Kelly shook her head. "Not at all. I'm going to check your vitals and get you set up." She offered with a friendly smile. Mairin sighed, leaning back as Kelly went through the process.
Mairin mulled over what the phrase might have meant and what voice might have said it. She didn't recognize the voice, and couldn't attribute the words to a singular gender. It was just a voice. She vaguely remembered Kelly giving her more instructions before time slipped again.
She found herself not beside the lake with the man that spoke with the wind but on an airplane in a small chair against the window. Her earbuds played an old Johnny Cash song as she stared down at the endless blue that slipped beyond a sheet of fluffy white clouds. It was peaceful, the cabin cold but she was wearing a hoodie and a small blanket. She rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on what was happening around her.
People were quietly talking but many were otherwise occupied by movies playing across the screens mounted on the back of their seats or their laptops on their tray tables. A sense of freedom came with the recognition that Mairin had taken this trip alone. She returned her gaze beyond the glass to the ocean, content that she had taken power over a part of her dream. She had planned this trip, worked the long hours to earn the money and proved to her parents that she was responsible enough to go.
The plane rattled as an announcement came over the intercom. "We are currently experiencing some turbulence. Please retake your seats and buckle you seatbelt until we turn the fasten seatbelt sign off."
Mairin checked her belt and shrugged. Turbulence was something she was used to. She flew with her parents from the United States to South Korea all the time to visit family. She closed her eyes and drifted off as the plane rocked her to sleep.
Mairin woke to the sensation of falling and the shrieking of alarms. All around her people were panicking in their seats, talking over one another. Crying, praying, begging, and people pleading for calm. Everything was shaking apart.
Yellow masks dropped from the overhead compartments as the flight attendants tried to maintain some sort of calm to no avail. Her hands trembled as she pulled the mask over her face, taking a deep breath. What did they say? In the case of a water landing? They had to land first. Nothing would save them if the fuselage broke apart on contact. Her heart was caught up in her throat as the plane lost its fight with gravity.
She braced as world started spinning. The din of the chaos around became a deafening roar, her own throat was raw from screaming.
"Child." An ancient voice beckoned, cutting through the din.
"We're crashing!" Mairin yelled.
"Child." The voice repeated. Mairin felt everything slow down and become quiet. She was no longer strapped into a chair rapidly approaching the ocean as her plane nosedived.
Mairin floated weightless, her long hair flowed up around her from an undetected wind. There was nothing left between her and the water. She stared down into the crystal depths, the sky was falling into the ocean. Beneath its still surface golden eyes stared back. Mairin blinked, they looked serpentine... like... the dragon in the lake.
"Child." The voice repeated in her head in a way that calmed Mairin. Her skirt fluttered around her as she drifted down over the water's surface. "Do you know who I am?"
"No. I think you are the dragon." Mairin replied softly. "Am I dead?"
"Do you want to live?" The dragon's voice pressed in Mairin mind with a sense of urgency that seemed distant to Mairin right now. They were in another dream? It was the only thing that made sense.
Mairin raised a brow. What sort of question was that? Who wanted to die? "Of course."
"What do you remember?" The dragon patiently asked.
"The mountain lake. The man staring out.... him burning into ash. A golden dragon." Mairin guessed this is what she meant, it was the only point of familiarity she shared with the mythic beast.
"We'll have to do this the hard way," the dragon sighed.
Mairin placed her hands over the surface looking down as the figure of another woman shimmered opposite her. The stranger's hands met hers as did her golden eyes. Her face was familiar.
"I'm Shamhat." The woman whispered in her mind. "We're the same."
"What do you mean?" Mairin squinted at the woman's face. "You're the dragon, the only fire that burned for that man?"
Shamhat smiled sadly, her golden hair swirled in the water around her. "Enkidu, it's not the real him but the mark he left on my soul. He's with us always."
"With us?" Mairin blinked. "Wait. By the same... you mean I am you?" She pulled back.
"Mairin, you are you but you also are my reincarnation. My soul burns within you. You can live and wake with us integrated or in the crash." Shamhat sadly replied. "Unless our powers awaken, you won't survive this."
"What do you get out of this?" Mairin's body was feeling heavy, like a weight was bearing down.
"A chance to find Enkidu and live a life with him as a mortal." Shamhat replied. "We might disappear if you die now."
Mairin considered her options and the idea of death when she still had so much life to experience was not appealing. Her only other option was hoping she's survive the plane crash. "Shamhat, let's find Enkidu!"
"Good." Shamhat smiled, grabbing onto Mairin's hands as she shoot up out of the water with golden wings.
Mairin screamed in surprise as gravity shifted, time restarted and she was the one flying. She looked below and saw the smoking wreckage of the plane but dots of people clustering together on life rafts. Her gaze shifted to where her seat had been... and it was crushed. There was too much smoke for her to stay aloft, and the exertion of flying was too much. She descended down and splashed into the water. She discovered that once she no longer needed them, her wings shimmered away away. It was an odd sensation but she instinctively knew this was just a part of her new power. She swam towards the life rafts, hoping that there was still room.
"Miss! There's another one over here!" A flight attendant called. She tossed a life ring that Mairin grabbed onto before they pulled her onto the raft.
Exhausted, Mairin settled under a silver emergency blanket and coughed sea water over the side of the lifeboat. She was light headed from the effort and the integration, it was all too much too fast. "I have to find him," she murmured as she fainted.