Our time in Loran (Throwback Thursday)

I almost never participate in Throwback Thursdays, but as it relates to us, we've been an item going on 3 years, now. I remember I had just watched 'The Lost Tower' Naruto movie and I remember thinking Loran was so damn gorgeous that I would love to visit there. Itachi, being the hopeless romantic, surprised me with a trip.

You know how couples go through that public freaky phase risking indecent exposure? Talkin bout THRILL SEEKING DAREDEVIL EXCHANGES! We managed to infiltrate the royal palace and play hide and freak. SO MANY THINGS COULD HAVE GONE WRONG!

Heh, yeah... That was us...🤭

We're WAY more mature now.😅

Back then, we were in the early stages of our relationship, hot and heavy circa fall 2017, so I was super excited to see the boundless architectural beauty that was Loran, except there was a catch. See, it's not as simple as "Oh yeah, let's just go there, by land or sea."

Unfortunately, the entire city was destroyed about 20 years ago. So the only way that we were able to actually make this day trip was through a time portal, that has, since, been closed. I'm sorry to all the drooling would-be tourists who may have wanted to pay this fantastic place a visit, but it's gone for good now. RIP Loran.

Not for nothing, though. I took as many pictures as I could to remember this dazzling place!


So what happened, you ask?

I don't really know. I asked Itachi, how could something so horrible befall a place so intricate and full of architectural loveliness and he didn't want to say. While we were there, it seemed like he was afraid to say... Almost as if he talked about the present while acknowledging we were inside the past, that reality might collapse and swallow us both within it. It was DANGEROUS to even be there at all!

However, once we made it back to the present, he told me something about a political coup that basically seized the city and how the monarch who had actually inherited the city was just too soft and ultimately too weak to maintain their power. It was a sad story, but he seemed nonchalant about the loss, adding that the very foundation of the city was built purely on someone's ego that treated people little better than puppets. We almost fought about that statement. I argued that creation isn't an inherently selfish act- and yet Itachi maintained in this case that it was.

"...it was built in the middle of nowhere in the desert, where it looked great from the outside, but the infrastructure was very poor. It was as if someone made a model of a perfect city, visually striking, but ultimately just not functional. 90% of the city was uninhabited, and the economics were entirely contingent on those who worked for the Royal family directly. All commercial and residential activity was limited to one part of the city where actual people lived and everything else was just hollow, empty and dead, just like the desert she built it upon." he shrugged, with a small sneer.

For a moment, as I looked at his calm, yet determined concentration face, I was reminded about the story of how Siddartha Gautama was first introduced to the world. A prince, carried upon high, paraded through a beautiful and perfect city as people cheered and honored him from the ground, only to find that all the colorful buildings and festivities were a facade to hide the suffering that happened behind the scenes.

Itachi looks like a distant memory of him, when he thinks hard like that.

It seemed like he really couldn't stand it there... and he shook his head 'no' as if reading my mind and added,

"The last princess was a disgrace that took directly after her mother."

"Well, dang." I conceded, stroking his hair comfortingly, " I've never seen you quite so... Acute."

He had strong feelings about it, to say the least, but he maintained-

"But sure, it was pretty to look at, even if it was hollow." 🤷‍♀️