"Oh Great Goddess," Satya took a deep breath, looking at the wilderness around him. "Where exactly am I now?"
"You are in one of the areas in Nusantara."
"Nusantara?" Satya repeated, narrowing his eyes at Lathifa.
"Yes!"
"And you don't know anything about the island of Bali? Indonesia?"
The girl frowned and shook her head. "Don't know at all."
"Argh…!" Satya scratched his head, he felt like he was being played with by the girl. "You know," he said, "Nusantara is a nickname for Indonesia. That means you live in Indonesia!"
The girl frowned again and shook her head again.
"I think you may indeed come from a different era from me," said Lathifa as she took something out from under her kemben—more precisely, from the slit of her narrow breasts.
Satya gulped again for the sake of seeing the beauty of the breasts even though they were not fully shown.
"Forget it," said the girl, then showed something to Satya. "Where did you get this piece of medal?"
Satya took the copper medal.
"I found it in those weird pants of yours while washing them."
"This is just an ordinary coin," said Satya, "that has belonged to my family for generations. Is there something strange about this copper coin? Looks like you recognize this coin, am I wrong?"
"Strange?" repeated the girl, shaking her head. "No. But, yes, I recognize the shape of the copper medallion. Hey, is the character written on one of the medallions the character currently used—hmm… in your world? I mean, where do you come from?"
Satya shook his head. "No," he said. "These are just ancient characters. Not many use this script to write something in my place. After all, our characters have been changed to Indonesian characters."
"Ancient characters you say?"
"Yeah," Satya nodded. "This is a relic of my ancestors. Well, let's say some kind of hereditary inheritance, though to me it's not worth it at all. Can't sell, can't make some money."
Lathifa took a deep breath, there were one or two things she was thinking about Satya and the copper coin.
"You know," the girl said a moment later, "I think you do come from the future."
"How can you be so sure?" Satya chuckled softly, shaking his head a sign that he didn't believe the girl's words just like that.
Seriously! Time travel only exists in fiction, nothing more!
"You call that copper medallion an ancient relic of your family."
"Yes, that's the way it is."
"You know," said Lathifa, "in this day and age, in the country where you are now, only a few people have that medal. And it's not an ancient medal or anything like that, just a copper medal as a tribute to certain figures by the king."
"Is that so, huh?" Satya looked at the two sides of the large coin in his hand. "Then, it's quite a valuable thing if that's the case."
"Can you read the characters on the medal?"
"Of course," said Satya. "Because there is a mission, destiny is created."
Lathifa smiled faintly, but also very, very sweetly as if hinting at something.
"And you know," said Lathifa later, "there are only seven such medals in the entire Artapurana. Plus, what you're carrying, it's become eight."
"Oh, I see?" Satya took a deep breath. "Then, we'll just sell it. Maybe I can go to a more crowded place. I mean, I can ask later which way I'm going back to where I came from."
"Don't you understand?"
"What exactly is the part that I don't understand?"
"You are from the future, Satya."
"You're saying the same thing again," Satya chuckled again. "That's just bullshit, Lathifa. No human can cross dimensions and time. There isn't any!"
"I tell you," said Lathifa who was still smiling sweetly. "That piece of medal in your hand looks exactly like that piece of medal from someone I know very well, and he's also whispered the same thing to me."
Satya frowned, narrowing his eyes at Lathifa.
"What do you really want to say, Lathifa?"
"Because there is a mission, destiny is created."
"Yeah, I know that so well," said Satya. "And you won't believe that in fact, on one of the walls in my house are the same words engraved. So what? It's just a word, or—yeah… it might just be a line of encouragement, a motivation."
"Oh, no, Satya," Lathifa stood up, stepped in, and stopped with her back to Satya. "It's not that simple."
Then, a taro leaf was blown away by the wind, and stuck to Lathifa's chest. Lathifa grabbed the half-dry broad leaf.
Satya widened his eyes and was flabbergasted. At first glance, he saw that Lathifa looked like she was dancing, and the taro leaf was her fan. The girl's pose, and her smile, it's all the same as the carving of a dancing princess on the wall in the family room, in his ancestral house.
Satya gulped while Lathifa threw away the taro leaves.
"W—Wait a minute!" said Satya nervously, he stood up. "Y-You!"
"What?" Latifa frowned.
"You are the dancing princess!"
"Huh?!"
"Oh, Great God, no-no-no..." Satya squeezed his head, he looked like a confused person. "Don't do this to me!"
"Hey, whose dancing princes are you referring to?"
Lathifa approached Satya, she touched his hand so that Satya could calm down.
"The carving on the wall I said earlier, Lathifa."
Latifa frowned. "Yeah, you said about the same script engraving on that copper medallion in your hand."
"No, Lathifa, not only that," said Satya. "Apparently, now things seem to make more sense."
"Hey, just speak well so I can understand you."
"I mean," said Satya while holding Lathifa's shoulders. "The engraving is under the feet of another engraving. Carving of a girl dancing. And when I think back, that girl looks a lot like you."
"Is that true?" Lathifa smiled, she had caught the common thread of everything here.
"T—Then, there is a palace carving with a background of a creature similar to the Balinese Barong, but with an evil face that wants to rule the palace, the dancing princess, and all the carvings on the wall."
And then there was a moment of silence between the two.
"You know," Lathifa said a moment later. "What I told you earlier turned out to be the truth."
"About me from the future?"
Lathifa nodded, then pointed at the copper coin in Satya's hand.
"That medal is very similar to a medal held by a Royal Counselor Artapurana."
Satya looked back at the big coin.
"Lord Kencana Ireng."
"Kencana Ireng?" Satya repeated. "What kind of name is that anyway?"
However, Satya thinks that the name does seem like the name of the people from the era of the old kingdoms in Indonesia, especially for the area around the island of Java.
"It could be that your medal is the same medal that Lord Kencana Ireng has."
"Huh?!"
"Yeah," Lathifa nodded. "Seven medals, remember?" she said, and Satya just nodded. "Each medal has a different character, I mean, a different sentence. And the same sentence as the sentence on your medal, only belongs to Lord Kencana Ireng. And as I told you earlier, he has also whispered the same sentence to me."
"Really?" said Satya who caught the strangeness in the girl's words. "Whispering? What for?"
"What for?" Latifa said. "I don't know this for sure. But I still clearly remember what Lord Kencana Ireng said just before Pramudya Antaguna killed me."
"Huh?!" Satya winces, gasps, and even steps back.
"Hey!"
"W—Wait a minute!" said Satya so nervously and half scared. "D—Don't tell me that you're a ghost? A demon?"
Satya raved while looking here and there.
"No, it's not like that."
"N-No wonder you dared to live alone in this wilderness!"
"Hey!"
"Go away!" said Satya scared. "Leave me alone!"
Slap!
Satya was silent with his face turned to the right because the girl slapped him hard enough to stop his babbling.
"Y-You," said Satya while covering his cheek which Lathifa had just slapped. "You slapped me!"
"Yeah," Lathifa smirked. "And you can feel the touch of my palm, can't you?"
Like a fool, Satya just nodded.
"You see?" said the girl. "I am not a ghost, nor am I a demon."
Satya gulped. "Sorry, I just…"
"I can understand you, so forget it."
"Then, what about all this?" Satya showed again the copper coin in his hand, also pointing to the wilderness around them.
Latifa took a deep breath. "All right, I'll tell you about who I am, as well as the connection between the copper medal and Lord Kencana Ireng."
Satya took a deep breath. Yeah, looks like I really need to know all this, he thought. Or I'll end up going crazy.
"You like bathing in the river?"
"Huh?!" Satya's brows furrowed again.
"You know," said Lathifa, smiling. "The flow of the small white sandy river where I found you yesterday, the clear water is very refreshing. Do you want to take a bath with me?"
Satya's eyes widened again. Lathifa giggled spoiled in response to the man's expression.
Without saying much more, Lathifa took Satya's hand and gently dragged the man, leading him from the front yard of the hut to a stream.