NAYTH

  Ruby light exploded.

  I was not.

  Stars. An endless ocean of them.

  Vastness. Everything. All that could be.

  And was.

  Then her. Warmth.

  One word:

  Methela.

  And I knew. I remembered to have arms to hold her. I reached my right arm out, and she was there. Her presence wrapped around me, and I smiled, reminding her to be.

  Softness enveloped me. Methela.

  Nayth?

  Yes, I remembered. Natan. That was my name, and wasn’t at the same time. Nayth.

  I felt her, and that reminded me to be.

  We plunged.

  Ruby light beneath us, and ruby light within. That was all there was for long moments, then existence rushed towards us all at once. Our feet splashed down, and Ryst stepped back.

  I let her go, blinking.

  Right, I was Nayth again. Time. Place. Location.

  Chronology.

  My mind oriented itself, remembering things in order. Me. Ryst. Small then expansive. And back to small.

  Back and forth. I’d get the hang of it, wouldn’t I?

  I looked around, anchoring myself to place, Ryst’s fingers intertwined with mine. There had been ruby light, but also a before. Another world.

  Merfolk.

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  I smiled. And lots of naked time with Ryst.

  Well, if we had to do something to go off world, that wasn’t a bad way to go.

  Then there was the vastness of eternity, and now, a ruby world.

  Yeah, we got this. Expansive us, then tiny us. Like breathing. Go big, then reduce yourself.

  Ready, Methela?

  She grinned, pulling me forward as I took in our new surroundings. We’d landed in ankle-deep ruby water, the shore steps away. An endless sea of grasses blooming crimson.

  Everything around us shimmered with golden light, and it was magic. Deep breath. It smelled vividly sharp and floral at once.

  Clean, fresh, spiced.

  I could taste it.

  Taste air?

  Right, I nodded to myself, categorizing the sensations. Ryst’s hand in mine, glimmering world around us. It felt sparkly in my brain, and we didn’t make much progress going anywhere because we were still trying to orient our senses to a new place. And by doing so, we were becoming a part of it.

  As in: we didn’t fully exist here until we matched ourselves to the surroundings.

  Interesting thought, Nayth.

  I looked down, and my brown skin was as usual. Ryst looked like herself: olive beauty, long wavy hair, red bandeau a full-length dress.

  Wait, what was I wearing?

  Golden baggy—ah, could I call them “trousers?”

  Ryst snickered at me, loving the look. I was bare-chested and wearing pants so baggy they were almost two skirts. I thought about it a minute and reached into our location.

  Ruby world, crimson grasses, air that tasted of spice. A sleeveless shirt covered my torso like a vest, and the pants lost a bit of the bagginess.

  Better. I grinned at Ryst, and suddenly, we were on a dusty path, our sandaled feet trodding slowly.

  Ready, Ahtah? she whispered across my mind.

  Ready for what? I teased, and that was the point.

  We didn’t know what to expect, so the world we were in didn’t know what to give us.

  Did we need to focus harder? Try more?

  Ryst shook a mental head.

  I think we need to become the world, Nayth. Does that make sense?

  Become the world? I sent back, confused.

  We’d been disoriented getting here. If we became the world, wouldn’t we go back to being vast again and forget to be tangible?

  She paused in the road, turning to me, fingers gripping mine.

  Feel the ruby light, Nayth. Doesn’t it want something? To fill us?

  I let go of past and present and became only that spicy light that I could taste. It was sharp, but not unpleasant. Powerful.

  Oh yeah, that’s what Ryst meant. It wanted.

  How can light want? I wondered, and then I knew. A single word was everything in our new world:

  Identity.

  I thought about who I was, and who I wanted to be. I remembered a life I’d almost forgotten.

  Her. Ryst.

  My Methela, and most importantly: a long time without her.

  It didn’t seem possible that there was time without Ryst, but there had been, and I never wanted to forget that again.

  The ruby glow filled that part of me up, and it solidified.

  I grabbed her, gasping, and felt Ryst remembering too.

  Re-membering.

  Putting back the pieces of us, giving the full identity form and shape. We re-assembled, and there was no more road, no more crimson grass.

  There were buildings unlike anything I’d seen before—because there was a before now. There was time, and we were located within it.

  That was the key! We needed identity to place ourselves in a world that operated within time and locale.

  Ryst smiled up at me, still wearing the red bandeau dress, and she was resplendent.

  We made it.

  Renallah was ours to explore.