I Have Always Loved You

“Just so you know, this was all your fault.” Tiza uttered, keeping a steady walking pace behind Azer. The taller man stops in his tracks and turns around to face the woman. Sea water drips from his locs that reach down to the middle of his back. His uniform, dripping with water as well, clings to his body.

“Are you seriously doing this now?” Azer retorts, looking down at Tiza with annoyance.

The woman stops a few feet from him and holds his hard gaze. She is just as drenched with the curls of her long bob clinging to her face.

“When else am I supposed to do this? Huh? When we get back to the ship? After we get eaten by that thing out there? Why not here and now?” Tiza dramatically gestures with her arms to their surroundings. They are in a large tunnel stretching farther than the eye can see. It is dimly lit by lights on the ceiling but just enough for the two of them to see each other.

“I told you we should have just gotten rid of those monsters, but do you ever listen to me? No. We were not supposed to capture them; we were supposed to kill them. Now we are stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a tunnel with that thing out there hunting us!”

“It leads to the surface. We will be out in about a day’s time.”

“We shouldn’t be here in the first place!” Tiza exclaims, taking a step closer to him.

“Well, we are!” He yells back. His pupils turn a deeper red and the whites of his eyes darken to black. She takes a step back but still holds his gaze.

“My father is out there.” She finally says after a few seconds of silence.

“My crew is out there.”

“I get that but…”

“Listen, I know you didn’t ask for any of this, but this is not Binova. This is Earth. This is my kingdom and I am going to protect my people the best I can. You can’t just come here and tell me what to do just because you are a royal over there.”

“Since when are these humans your people? And you asked for our help. You wanted whatever expertise I had, and those monsters are not like anything I have ever seen. We had no business trying to capture that thing.”

“That was not your call to make. If we followed my plan, everything would have been fine.”

“Azer, that thing was able tear through the hull of one of the submarines! What did you think we were going to do with it anyway? If you had let me fire the missiles instead of ejecting us, we would be back on the ship by now!”

“You sound just like your family.”

“What?”

“They said the same thing about me, didn’t they? If it were up to them, I’d be dead right now.”

“That…that is different.” Tiza takes another step back, caught off guard by his words.

“How? I was a monster too. I killed lots of people. Heck! I killed your sister! I don’t have the claws and teeth anymore, but I still have these eyes that you are still scared of, so what exactly is the difference?”

“You are nothing like these sea monsters!”

“How do you know?! We know nothing about them. They could be exactly like me.”

“Azer…I…”

“Let’s get going.” Azer whips around and starts walking quickly forward. Tiza just watches him for a few moments before following. Her head was spinning trying to think of something to say, but she couldn’t. What could she possibly say? He was right. If it wasn’t for her protecting him, her family would have killed him a long time ago. His assignment to Earth was mainly to keep him away. She believed in him, but he was not supposed to have done so well. He was still adjusting to being normal from being a monster for so long but look at him now.

Tiza stares at Azer’s back, at the insignia on his uniform. His insignia. He ushered in the prosperity that Earth now enjoyed. He was in every respect their king. What if those things could also be changed?

For hours they continue down the tunnel. Every now and then they could hear the bellows of something outside the tunnel reverberating through the deep ocean and the metal walls, something big. The enclosed space otherwise is deafeningly quiet.

“Let’s rest here for a bit.” Azer finally says as he lowers himself laying with his back on the floor. Tiza does not respond but follows him and sits down on the floor near him, pulling her knees to her chest and leaning her back on the curved wall. More bellows reverberate through the space. Tiza looks down at Azer. His eyes are closed and his strong chest rises and falls in a gently rhythm. There is no way he fell asleep so fast, but he sure looks relaxed. Tiza just studies his face as he rests. His eyelids, his sculpted jaw, his lips.

Bang!

Tiza flinches hard at the loud bang sound and Azer sits up. More bellows sound off. Something hit the tunnel.

“Do you think it knows we are in here?” She asks, pulling knees closer to her chest.

“Probably. Probably not.” He replies eyeing the ceiling before looking over at Tiza. She holds his gaze for a moment before looking away. His eyes are still black and red. He tilts his head back on the wall to look up instead of looking at her. Her curly hair, her lovely dark skin, her lips.

“We will be out of here soon.” He says to reassure her.

A few moments pass between them.

“I am not scared of your eyes.”

“What?” Azer looks back down at Tiza who is looking back at him.

“I am not scared of your eyes. I’ve never been scared of you. You know that. And I know you didn’t mean to kill my sister. It was an accident.”

Azer studies her face for a moment like he is contemplating whether he believes her or not. Eventually, he stops at her eyes and his gaze softens. Her hazel eyes draw him in with a softness that he hadn’t seen in years. Memories flood his mind of when he was back on Binova, of when they were closer.

“When was the last time you looked at me like that?” He mumbles under his breath.

“What?”

“Why did you come here? Anyone in your family could have come.”

“Because I missed you.”

Azer doesn’t respond but instead continues to stare into Tiza’s eyes. His whites slowly return but his pupils stay red.

“Let’s get out of here.” He finally says rising to his feet. Tiza follows suit and they both continue to walk down the tunnel. Tiza watches him from behind as they walk. It had been years since he was sent to Earth and a week since she and her father arrived, responding to Azer request for help with these sea monsters that appeared out of nowhere. This was the first real conversation they had since she arrived.

Another unmeasurable round of hours pass as they walk in silence. Tiza keeps pace but has to take a break every now and then.

“Wait!” Tiza exclaims. Stopping dead in her tracks. Azer turns to her with a confused expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just stop talking and moving for a sec.” A few seconds pass, but he complies and remains still.

“I knew it!” Tiza’s face lights up and she runs forward, passing Azer who is still confused but follows after her.

“I felt a breeze! We are almost out!” A glint of light comes into view as they sprint to the end of the tunnel. Relief floods Tiza as she reaches the exit and bathes in the light of the sun with outstretched arms. Azer comes out right after, squinting at the brightness of the light. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust after being in dark tunnel for so long, but once they do, he can see the forest around them. The greens from the leaves contrast with the reds and oranges of the sky and beam back at him like they are welcoming them back to land.

Tiza looks up at Azer who is focused on the forest around them. The sunset resembles the red of his eyes which are shining like rubies in the light. Those eyes which probably served as a constant reminder for him of the monster he used to be only drew her in more and more. His eyes suddenly dart down looking into hers and he takes her hand.

“You know, if it means that much to you, I will help you find a way to study those things.” Tiza says after a few heartbeats.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No. Thank you for coming here. I missed you too.”

“Oh…yeah.” Flustered, Tiza sheepishly smiles and quickly looks ahead into the forest to avoid his gaze.

He continues to stare at her hazel eyes, which reflect the hues of the forest around them. Eventually, he looks back up with a smirk and begins to walk ahead, leading Tiza by the hand.

“Let’s go. We need to find the others.”

“Ok.”

The both of them walk off into the forest to continue their trek, but neither of them will tell the other what they are really thinking. How much they really meant to each other. Azer will not tell Tiza that she is his forest, and Tiza will not tell Azer thar he is her sunset.