@paradoxwritten
Dorian hated this new time. Everything was loud and intense, and the months that he’d been here had done little to help him get used to it. He had accepted to some extent that what they called electricity wasn’t magic, but rather an advancement in technology, but he still felt uneasy about it. The cars were loud, the lights were bright and things never slowed down.
To add insult to injury he had also lost his great love. In the blink of an eye he had traveled out of Emily’s lifetime, and his heart ached whenever his thoughts wandered to the beautiful woman he’d left behind.
Today he was walking along a street that was too busy for his taste. He was on his way to a cafe he’d discovered a week before. While modern life confused him greatly still he had decided that the access to beverages was an upside to it. He was just passing a bookstore when someone caught his eye through the window. He stopped, looked again, and he could have sworn the woman just inside there was identical to his Emily, enough so that without thinking he went right into the bookstore, and spoke before he could even thing.
“Lady Emily? Do my eyes play tricks on me, or could it truly be you?”
No matter how much time passed, she couldn’t help feeling out of place in the world. When she imagined growing older, she believed she would age and then one day let go of life peacefully surrounded by loved ones. Only, she never did. The world grew older, it changed while she stayed frozen in time. She was like the statues at the museum she worked for. Forever unchanging. Even with having two hundred years of learning to blend in, it still slipped her up at times. She was an actress, playing a new part every few decades. A new name, new life. It took a toll on a person.
It was one of the days she felt nostalgic for the life she once lived. She picked one of her favorite novels, one she bought when they were first published and had taken a sunny spot in the window of bookstore she often frequented. It brought her back for a time she longed for, a time where her heart still belonged. A time when her Dorian was still with her. She often thought of him on days like this. She never learned what happened to him and spent years searching, only to find nothing. It was as if he just disappeared and that still troubled. There were no records of him and no decedents. It was days like this she wished she could have him back, if only for a moment.
She was lost in a paragraph, smiling lovingly as for a moment she was transported back home. But a voice, a ghost called out to her and she nearly dropped her book. She looked up, her heart sinking as she looked at him. It looked just like him, as she remembered him. The voice, it was undeniable. She laid her book down and stood up, a growing smile on her lips. She knew people were staring, how could they not with his formal speech that they’d only read from a Jane Austen novel. She wanted nothing more than to take his face into her hands, see if he is real and not her grief manifesting into a surreal day dream. Instead, she stood with tears in her eyes. “There is no reason to be so formal, Dorian.” Her voice dripped with emotion as she stepped forward, hugging him far tighter than intended. She could risk having him fade away again. If this were a dream, she would hold on to it for as long as she could.
