Intermission Two - All For One

May 12 ^th, 2021

Anyone who tells you that you can't be depressed in Hawaii is full of shit.

I'm sure the weather was contributing a bit to it - it was cold (for Hawaii anyway) and stormy and the wind was blowing like an absolute beast, but even with all of that, I was still in a ridiculously plush house with two beautiful women, and so being depressed felt uneasy on me, even if I couldn't just casually shake it.

You see, I knew exactly what Merlin was talking about when he said I was 'a time bomb.' I've been dealing with being manic-depressive my entire life, and it's always been a bit of a struggle. See, I can rationally tell when things are going well and that I should be at an 'up' period of my life, but sometimes, without reason, I just feel the energy rush from me, the positivity drains and I find myself feeling bleak about the world despite all the good around me.

I've been to therapy and I've tried a handful of drug regimens, but my therapist thinks it's a chemical imbalance, and every chemical treatment I've tried left me either nearly zombified or so amped up you'd think I was on a coke binge in Vegas, so they were out. That left learning to manage it the old-fashioned way - tamping it down and bearing through the motherfucker and talking it out with a professional when it becomes too much to bear.

That's the problem with depression - there's no logical reason for it, so you can't argue with it. I fully understood how great my life was, but there was some part of me that was utterly convinced that I didn't deserve it, and that karma would realize that, and that it would all disappear from me in the blink of an eye.

With a house as big as Merlin gave me in Hawaii, it was also relatively easy to get a bit lost and hard to find on the property, considering there was so damn much of it. I'd wandered off in one direction shortly before dawn and was standing on one of my porches as the wind and rain blew past me. Even with the stormy weather, it still wasn't really all that cold, but it certainly felt that way, the sharp wind ripping through my bones. There were a few external lights on, but mostly it was dark, and the moon was completely covered by the storm clouds as they continued to spit rain down onto the island.

"You're awake," Leia said to me as she walked up behind me and pressed her naked body against my back, wrapping her arms around me. "Something's on your mind."

"I don't deserve any of this," I told her. "And I certainly don't deserve you two."

"Ben, I'm going to tell you this as many times as I think you need to hear it, okay, and if that means I'm talking over and over and over, that's fine," she said, as she kissed the back of my shoulder. "You do deserve this, and you've earned this, and you need to learn to accept that you did a good thing that's being rewarded."

"I did one thing, one time, Leia," I said with a soft laugh. "It's not like I've been living a great life the whole time, doing good things for the poor or whatnot daily."

"Life isn't about spending all of your time constantly taking care of others but doing the right thing when and where you can," she told me, her hands smoothing along my curvy potbelly. "You could've left Merlin to die, but you didn't hesitate and just did the right thing. You leapt into harm's way to make sure he got out safely. That's hero shit, Ben, no two ways about it."

"But other people--"

"Don't figure into this, Ben," she giggled, running her fingers through the thick thatch of hair on my chest. "It's not comparison shopping for heroism. And yeah, not everyone who does good and great things is rewarded, just like not every asshole who does horrible things gets punished for their shitty behaviour. Tommy Wilson pulled my bra strap once a week for all of junior high, and karma never came back to bite him in the ass."

"Well, he never got to make out with you, so that's his own loss, clearly."

"See? You're good at looking at the bright side of everything," she said, patting my chest reassuringly. "Now I just gotta figure out who to put in front of you next."

"What happens if you don't?"

"Lyssa said that'll be a bad idea, and she had a tone in her voice that made me a little uncomfortable, so I'm gonna believe her on that, no cap."

"I'll pretend I understand what that last bit means."

"It means that whatever Merlin says definitely goes," Leia told me as the rain was finally starting to break, the storm retreating off into the distance, its sound and fury dissipating peacefully, leaving only the blowing Pacific winds still shaking the trees. "Weirdly, he's having some kind of crisis, isn't he?"

"I dunno," I told her. "How many time-defying wizards do you know? Maybe this is part of his normal life cycle."

"I don't think that it is," she said, pulling back from me. "But I also don't think my sitting around thinking about it is going to help things any either. I need to focus on what you need in partner three."

"I don't need a partner three," I laughed.

"You obviously do because Merlin decided you need seven partners, so help me figure out where to start looking for the next one, you big lunk."

"Well," I told her. "He said I needed one of everything. So Lyssa's blonde, you're brunette. If we're on hair colour alone, you're looking for ginger or brown hair instead of black."

"I'm American, and she's British--"

"You know, Merlin seemed more focused on continents than countries, which would mean she's European and you're from Oceania, so North America's still probably on the table, if that makes things easier for you."

"You know, it might," she said as I moved to sit down on a little padded bench. She moved to slide in next to me, perfectly comfortable to be totally naked, to my own amusement. "If we're talking ethnicity, I'm Polynesian and she's Caucasian, which means I might have someone in mind, since she's North American, but not from the United States. And she's Latina, which is something you don't have in this little pool of yours. She's from Cuba."

"A little Latina hottie?" I said with a grin, cocking my head a little when she giggled hard at me. "I could get behind that. What's so funny?"

"I don't think anyone's called Sofia 'little' in a long time. You don't have a problem with women taller than you, do you?"

"Of course not," I said to her, my hand resting on the back of her shoulder. "But I should probably ask - how much taller?"

"Half a foot or so?" she said, taking a guess. "You're, what, 5'9"?"

"5'10", thank you very much," I said, trying not to sound too offended. "Why, how tall is Sofia?"

"6'3". Think you could handle that?"

"Just sounds like more women to love."

"Glad to hear you say that, because she's curvy too. I would kill for tits as big as hers."

"I think yours are perfect for you," I told her. "And I've never understood why so many people are obsessed with boob size. Big, little, average size. There's no such thing as 'bad boob.'"

"I wouldn't go that far, but it's nice to hear," she told me. "Anyway, come back to bed. We need to head back to the mainland in a couple of days, and I want you fully rested for that trip."

She was right, so I went back with her, and we crawled into bed together, joining Lyssa's sleeping form, and we drifted off to sleep.

Two days later, we'd finished moving most of Leia's things into my, er, our Hawaii house and packed up the stuff she needed to bring with her as we headed back to the mainland. The plane flight was quiet, although I had to discourage Leia and Lyssa from trying to get me to join the Mile High Club, despite how empty it was. COVID was starting to fade, but it was still more than enough that people didn't feel comfortable travelling in mass, which meant the airline staff would've known exactly who it was, and I didn't feel comfortable with that. But, shit, the cabin was nearly empty enough that we might have been able to get away with it in our regular seats if we were quick and quiet enough.

Once we got back to the mainland and landed in San Jose airport, things got a little wild, and not in the sexy way.

As soon as the airplane got to the gate, it was clear something was going on. They brought the skyway to connect to the plane, but the doors didn't open, and I've flown enough over the years to know that isn't normal.

"If everyone could just be patient," the stewardess said over the intercom. "We'll be deboarding in just a few minutes."

There were all of thirty of us on the giant plane, so it wasn't like we were in any rush. A few minutes later, when the door finally opened, a pair of big, burly state troopers stepped onto the plane before anyone could get off. "Excuse me, Benjamin Bauer? We need you to come with us, sir."

"Uh, what?" I said, with a complete look of shock on my face. "What did I do?"

"Nothing to be alarmed about, sir," the talkative one said to me. "It should only take a few minutes. Just a misunderstanding we need to clear up. Your... friends can meet you down at luggage claim before the hour's up, I assure you."

Lyssa and Leia both looked freaked out, so I realized it was up to me to put on a brave face and pretend like this sort of thing happened all the time. "It's okay. Just wait for me down there, and I'll be over as soon as I get a chance." I picked up my carry-on bag, which one of the two guards took from me. That was the moment I started to get a little nervous, as they escorted me off the plane before anyone else, one walking in front of me, the other walking behind me, like they were expecting me to try and run or something, which I had no intention of doing.

We headed up the skybridge and into the terminal, and as soon as we were in the main building, we walked straight across and over to a door marked 'Staff Access Only,' which we walked through and into the underbelly of San Jose Murieta Airport.

You expect the back hallways of an airport to have at least a little style to them, or maybe a sense of overbearing dread, but really, they're the same beige utility hallways that are around every shopping mall and office complex around the country. The only thing remarkable about them is how unremarkable they actually are.

They escorted me down a long hallway before reaching a door, which they pushed me into and tossed my bag in after me, closing the door behind me. As I glanced around, I realized something strange had happened - I was no longer in the airport. At least, I didn't think I possibly could be.

It looked as though I was standing on a small platform attached to a giant oak tree, suspended some hundred or so feet in the air, with a massive forest sprawling out beneath me in every direction, trees of all sorts of strange colours and plumages that I didn't even know what to make of. The platform itself was a small, mostly circular metal disc, with a couple of couches in the center of it, and a small table in front of them.

"Come in, come in, let me get a look at you," a feminine voice said to me from one of the couches. I turned to look at her, my eyes not entirely sure what they were looking at. She looked to be a woman in her forties, maybe, although at times she appeared as young as someone in her twenties or as old as a woman in her sixties. Her hair was mostly a sort of blood-red wine colour, deep shades of crimson and scarlet, with it braided in a heavy, folded woven tail that hung down the center of her back. Her fingers were almost entirely covered in rings. She also wore more necklaces than any other human being I've ever seen. Her outfit was somewhere between a stereotypical Russian grandmother and a gypsy dancer from a 1950s movie, with endless layers, colours, patterns, materials, pockets, zippers, buttons and pouches. "Not all that different from my Kevin, when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, but I suppose quite different in a lot of key areas. You're not a musician, are you?"

"No ma'am," I said, looking around me in wonder, still trying to understand what was happening to me, or even where I was. "I was an engineer, but I'd just gotten laid off when, well, I stumbled into this world. I'm guessing you must be Mrs. Merlin?"

I'm lucky she wasn't drinking from her tea because she laughed so hard she snorted. "That's the best joke I've heard in centuries. Gods no, he should be so lucky. Although I bet the thought has never even crossed his mind, about him and me reaching for something with a bit more permanence. You could call us on-again, off-again lovers, I would suppose. We've been partners more often than not, but always something comes between us. Sometimes me, oftentimes him. We come together, we fall apart, we consider the wreckage and then give it another go."

"Sounds complicated," I said, as I moved over to sit down on the couch, eager to have something tangible and real to ground me. "Where am I, and why am I here?"

"You're in the space between worlds, and you're here so I can get a look at you," she said as she moved to sit down on the couch opposite me. "When Merlin told me he'd attempted his own version of my gift for someone who saved his life, well, I thought..." She smiled cryptically, tilting her head to one side. "Well, I'm not sure what I thought, exactly, but I suspected his version was going to contain... well... more mischief than this. More chaos. Less traditionalism." She was looking at the air around me, running her fingers through it, or, more likely, something I couldn't see surrounding me. "Yes, this is quite serious magic. He didn't just toss this off, did he? This is weeks, maybe even months of work. I can't believe he gave this as much care and consideration as he has! I'm genuinely proud of him. When he told me... well, let's just say the way he told me, I sort of suspected it would be half-tossed-off magic, a sloppy and careless enchantment at best, but this is actually some of his finest work."

"You seem surprised."

"Young man, if you'd known that man even half the length of time that I have... well, you'd have been dead for centuries, but looking past that, you'd know he's not the kind of person to put in serious effort into such things normally. For me, my brush with death was truly, profoundly life-altering, and he made fun of me when it happened, but I think he came to appreciate how important that moment was to me, and now that he's had that sort of moment for himself, he's feeling a little more grateful and gracious than he ever has," she said, wiggling her fingers next to the side of my head. She snapped a couple of times and blue sparks erupted and waterfalled down over my shoulder harmlessly. "Very serious indeed. Bravo, my love. I am impressed. Maybe you have been changed by this."

"So, is that what you brought me here for? To inspect and check on his work?"

"Mostly," she said with a mischievous smile. "You see, when this happened to me, Merlin wanted to make sure I understood how thankful he was that I'd lived, so he added a bit of his own magic to the gift I'd given the man who saved my life. Kevin. His name's Kevin. You'd probably like him. That's neither here nor there. When Merlin told me that he'd given someone a version of my gift, I knew I needed to come and at least tweak that magic a little bit, much like he had my gift."

"What did he do?"

"His addition to my gift was a bit more... complicating than my addition to his gift will be. My gift was that Kevin would get seven partners, much like you, and Merlin just wanted to add a few additional people to it, but also to complicate their acquisition in a rather chaotic way."

"How so?"

"Basically, he turned nearly every woman in a fifty-mile radius into a hormone-saturated sex monster once a month around Kevin until he figured out the puzzle Merlin had laid for him."

"That sounds... terrifying."

"For Kevin? It certainly was the first time."

"What was the answer to the puzzle?"

She smiled mysteriously at me and my question. "Why, I can't tell you that, Benjamin. It would spoil some of the fun. Your puzzle will be different than his, as will your complications, but if I tell you too much about what Merlin did to mine, it might give you ideas, and ideas might constitute a headstart, and that wouldn't be fair, now would it?"

"I suppose not, ma'am."

"There's a good boy," she said, as her fingertips danced and twisted in the air around me, leaving paths of blue and green sparks in their wake, clearly tampering with the enchantment Merlin had put upon me. "This won't completely disrupt your life, the way Merlin's tampering did with mine, but it will add a little excitement to your life until you figure out the solution to the conundrum I've added. Just a bit of spice and fun, because I also have to thank you for saving my boytoy Murmur's life."

It took me half a second, but I realized she was saying 'Mer-Mer' and not 'Murmur,' but I decided then and there I was, going to call Merlin the great and powerful sorcerer Mumbles if I ever saw him again, fates be damned.

I could feel whatever enchantment Merlin had placed on me starting to warp, but not in an unpleasant way, more like I was getting a deep tissue massage, with bits of pain followed by intense soothing sensations. I felt like I should be somewhat suspicious about the whole thing, but there was just something so motherly about her; it was hard to think of her bringing me any ill will. The smile on her face seemed so warm and familial.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours, but eventually the cloak of sparks faded and disappeared, leaving me alone with Morgana, who looked quite pleased with herself. "There we go. That should see you tended to." She gave me a polite wave and flicked her fingers at me, as if sending me on my way, so I stood back up again and started to make my way back to the door.

As I stopped to pick up my carry-on, extending the little dragging handle so it could roll on wheels, I turned to look back at her. "Can I ask one more question, if it doesn't seem too impertinent?"

"I think you've probably earned that, with how polite and respectful you've been through all of this, Benjamin."

"You and Merlin - why aren't you two married? Is it just because he hasn't asked?"

"Excuse me?" She didn't look offended by the question - just surprised mostly.

"I mean, it's pretty clear the two of you love the shit out of each other. And you both know the other's ups and downs, ins and outs, and how to deal with each other in an argument," I said to her. "Like, you've had centuries to work it all out. Why haven't you?"

"You're much bolder than my Kevin was," she said with a smirk and a little mischievous laugh. "But I have to admit, that's probably fitting for someone who's playing in Merlin's playground and not mine. The answer to your question, Benjamin, is... It's complicated. We've... we've come close a few times. We even have a handful of children together, out there, running wild in the world, completely unaware of who their parents are. But long-term commitment?" She let out a deeply held sigh. "I'm not sure he or I am capable of that. We'll come back to each other again and again, but after enough time, the heart always finds itself wanting new things, new adventures, new horizons, the thrill of something possibly going wrong... That's mostly what it is, I'm afraid. He and I both like the pursuit of the unknown, and after a few thousand years, well, we know each other better than we know ourselves, and that's certainly saying something. Marriage, exclusivity... I just don't think that's in the cards for us."

I remember tilting my head with a strange little smile of my own. "I think I see a minor flaw in both you and Merlin, if you don't mind me saying so."

"You're being bold, Benjamin. Stay bold. What do you mean?"

"You're both a little slow to pick up new things, new ideas, and adapt to the way society works right now. I mean, I noticed that neither of you carries a cell phone, which is sort of just the first of many things I don't quite understand about you and him. But you've both been so generous to me, maybe I could offer just a tiny bit of advice in return?"

She laughed heartily. "Oh, I can't wait to hear this..."

I swallowed a breath of air, wanting to make sure I chose my next words very carefully. "Merlin's giving me seven partners, because he thinks each of them will fill a part of me that needs filling, and together, they'll help round me off as a person. That doesn't mean I'll love any one of them more or less than the other. You mentioned exclusivity, but why? Just because you're married to Merlin doesn't mean you can't be intimate with other people. Polyamory used to be sort of the lay of the land, didn't it? And the idea of an exclusive, one and only true partner, that's sort of... well, old-fashioned. It's a new world, where gender is fluid, identity is fluid, and families, well, they're built more than found these days. My friend Allen is in what they call a 'polypod' or even, eyyuch, a 'polycule' these days. He's sleeping with three different women, and each of those women is sleeping with at least one other man, and, in one case, I think, another woman? It's complicated, but they're making it work. Allen's polypod has basically been a stable unit for, like, five years. It's not traditional. Hell, I barely even understand it. He's tried to explain it to me, and I'm meant to understand there's a calendar and a spreadsheet and a series of rules, and it got extra complicated during Covid, because one of them's immune-compromised, and so the others had to sort of adjust because of that. But people are open about it, and they talk about it, and they know who everybody is... it's hard, but it works. You and Merlin could be like that. You could be married, but also still sleeping with other people, dating other people. You and Merlin don't have to be each other's everything just to be important to one another. But marking it, signifying it, formalizing it... that means something. Maybe you'll have to be the one to ask him, but that's okay these days too, now, you know? Men like it when women ask them out on dates and things. If that kind of commitment is something you want, and if it's something he wants... but having met the man and having heard him speak about you, I think that it is..."

I realized I'd been talking for quite a long stretch uninterrupted and looked up at Morgana, who had a look of surprise and genuine consideration on her face.

"Huh," she said to me.

I laughed slightly, scratching the back of my neck awkwardly. "All that, and all I get's a 'huh?' C'mon, you're one of the greatest sorceresses of all time. I can't believe none of this has ever occurred to you in all those years."

"Bits and pieces of it have, sure, but as an entire coherent thought?" she said. "No, I don't believe it ever has. No one's ever suggested that Merlin or I need anything, and yet..." Her voice trailed off a little as she looked off into the distance, the sun starting to set on whatever planet we were on, because it clearly wasn't Earth. "I can't fault your logic, and I can't disrupt your reasoning. It would make sense for him and me to have a sort of... formal acknowledgement of the importance we have to each other, even if it's not the traditional one we are accustomed to. He and I will have to discuss this..."

"Well," I said as I made my way to the door. "I hope it works out for your two crazy kids."

"Benjamin Bauer, before you go..."

"Oh no..."

She smiled with a kind of mirth that reminded me a lot of Merlin. "It's nothing bad. I was just wondering - I hate being in debt to anyone, so is there something I could do for you to even out our ledger? Some piece of advice I might give you or some great mystery I might solve for you?"

I stopped and considered for a moment before I chuckled slightly. "You're going to make fun of me, I just know it."

"Benjamin, I promise you, I won't."

I nodded. "Alright then. My ex-wife, Caroline. She cheated on me about a dozen years ago, after we'd been married for four years, and we got divorced right after that."

"I don't know that--"

"I want you to help her find someone to make her happy."

She stopped midsentence, as that clearly wasn't what she'd expected me to say. "You're not angry that she cheated on you?"

I shrugged slightly. "I was, but, y'know, she hadn't been making me happy and I hadn't been making her happy for at least a year at that point, so while it stung that she didn't tell me she wanted out before she did it, looking back at how we handled it... both of us, we were barely more than kids at that point. We both said and did enough damage to each other, and she's completely cut me out of her life. I don't even know where she lives at this point - I think last I heard, she moved to New Mexico or something, and I don't want the angry things we said to each other to be the last word, because we used to be friends before we got married and then divorced. I don't need us to get back to that, but I want her to be happy again, and I'm betting she probably isn't. You don't have to tell her why. You don't have to tell her it came from me. It would be nice, I guess, but really, I just want her to have a good rest of her life, you know?"

"You surprise me more and more every minute, Benjamin," she said wisely. The expression on her face told me that she expected me to still be mad at the infidelity, but it had been a dozen years, and I had the advantage of looking at it with an older man's eyes now. The anger had faded and mostly regret lingered, and I think she respected that. "I'll look into it and maybe I'll get back to you with more information at a later date."

"Then I guess I'll see you when I see you," I said as I opened the door and stepped back into the hallway, where the two state troopers were waiting for me, looking a little surprised.

They peeked into the room, looking at Morgana. "You done already, boss?" one of them asked her.

"We are, Jeff," she confirmed. "Take him back to his partners."

The two of them both shrugged and then pulled the door shut before leading me back out of the hallway, where we met up with a cart to ferry us over to baggage claim. I realized when we got to the security checkpoint that something funny had been going on while I'd been away, because I could see Leia and Lyssa on the escalator, just heading downstairs, even though I'd been talking to Morgana for what felt like the better part of an hour. Then I glanced at one of the screens on the wall displaying arrival and departure times, and realized I'd barely been gone two minutes, which couldn't be right.

I made a point to remember, though... magic and clocks don't mix.