Adam was lying down on a filthy pavement, his face right into a purple puddle. His head ached again. He could hear a huming noise not so far away. He was in the middle of a tiny cut-throat street. Natacha was looking at him without knowing what to do.
“ Maybe we should stay here a bit, let's say you're not really properly dressed for this space-time.”
He looked at his favourite band T shirt and did not understand what was wrong with it.
“ Where are we ?”
“ France dear boy. A street in Paris to be precise. If you can call that a street. Anyway the real question is "when are we" deary...”
Adam looked at her with an incredulous look on his face.
“ What did you say ?”
“ Well, I thought after the theory we could use some practise. We are in the city of Paris in 1626. And this, she gestured towards a big wall made of bricks, is the jolly tavern The Grey Fox. And that, THAT is a real – flesh and bones- musqueteer.”
Adam looked at the red-capped man. His mouth was wide open. He stood up and tried to clean himself from the dirt while comprehending that this was a 1626 Paris street and a musqueteer riding a horse. A boyhood dream.
“ Put that on otherwise you will scare them and, God forbid, I do not want to end up on hanged or at the Bastille. I love this dress you know...”
She was wearing a light green cotton dress with long sleeves. She looked at Adam in her very own cat like way with a vivid interest sparkling in her eyes, waiting to see his reaction. Adam decided that struggling with all this was too hard. He decided to simply go along and enjoy as much as he could. He started to unbotton his shirt.
“ You know I could help you with that... and so much more if you want...”
A woman got out of a shadowy corner of the street dressed in what used to be an elegant pink gown. Her blond curly hair was falling heavily on her nude neck and her heavy make up contrasted her hezel eyes and her red lips, even her low neckline and her swaying gait let little guessing about her motivations.
“ Never mind... I can enjoy the view nonetheless." said the mysterious woman.
Adam blushed and put his shirt back on in a hurry.
“ Who are you ?”
She came a little closer to Adam and whispered in his ear
“ I can be anyone you desire boy” Her hand were touching his chest, Adam stopped her and said :
“ I think we will go now. Do not bother following us.”
“ Do not take it the wrong way. An orphan girl has got to earn her bread. Maybe I can help you in other ways. I heard you were interested in meeting a musqueteer ? I could help you with that I got some clients at the tavern. My name is Violette.”
Adam looked at Natacha and saw distrust on her face. After a second of hesitation he said :
“ Well we are foreigners and we heard about the musqueteers reputation and we were interested to speak with one to see if the reputation matches the reality.”
“ Well, first things first you need to dress properly. You look far too foreign. Give me a quarter and i'll arrange the meeting and your clothes.”
Adam looked at the girl with an embarrassed look on his face. He was about to speak when Natacha cut him short :
“ That's a deal. Do not deceive us. Un quarter now, un quarter at the end of the meeting.”
“ My room is upstair go there, change clothes and wait for me. I shall be back in an hour at most.”
Violette parted from the two and soon became a shadow surrounded by Paris' foggy smells. Adam and Natacha climbed the stairs and enter Violette's chamber. The room was dark and made of wood. The bathroom has only a bassin, a jug full of water on a table and a chair in it. A chest full of drawers and a bed made the rest of the room. Natacha sat down while Adam started to undress.
“ I guess we will have to wait”.
Violette came back 45 minutes later with a smile on her face and some money in her purse.
“ I am glad to announce that your meeting is set up to be in 15 minutes at the tavern downstair. You are welcome. Go there, have a drink, he will meet you there.”
She smiled, indicated us the way out in a gesture and closed the door behind us.
Outside, Violette quickly said “ That was a pleasure, leave the quarter at the tavern and I will take it later. I think this is time for us to part” She bowed, smiled, turned and disapeard in the parisian crowd. Natacha lead the way to the tavern and they sat down on a corner of the crowded room. Musqueteers, crafstman and other more suspicious people were laughing, shouting, drinking and playing. Vice and good liquor.
'' I cannot believe I am here. It is like being in a cape and sword book.” She looked at him with a joyous optimistic look on her face. A man with a plumed hat was coming there way. Adam heart started to beat faster. This was happening. The man took his hat off and smiled, introduced himself as Aramis and sat down. Adam could not help but introduce himself as D'Artagnan and Natacha as Milady De Winter. She smirked, he winked. Time went by. Aramis was polite for a soldier and surprisingly well educated for his time and social rank. After some pints and good stories of adventure, Aramis proposed to introduce them to two of his mates : Portos and Athos. Natacha blushed and kindly refused. Adam disappointedly agreed. They went back out to the puddle.
“What happened ? I wanted to meet them. That is quite an anticlimax”
Natacha blushed hard but did not shy away from the question
“ Well you do not know how to come back without me and I cannot meet Portos...again.”
“ Again ?”
“ Let's say I was quite infatuated with him … in the kitchen... Or the Salon... the Boudoir... Oh yes the Boudoir...and I had to break his heart along with other parts of his anatomy, poor dear. I was young and passionnate but for him it was not that long ago and that may have too many repercussions you see ... I swear we will have other occasions to have fun. You will pick the destination next time if you wish”. They were back in the tiny street. Adam did not have time to ask questions on this strange affair. She grabbed his hand, ran and jumpped. More headaches were to come.
Adam could concentrate better on the stream with its hard watery walls. The way back to the room was easier, they simply had to spot a white dot on the watery ground and jump into it. Adam did not achieve a graceful landing, but he did not have a headache which was definitively an improvement. Natacha landed graceful on her feet in a feline position. She looked at him with a worried look on her face.
“ I thought that a good practise would be better than a thousand words.”
“ Well... it is sure more direct. I sure will try to forget and not ask about your strange relationship with the musqueteer – which upsets me for a strange reason- but so many questions keep popping into my head : how does it work ? Do you know all the History of the world ? Where does the stream come from ? How do I come back to my time ? If you change the past does it change the furture ? Have you ever changed History ?” Natacha gently smiled at him and cut him short.
“ First thing's first, if you feel upset about this relation, let's just say I feel differently about it … Secondly, do you know how your shower works ? NO, you use it anyway but you do not know how it works. In my case it is the same, with a train metaphor I would not be the engineer who creates the train but the conductor with little knowledge about it. JUMP ,RUN, JUMP AND TADA you will be in your time space again.
I am not sure for the next answer, but I think if I go back to the past and change it maybe it was meant to be that way so I do not really change it since what I change is the real past of the future – I must confess it is not my area of expertise and verifying appeares to be quite a tedious task. Lastly, if you try to climb the waterfall you will keep on finding more water. Each drop is made of a previous drop which is made of a previous drop... There are only two space-times where I cannot go : the beginning and the end. They do not exist. It just is what it is. We call it a stream but what if it was a pound or a river that just comes back to the waterfall in an endless stream ? You could walk for hours to find the end of the stream without ever reaching it. Each drop is made of a previous drop that leads to the next drop. Who came first ? No one. It is just what it is. Humans have a tendancy to always try to find something bigger, more powerful but the truth is that none of you dare to think that maybe in your universe you are alone. You have a wonderful mind and the burden that comes with it is loneliness. You are so desperate to find a god, an alien, a presence to keep you safe at night, anyone, anything to not be alone with this burden anymore that you ignore the aweful truth. This compagnonship had been long taken away from you and what is left to you are stars, dreams and this feeling of loneliness... You are trapped in a universe of intellectual solitude driven by a faded memory of the relations you once had with other worlds.” She looked at the tiny lamp that just turned to crimson and sighed
“ Now you chose: either I walk you home and you forget all of this or you can accompagny me to the council, then you go to your party and then we will talk about what is to come next.”
Adam never imagined that he could see Natacha's eyes this heavy with so much sorrow and saddness. What use to be a vivid sparkle turned into a reflection of a hundred years of sorrow. He was to deep in it now. He did not know if at this point he knew too much or too little, yet he knew he reached a point of no return.
“ As long as you give me more coconut cake.”
A fragile smile appeared on her lips. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and opened them again : the sparkle in her eyes was back.
“ Do not talk unless I say so. Ok let's do this”
She grabbed his wrist, pushed the heavy door open and Adam could not believe it.
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