Cool nights and sweltering hot days. Blue skies with gilded sunrises and painted sunsets. Rolling hills and piles of rocky ridges stretched out in an endless expanse of freedom. It had been a long time since James had seen people. He had spent the spring cow-punching a herd up North East from New Mexico to Wyoming. That job had finished a month ago. It wasn't his usual line of work but he felt like he needed some change and it paid just enough to get him by. After he got paid for the cow punching job he had decided to set out for the west coast and hadn't seen a person since.

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Today was not a day he ever wanted to have happen. It was easy to naively say that “today” never happened anyway, since the concept of “days” in space, when you’re millions of light years away from the one tiny planet in a forgotten part of the universe, where the rotations around its baby sun arbitrarily denote a “day” for the rest of the humans across the rest of the solar system.

And yet, sadly, the agreement of “today”, out in the middle of space, just a few paces past “nowhere”, was an agreement that he had once subscribed to and thus reluctantly admitted that “today” had in fact come to pass.

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Auron could feel the oppressive heat pressing around him. His feet grew uncomfortable as it permeated up from the black stone underneath. He continued on across the stone all senses strung tight on high alert.

The path of melted stone came around a vertical spire of cliff face and there were runes he did not recognize the meaning of carved into the floor on either side. Yet another mystery he added to the back of his mind. His ever growing list of questions. Though all of the surroundings were taken in in incredible detail, no lingering thought was left upon these questions, they were stored and they would wait. This was not a time to be anywhere but here and now.

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“So, what is magic?” James asked the cloaked and hooded figure sitting at the table across from him.

Baldur, extended his gloved hand and picked up the wooden mug of ale in front of him and took a deep draught of the liquid inside. Ignoring the question for the moment, he looked around the lively tavern. The tables neared to them were empty, creating a zone of privacy. Card games and ruckus laughter at the bar further in the room, combined with the clean burning oil lamps created a cheerful atmosphere in the room.

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The car rolled to a stop and he took his foot off the break and put it in park. He sat there for a minute letting the car idle, looking into the trees, down the path he’d be walking in a few seconds to meet her. With a sharp inhale, he shut the car off, opened the door and stepped out all in one fluid motion, as if to make sure he couldn’t stop himself. Then he shut the door and walked toward the path.

He was nervous. Real nervous. He didn’t know why. There was no real reason for it. They’d talked on the phone, from the safety of their own homes, for hours. Got along great, were very natural together. Had even gone out together a few times – “properly distanced” of course. But he’d still never seen her face.

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