Snippet #2815989

”Hey, Jason?” He had still been staring at the statues and arch in front of him that he’d almost missed the girl that walked up to him. She seemed uneasy, nervous, not-shaking-like-a-leaf-nervous, but a healthy amount. He knew, because in some way he felt the same.
He trusted her quite a bit more than he should, and he was fully aware of it. There was just something about her that made him feel like he didn’t have to watch his back all the time. He was happy to finally see her alone. Before he had felt the time limit of her travelling partner hanging over their conversations like an axe waiting to cut them apart. Maybe both of them would find a way to drop their guard now.

”Um, hey! So I’m um, sorry for being a little bit late, I apparently need to change my alarm tone!.” He had a big grin on his face in return. It looked like she was glowing, even without the magic. Her energy was radiant and she stood out in the park with her outfit as well as her openness. He all of a sudden felt silly he was once again dressed in all black, like always. His leather jacker over a leather shirt, and a pair of black jeans. They could not look any less like each other.

”Oh my goodness, it’s you!” Jason said as he stood up. ”That must have been, what?… 90 years? Where has the time gone?”
He felt comfortable in New York, joking about this. There were so many absolute lunatics in this city, he did not stand out at all. He had been here many times, at different points in history, but he could not tell you the date or year that New York just went plain nuts.

As Jason stood up he reached for her stretched hand and shook it once, firmly, like his dad had thought him all those years ago. ”Nice to meet you, Amelie.” Her fluent French starts to make sense, he thought to himself.
He listened to her and stepped in the direction she had pointed out. He took the jacket back from her. ”Ah, thanks, I would have gotten a fine for not bringing it back, you know.” He joked, although he doubted if she would be able to catch on to that.

She seemed to be staring at him. He wasn’t sure what to think. I hope she can’t read minds. he quickly thought, doubting what he knew about magic users. They walked slowly further into the park, slower than most others, as they were being passed left, right and sometimes even centre.
”Where to begin…” he thought out loud. ”So I work for an organisation that looks after time travel, time travellers and history discrepancies. As I told you, any time travel, how insignificant it may seem, can have dire consequences.” It was the shortest recap he could give, but he knew she would have not forgotten their earlier conversations even one bit.
”All kidding aside, the consequences can be huge, not just for the person but for humanity as a whole. Now, people travel through time with different motives. Most, you might be happy to know, are travelling totally by accident. These people need saving…. Preferably by professionals.” he swallowed as he said it, since this story hit home pretty hard.
Clearing his throat, he continued: ”The second group are the scholars and the fascinated, probably the group you belong to.” he pointed at her as he said it, talking with his hands as much as with his mouth.

”Although these people have no bad intent, sooner or later something doesn’t go as they want it to go. History is rarely what we read in books, like I explained yesterday. At that point they need saving, although we by far prefer to reach them before this happens. Hence me ’stalking’ you. Jason used air quotes as he said it.

”The last group, is the most worrisome. These people are travelling in order to change history on purpose. Whether their intentions are good or not, usually does not matter for the consequences. Going back to kill baby Elvis might not be better or worse than killing baby Hitler.” They were reaching a small coffee stand deep in the park. The friendly girl at the stand made each of them a drink. Jason handed a cappuccino to Amelie as he paid the girl for the two coffees. He picked up his own coffee as well, and they continued their walk.

”Let me give you two examples of time travellers. A woman, mid 30’s, goes out for a walk. While she walks she turns a corner. That specific corner has an opening through time and space, something she did not know. With perfect timing and perfect precision, she stepped through the fabric of time, kind of like your portal actually.” He breathed heavily as he described the next part of her journey.
”The next thing she knows, she turns up on a filled town square, in Aragon, Spain, 1518. A woman dressed in 20th century clothes, appears out of nowhere in deeply religious, Spanish Inquisition times, Spain. In her confusion she is grabbed by militia and citizens combined and handed over to the church.” Jason paused, not ready to look the girl in the eyes. Wanting to warn her, but not to give himself away.
”Torture is described in many books, none of it would tell the story of how it is. Within hours of them starting the torture, she begged them for death. Begged them to stick the instruments they were using right through her heart.
A month later, the woman has no clue who she is anymore. She has more scars on her skin than actual skin. She does not know her own name, where she is from and what she did in her life in the previous 30 years. All she knows is pain.”
Jason looks up in the sky to check some random bird he is not at all interested in. ”Tempus agents got to her, way too late for it to matter.” They walked on, a bit of silence between them. He thought of the women. The difference between her before and after her time travel. Over the years he had realised that every minute she continued living, had been an extra minute of agony.