorted. Denara was amusing in this regard. "What I meant by that is that there must be some reason I ended up in your cave."

Denara strummed another chord in her instrument. She seemed to have forgotten about her song entirely. "I have no idea as well," she raised her eyes to meet his. "How about you? Do you think this means something?"

A light smile played on Nyxis's lips. It felt foreign. He should not be smiling at the time like this...but he was. His heart fluttered in his chest for some reason. He hadn't felt this way since...

He shook his head. No. He couldn't remember. Instead, he craned his neck up Denara's mural featuring people from ages and ages ago, those who had moved on. "Perhaps, Ceris still has yet to say goodbye to you," he watched Denara freeze from his periphery. "Of course, that is just a guess."

Denara hummed her agreement as she set the losu down. "I have thought of your payment for my services."

Nyxis's heart thrummed in his ears for a different reason now. "Payment?"

"Nyxis Helgase," Denara stood up and offered her hand to him. Her voice made his heart soar and his breathing ragged. The gentle smile decorating her face was something he wished he could keep forever. "Teach me how to live again."