We are meant to find our better halves during a time trip made on the eve of our twentieth birthday. It’s a well-known custom of Quicksters family men, and I grew up listening to a variety of stories from my relatives.
My great grandfather went to meet my great grandmother during World War I. Before he knew what was happening, he was conscripted as a soldier and sent to the front line. She was a field nurse who treated him for the injuries he sustained there. As great grandfather’s injuries were serious, he was honorably discharged.
However, he could not leave without the field nurse, not when he knew that an ambush would occur the next day - nobody from his squad would survive.
Forbidden to interfere with past events or reveal information about the future, he had to wait till the beginning of the ambush…
Under cover of the chaos, he extracted his better half from the time loop.
At first, she was mad at him, accusing him of betraying his squad. It took several years for her to forgive him, but in the end, they found happiness together.
Grandfather overleapt his father, going even further back in time to fetch my grandmother from a cold Nordic settlement.
Reaching the Viking village was an ordeal for Grandfather and he barely had anything to eat, until one day, the girl who would become my grandmother - still in her teens– was sent away from her settlement.
My grandfather recognized her at once and approached her speaking her native language. That was when she told him she was sent away as the community didn’t have enough provisions to feed one more mouth.
She returned with him and he taught her our language.
Time passed and my father traveled to the Victorian era. He had never spoken English before, but the moment he got pushed right in front of the coach of a young lady and her brother, almost spooking the lead horses, he uttered his apologies in English as though it had always been his native tongue.
It was in the blood of Quicksters family men - we all knew the language of our better halves. It came to us the moment we met our heart’s intended. They didn’t have to teach us - it was already engraven into our souls.
Sometimes, there were several people we were meant to bring back with us. Sometimes, we were forced to stay much longer than expected.
After staying three years in a medieval forest, hiding from inquisitors, my elder brother brought back his boyfriend. His better half turned out to be the exorcist that the inquisitors were after.
Finally, my turn to make the one and only, two-way, time trip had come. I put the chronometer –a family heirloom– on my wrist and set up the co-ordinates of time and space. The hands began to spin…and stopped at 2022.
Here and now, I have come to the time meant for me to find my better half.