The Heart is so cold that she shivers.

The Book gently carries her to a flower petal and lights up her wand with fire.

'I actually love those pages of some old pages too, although I always tell you that many things need a change. I'm even making notes again after tearing up the old notes about things I no longer love. The truths within nature stay the same," she says in a weak voice.

'Okay, we'll read more of those together when you get better, okay?' the Book says, more concerned about her health instead.

White albatross butterflies emerge from their cocoons in a row above a stem near them.

'I know you're actually the Dragon. Why are you hiding a lot of things from me?' she asks.

'What dragon? You mean you know that I was the King of Wands back then?' he asks, turning into the Dragon in her eyes. Yet, he looks exactly like the King in his own eyes whom he mentioned before turning into a book, which he keeps as a secret as well.

'I'm not trying to beat around the bush. But I think I finally know what the most important thing to tell you is. It's not about those things... I don't wish for conflicts, but I actually hope to—' she sneezes suddenly, and her voice grows weaker as the ice crystallises around her lips and her whole body.

'Okay, what's the most important thing? Or you can tell me after we unfreeze you,' he says, using magical power to add warmth to the wand in his hand. He tries to unfreeze her, but she's brought winter to the place.

The Empress and Emperor emerge from the river once again, their bodies transforming from water back into human forms.

'The Origin of Existence and Mysteries? Would you please help us?' the Book asks, seeking hope and an answer.

'You may call us the Twin E's,' the Empress replies, looking at the Emperor and nodding.

'We're here to observe interesting things happening, but since you've asked for help, so be it,' the Emperor says.

They both slide the frozen Queen with thickening ice down the river.

'Is this the way to cure her? She’ll melt inside and we can take her back to land?' the King asks, while his reflection in the river watches him as he looks at the frozen Queen.

'The ice will melt when spring comes. Water belongs to the ocean. This river connects water to the ocean. We're simply letting it flow back to where it belongs,' the Empress says.

'Hold on right there. You mean, it's like 'hibernating' or sending her away? How about the space here? Our kingdom? Or her garden or whatever? Please, save our Queen!' the King of Wands begs.

The Twin Es look at him without a word.

The King of Wands turns the wand in his hand into an eternal lamp amidst the heavy snow.

'I get it. You both are not meant to interfere. I'll go find her myself,' the King of Wands says, untying a white cloud shaped like a horse to ride.

'They're both so alike, right?' the Empress says.

'You know I am also here for you,' the Emperor says.

'Oh, my Emperor, I love you,' the Empress hugs the Emperor.

They dance with many invisible ones who escape from the factories, turning into beautiful caterpillars. They hold each other’s hands and sometimes let go to dance with the other beautiful souls there while the symphony of nature plays joyfully. Most of their attention stays on each other, and they dance together for the majority of the time, regardless. They’re genuinely happy. They could give each other only leaves and rocks and still feel content.

‘Look, I’ve created time for you so that I could freely give you most of my time and attention, for you are what I love the most,’ the Emperor says.

‘I baked you a cake, and I sewed you a transparent robe. I breed unicorns. I painted mountains for us using watercolours. Do you want to make more Kings and Queens to help us take care of them while we play?’ the Empress asks.

‘Sure. This “time” spent getting to know you will multiply itself,’ the Emperor says, as they both transform from children into adults. An InnerSync of a black hole draws out energies, turning lines into bouncing light balls like a constellation light show reflected on the water.

Circles of sweet cicely grow around them as they stay in the magical space.

The light balls spread and fly out to where they’re most suited, creating different worlds across the dimension that they love freely. Countless new Kings and Queens emerge, bringing variety to the interdimensional travels of the Empress and Emperor.

However, far from the beautiful miracles of love, two tiny ant-like dots in the vast multiverse continue to bring something interesting for us to observe.

The King has the cloud, shaped like a horse, firmly gripping the snow.

The King is shouting about something from too far away for her to hear. She tries to listen, but she can only hear the ice crackling around her.

He's trying his best to catch up with the ice flowing along the river.

Flickering lights remind him of the distance they have created between themselves, widening until they slowly break each other's hearts. That’s what happens when both talk about everything except the most important matters.

At first, she feels a part of her raging, shivering, and doubting. She doesn’t understand why he has come. Funny enough, she still sees him as a Dragon while seeing herself as a child again. This time, the Dragon is in armour in her eyes. The King sees the Queen through his eyes, with his jewellery fading. They’ve never seen each other’s forms beyond the illusions they created in their own interpretations of the world.

For the very first time, they would.

As she flows, the King’s armour sheds and breaks. She sees the bruises on him as tree branches scratch his body and feels sad. The cloud-horse is flexible but slowly disintegrates, becoming smaller as it supports him.

She moves her finger to show a symbol of reading a book, so he knows that they could communicate via a book with words popping up. He turns his lamp into a book.

‘Dear friend, we don’t have to do this. I’m going to be okay,’ she communicates telepathically, and he sees the words appear in the book.

‘We’ll unfreeze you. Don’t worry. You haven’t told me something you said would be the most important,’ he writes with a pen while running, but also tries to use telepathic energy like her, without success.

‘I should have told you that I’d love to see moonlight with you before the comets hit the ground and burn the long grass down into ashes,’ she writes.

He's in a hurry to catch up with her, so he can't write anything, even though he hopes to ask how this is important. He has to climb over big rocks and obstacles before her ice disappears from view.

‘I should’ve not spoken words that I did not mean, and I should’ve asked you what’s the one question you’d like to ask me the most,’ she says calmly.

He’s still chasing her, and it’s hard to tell if he’s crying or emotionless, as the winter she brings is so intense it’s freezing his face too. He trips and gets back up. The cloud-horse is gone, and the wind blows its last bit, trying to keep him warm.

‘I should’ve told you that I was one step away from our secret garden before I left for real when I saw you shutting all the doors from where we had been,’ she says, as her tear turns to ice.

She has her eyelids closed, but she can feel everything flowing past her swiftly.

He's almost running out of breath and stamina. He's freezing, but it's astonishing that the river isn't cold enough to freeze; instead, it flows faster. The river's kinetic energy and turbulence mix warmer water from below, preventing ice formation despite the dropping temperature spreading from a frozen Heart.

‘Thank you. It’s okay. You can go back to where you belong and do what you really love. Nobody can hurt us anymore. I see how we can truly feel loved and create new worlds for ourselves,’ she says.

She doesn't feel cold in an ice, but another kind of numbness crippling all over her body.

‘Thank you. We may have lived in different illusionary worlds, but I’m so glad I met you to see different perspectives from my world. I might cry a lot, but at least I can tell you that I’m truly happy being with you,’ she says calmly.

It’s true. She has only come this far, hugging what he has given her on her journey.

The King has a teardrop freezing as he runs further from the place they've come from, feeling that once he says 'okay' and turns back, he might never see her again.

He doesn’t understand if it’s the kind of feeling that he’s already given up or if he’s truly hoping for her to come back so he can see if their illusions might fade away one day, allowing them to live in the same world.

His throne is wobbling and about to fall.

He doesn’t know, but he keeps running. Then, he has to fight a black bear to get back on the path along the riverside. He picks up rocks and throws them at the block of ice, hoping to crack it, unsure if he realises that it’s not the weather causing the ice to thicken.

He hops onto the ice with her inside as his throne drops into the river and disintegrates.

‘I am sorry,’ he says, but the book is torn into pieces. He can’t write on it, and she can’t hear him.

‘I am sorry,’ she hears his blood dripping on the ice and says telepathically.

She’s just a woman in a white dress, without crowns, plants, or magic.

Lives flash before her eyes. She'd love to thank him for seeing her as a Queen when she sees herself as a crone in her world. She wasn't really interested in Kings anyway. She laughs, realising how much fun she had picturing him as a Dragon all the time. She also cherishes the times they painted under the bright sun by the river. Oh, river. Who would've thought they'd end up here?

He's slowly receiving telepathic messages, but they sound so vague that he can't make them out. While she's speaking, he's trying everything he can to melt, crack, or move the ice, but nothing seems to change.

'Would you like to tell me anything?' she asks.

She knows he's trying to save her with all these vigorous movements. She hopes he won't get hurt. The snow stops, but it’s still freezing.

'I wonder if we've loved the illusions of our own or the real us,' she says, although she knows that he doesn't hear it.

He's unbuttoning his shirt to see if the warmth of his body can melt it a little. It makes his body feel extremely painful with all the scars and bleeding bruises as he tries to reach her.

'No! Don’t hurt yourself. I know. We could’ve been best friends. We are best friends, and maybe it’s best for us not to repeat the same mistakes we’ve made with anyone we love,' she says.

He sees the river curving ahead and urgently moves the ice towards the side.

'Would it be us again?' he asks, watching her murmur though he can't hear her words.

He loses his grip on the ice she's in.

They've reached a waterfall before any answers could come.

He's trying to reach her as he speaks, but she's too far away to hear him.

A rock falls from the upper part of the waterfall and strikes his head just as he’s about to reach the ice again.

Before losing consciousness, she hopes that she had hugged him at least once or twice when they had the chance.

The ice encasing her hits a large, slippery rock, knocking her unconscious inside.

The blood stains the ice, spreading out like beautiful flowers blooming on its surface.

His head, with blood flowing, fades into the river, causing the ice to drift away and flow in a different direction.

Their blood mingles in the river, yet their bodies are carried in opposite directions as the river splits.

The Empress and Emperor appear in the middle of the river’s split, watching them flow towards the ocean.

‘We’ll try our best to narrate while they find their ways, Darling?’ the Empress asks.

‘Sure, Love,’ the Emperor replies.

11
[free falling together]

ownership.
stewardship.
standing in the middle of both seeing all the flaws and reasons they existed at all.

you would love to own something so much
that you could not bare yourself losing hope, power, and control
of the things you love, create, and hold onto.

but the things you owned can never be yours,
for everything that has ever been in the physical world
would fade away someday.

was it ridiculous?

think of something or anything
you owned one way or another,
had you known
any assets not to be passed down
or something never to vanish before your eyes?

the answers
were always
the things that weren't really in physical forms.

maybe you could really own something
that's worth the while
but it's not something that could be told.

you would love to be a loving steward
taking turns with the other stewards to share
all that the loving souls love, create, and explore.
but,
do you share aligning visions, missions, values, and all?

different might be great.
diversity, right?
but, what if they're against each other after all?

like, ouch,
it stung.
like a pine needle in the throat.

you would never want to swallow
but you can't get it out
until you met yourself?

you had to go through stages
to clear that out,
singing 'are we in a clear yet?'
being 'in a clear now'

the moment you lost control of
who's playing with your favourite toy
did not feel fine at all.

you stood there with disbelief again.
It's as if you understood something,
but it's also as if you understood nothing at all.

you took out the rocks.
you washed away the paint you brushed along with all the details you're once so proud of.
you restored the cracks and the natural forms with scratches.
you gently wiped the rocks you loved the most and hugged them for the very last time.
you threw them back to where you found them.
to where you belonged.
and, also, where you had been the most afraid of.

you finally smiled again when you did so.

you thought that you'll be okay.

you ran away, again.

no attachments.

no problematic dramas.

no complicated strings.

you ran to a new dimension yourself.

you jumped into the ocean, free falling as you've always dreamed of.

you thought that you'd be happy too.
returning to where you belong.
you most probably would, right?

but,

you'd never thought of the consequences of running out of breath, had you?

just when you thought that you'd be carried away and buried under the sea without anyone noticing,

you grew a mermaid tail underwater.

you didn't know how, when or why.

it just magically happened
like an illusion
but it's not one.

and,
you're evolving into something you didn't see coming.

another day,
you started seeing how you could finally swim to the ocean
to see all the other crustaceans
and any kinds of beautiful rocks
since you love the rocks so much.

but, you felt nothing at all as you swam past them.

you knew that you're not missing the river.
you're not missing the ocean.
you're not missing them all.

you're glad to see them
when you saw them again.

all the scars on you recovered.
all the pain turned into growing flowers
after meeting the river and the light.

then, be it.

be everywhere.
would you?
you didn't know.

oh,
we mean
you haven't known it yet.

Other poems here.

'it just magically happened
like an illusion
but it's not one.'

with love,
an alchemist