Time

The forest floor is warm under her bare feet as she sits with her back to a tree. The setting sun glares at her, forcing her to squint as she looks at the dragon lying in front of her. She does not cry, her tears have already dried from the hours she spent crying before as she looked for a way out of the forest. Now she is only curious. Why is there a dragon in front of her?

The dragon looks at her. Its eyes are bigger than her entire body, patiently regarding her as she patiently regards it. It blinks slowly. She blinks quickly. For what seems like forever they have remained at this impasse. Her, unwilling to move despite or perhaps because of its clear attention, and it, for reasons unknown.

If you are lost, then come with me. It speaks to her in a rumble that she feels resonating in her more than she hears. My promise to you is power. Perhaps that does not interest you yet, but I can tell that it will. Trust in me, and in our meeting.

“Will you eat me?” she asks.

The dragon laughs, shaking the earth and sending the birds in the trees scattering. That they had returned at all from when the dragon first arrived is a testament to how long they have been here.

No, I will not eat you. I could have done that long before now.

That is good. She does not want to be eaten. And she is lost. She doesn’t have any idea of how to leave the forest, and she doesn’t think that she will meet anyone else out here either.

“I want to go far away from here,” she tells the dragon. “Will you take me there?”

It raises its head for the first time since it landed in front of her. It blocks out the sun, casting her in shadow. Its eyes suddenly seem brighter, beckoning her forward like gems. She stands up. Her body hurts from sitting for so long, and the exhaustion from her earlier panic sits heavily on her. Despite all that, she walks cautiously up to the dragon.

I see that you are weak. I will make you strong. Strong enough that eventually, you will be able to carry yourself to where you seek.

“Okay,” she says. She thinks that would be alright, even if she didn’t understand the other stuff the dragon talked about. It lowers its head to be just above hers. Close enough that she could reach out and touch it…

And so she does.

:::

She calls him Time.

She is older now. Old enough to understand things that she couldn’t before. She doesn’t call Time her father, but she is starting to think that he might be something close to it. He has never said anything to that effect in their endless conversations to each other, in fact, her past—their shared past—hardly is talked about at all. She doesn’t remember much before Time, really she only has the vaguest sense that there was any such part of her life.

She learns from him. One of the few things that Time does mention about the past is his promise to her. A promise of power. It is a promise that he fulfills to her slowly as they travel.

She breathes and fire courses through her lungs. She wields her daggers like claws, tearing apart anything in her path. She watches Time and copies what she can from him. When she does this, the differences between them become hard to ignore. And yet, she has seen many humans on their travels and she does not feel any more similar to them than she does to Time. There is no fire within them, and their violence is calculated rather than wild. If she is not like either of them, then what is she?

Despite seeing many humans on their travels, she has never talked to any of them. She doesn't like leaving the comfort of Time’s presence, but he is far too noticeable for them to attempt to get even remotely close to any human habitation. The one time that she did try to venture into a town on her own she made it less than halfway there before she lost her nerve and ran back to where Time was waiting.

Maybe one day in the future she will have the courage to make such a trip on her own, but before then, there is an important destination they are visiting.

It is a council of sorts, between us dragons, Time explains when she asks where they are going. We meet to discuss what we have each seen in the world, and what we should do going forward. I have always gone alone, but the rules have changed and so for this council, I want you to come as my champion.

A champion. Is that what she is to Time?

“If I am your champion, then what are you to me?” she asks him.

Time pauses, a hiccup in the rhythmic movement of his wings as he carries her through the sky on his back. The question sprang from her lips without forethought, but she regrets asking immediately. What Time is to her has filled her thoughts on many of their long flights together, and when she stares up at the stars trying to sleep it circles futilely in her head. Can she bear to hear it said so plainly? So long passes before Time replies that she thinks he has forgotten her question entirely, but eventually he says:

To you, my champion, I am your god.

:::

The empty hallways she wanders through are massive, carved out of the rock to accommodate dragons walking side-by-side. Despite what Time said, none of the other dragons brought champions and so she is left alone with her thoughts. Normally she would not enjoy it, but after the initial formalities during which she saw the other dragons for the first time, she is appreciating the solitude.

It is easy to see them as gods. Even though she is just beginning to learn the spells that Time can cast effortlessly, she already knows enough to marvel at the auras of the other dragons. Perhaps it is just through familiarity that she does not see those same qualities in Time himself, but to her it is apparent that the other dragons are layered with magic from snout to tail. Time warned her of it, that the expression of their domains may feel heavy, but when he told her she had no idea just how right he would be.

Even the least dominating of the dragons, Lord Serenity, was a crushing presence to be around. She didn’t think before this that one would be able to feel serenity so profoundly throughout their body and yet have it be unwanted. To say nothing of Lord Ambition, who she immediately knew was one of the leaders of the council. Far more than Lord Serenity, his dominion raged around him like a storm, threatening to pull anything it could into itself and consume it. She was able to resist its effects only with the help of Time, and it was around that point that he suggested that she did not need to be present for the rest of the council, despite the council having not even truly started.

And so, she wanders.

She grips the daggers sheathed at her hip for comfort. She wants to be stronger, to be able to stand amongst the dragons as an equal. Recently, she has been trying to remember her first meeting with Time and the promise that he talks about so often. It feels ingenuine to demand that Time continue to fulfil that promise to her when she cannot remember her part in making it, but wants to demand it anyway. She knows there are even greater heights that he can help her reach, and she wants to see them and then surpass them.

But for now, all she wants is to return to him, and for the both of them to leave this place. She can be his champion without the other dragons around, until she is strong enough to face them herself. These thoughts consume her as what seems like weeks go by in this eternally shone-upon castle, until eventually Time returns to her, and she returns to him, and then they are gone.

:::

She finally works up the courage to enter a human village on her own. Draped in a shabby cloak, with her daggers concealed by a glamour, she lets herself blend into the crowd as she follows its ebb and flow through the busy market street.

Compared to the usual silence she shares with Time, the entire village is a cacophony. Merchants shouting, buyers shouting, passersby shouting. It seems as though everyone has something that simply must be said louder than those around them. Cutting through even the clamour of the market is the shrill voices of children running through the streets. She is only marginally taller than them but she can summon no desire to partake in their games, even though it was something she had longed for so desperately before. It makes her realise that things have changed. She is not a child anymore. More than a child, but less than an adult, at least in human terms.

When she tries to explain it to Time later, she is met with little understanding.

Certainly you have grown, but I do not see the value in trying to compare yourself to these ideas of old and young. We are all growing, and we always will be for as long as we live, Time says to her.

If that is the case then she wants to grow faster. She puts more effort into her training, and Time responds in kind, teaching her more advanced magic and educating her in all of the subjects she asks him to. She tests herself against the world, throwing herself at every opportunity she can find to fight and overcome. Does Time worry about her? Does he think she is acting as a champion should? She thought over the years that she was slowly becoming better at reading him, but his true thoughts still elude her and so she decides that whatever he is thinking doesn't matter to her, as she relentlessly pushes forward.

:::

The path they take to the council has never stuck in her memory. This is far from the first one she has been to; she is older now, and better at everything there is to be better at. Yet despite her best charting of their course, in her few moments of privacy from Time, the route she comes up with defies any spatial reality whatsoever.

“The location of the council is hidden from the world far more intricately than I expected,” she says to Time as they rest at night, partway through their journey there.

Time rustles his wings with a quiet pride and she can tell that what she said is more meaningful than she first thought. Thank you. It was a joint endeavour between Lord Mystic and myself. Could you tell when we entered the spell?

She thinks back to their past several days of travel. Now that she has commented on it, there is little reason left to hide her puzzling and so she pulls out the map she has been working on to show Time. After looking it over for a second, she points to one spot on her mapping of their journey, trusting him to be able to decipher the meaning of her cartographic notation. “Was it here?”

Time hums agreeably.

She lets Time enjoy his contentment for a moment before broaching another topic that has been on her mind. “Do you think Lord Ambition will be at it again this time?”

Time’s demeanour sours instantly at her words. I am sure that he will be.

“He is the last to choose a champion. I can’t help but feel that it reflects poorly on him, but I also worry that there are some machinations at hand that have yet to bear fruit.”

The other dragons have chosen champions of their own since that first council with just herself. Surprisingly, none have been younger than her yet, even as she recognizes that she is fully what humans would call an adult. Despite learning more about humans over the years, and even interacting with them on occasion, she still struggles to think of herself as one of them. She is so much more, after all.

“Perhaps Lord Ambition’s champion will be a young boy,” she says. Time snorts derisively at the thought.

A child would ill suit Lord Ambition’s temperament, and his domain, Time replies.

“Well whomever he chooses, my only wish is that they are younger than me.”

Do not worry about your age. You are more than equal to any of the other champions, no matter whether they are older than you or not.

“There is no ‘or not’, Time. They are all older than me, and they all treat me like a child. Them with their politics and their greed. So what if I do not care to play their silly games with the human world. I realize the position I am in as I say this, but was this whole champion idea really worth it?”

Time goes silent. Perhaps she had been too harsh. She knows Time supported the idea in the beginning, and has supported her for so long. “I’m sor—”

It was worth it, Time says resolutely, interrupting her. You do not need to apologize. I can see how it is playing out just as well as you can. But it was worth it. You are here, after all.

She doesn’t know what to say to that, and so she says nothing.

:::

The first time she meets the champion of Lord Ambition is as the spectator to his war.

“So this is what it has come to,” she says as she and Time look out to the clashing armies in the distance. The champions of Lord Ambition and Lord Reverence have each found themselves as the leaders of two of the kingdoms of the human world. The last council was one of tense debate, not just between the two dragons but between their champions as well. For their part, her and Time simply observed without comment the drama unfolding, even as more and more of the champions and the dragons were dragged into the dispute. If questioned about the origin of the dispute, she would have no answer other than that she simply didn’t care. And yet, here she was, watching the growing carnage unfold. Why?

“Why have we come here?” she asks Time, who has been unusually taciturn ever since the council.

I wished to view the consequences of my decision firsthand, he replies. I am sorry that you have to be here as well, to witness the hubris of an old soul like me.

Despite their travels taking them far and wide, they do not often discuss the state of the world they travel through. Nevertheless, she has been able to learn some things about what Time thinks about it over the years, and she has slowly been able to piece together his motivation for starting the world on this course to begin with.

“You wanted to change things for the better,” she says. It is not a question, because she doesn’t need it to be.

Yes, I did want that, a heavy sorrow presses through Time’s voice. She marvels at the rare show of emotion from the dragon, in this even rarer moment of truth. I wanted to change things, even though time is merely the cart by which change travels rather than its driver.

“You thought that the dragons could change things for the better, that’s why you proposed the champions to begin with,” she continues.

Yes. I always knew that Ambition would seek to further his own goals, but Serenity and Mystic, even Reverence and Vanity… I expected more from them, Time says tiredly.

“I am sorry,” she says, “that the champions have not brought the change that you hoped for. Myself as well, there is far more that I could have done to try and stop these events from unfolding.”

Time laughs, but it is missing his usual humour. Do not entertain such thoughts. You have been a more perfect embodiment of Time than I have been. If I had stayed a watcher, this might not have happened at all.

“But then I never would have met you,” she says, trying to put more warmth into her voice than she usually does.

That is true.

“We could still change this.” Time is the quiet power of the dragons, and she is his champion. Together they have the power to crush armies far larger than any that a human kingdom could ever hope to field.

No, I have done enough harm already. Ambition and Reverence will fight it out. Let us instead try to see that this conflict does not spread further than it needs to, without involving the other dragons or their champions, Time says.

He turns away from the battlefield, and she follows him.

:::

She finds herself walking through another city market, wearing another hood, with her usual daggers sitting comfortably at her hip. The market sounds fill her ears, something she has long gotten used to such that she hardly even notices them anymore. She even looks fondly at the children as they run through the market, though she would be mortified if Time ever caught her doing so.

She empathizes with the humans, more than she ever did in her youth. While she was looking for her place in the world it was so painful to be around them. But now she sees just how similar they are to her. Before, she could only see their weakness, but now she understands how powerless she truly is to affect change in the world herself, and thinks that this must be what humans feel all the time.

This city is peaceful. Happy. But the war presses ever closer, and if she looks deeper she can see the gaunt looks on the people in the crowds, the meager selection at the stalls, and the desperation kindling in the eyes of the passersby as they brace themselves for the hell to come.

As she stands and ruminates, a young girl bumps into her leg and falls down. Worried about the girl getting buried under the market crowd, she picks the girl up herself and sets her on her feet.

She can tell from the girl’s eyes that she is terrified of her, and yet transfixed such that the girl cannot bolt away. There’s a spark of familiarity in that expression that she can’t put her finger on. Still, she reaches into her cloak and takes out an apple to hand to the girl, who is startled into accepting it and then promptly vanishes into the crowd, snapped out of her reverie.

She has come so far from when she was just a child being carried on the back of the dragon who promised to raise her. Resolve courses through her, and suddenly she feels the need to be back at Time’s side. It is not a complicated magic for her to disappear from the market, for her to follow the strongest connection she has back to its source, and then reappear next to Time as if she had taken but a single step forward.

Time acknowledges her as soon as she arrives, recognizing her resolve. So this is where we make our stand, he says.

She breathes. They have watched too many cities be sucked into this never ending war already. She supposes it was only a matter of time until one of them caved on their promise to remain neutral, but she is still surprised it is her.

"Surely you have wanted this for longer than me," she says.

I wanted to wait until you were ready, Time replies.

“Thank you. I am ready now, I think, although it feels strange to say it so plainly.”

Time laughs, a deep chuckle that has been rare to hear these days. Indeed it does.

She is sure that as soon as they make their presence known it will call forth either Ambition or Reverence, whoever’s champion reaches this city first.

It has been a long time since us dragons have fought seriously, Time says. I do not look forward to it.

It is her turn to laugh now. “Speak for yourself. I have been itching to wipe that smirk off Ambition’s face since the day I met him.”

Time smiles. With everything important said, the conversation carries lightly over their laughter as they let the stress of the past years fade in the face of their resolution. Long into the night they continue to talk, and when they rise the next day they begin to make preparations for war.

:::

She struggles to stay standing as the adrenaline of the battle slowly fades.

They won. The city remains and she was able to kill Ambition’s champion, sending the dragon himself running in the end. The battle stretched on for days, taxing her more than any of her previous fights had. Ambition’s champion hid at the back of his army until Ambition himself arrived, but even with his dragon’s help he fell quickly to her claws. What she is most proud of is that she had been able to hold her ground in her fight with Ambition himself, and with the help of Time had been able to drive him away.

She turns to Time and is about to suggest that they leave the battlefield when he suddenly collapses. She rushes over to him.

“What is wrong?” she asks, searching his body for an injury. Time doesn’t answer her, lying still except for his shallow breathing. Eventually, she finds the injury: a gash on his side, under his wing. The euphoria of her victory evaporates as she traces it down, and down. How did she miss this earlier?

Magic dances in her hand as she runs it over Time’s wound trying to heal him, but when she takes it away the wound remains. It is hard to injure a dragon, but because of that it is almost impossible to heal one. She leaves Time’s side and walks around to his head so she can talk to him face to face. His eyes are closed, but she can tell that he is still listening. She reaches to cradle his snout, and lets their connection deepen and their heartbeats become one. The deeper she makes their connection, the clearer it becomes to her that he will not make it.

She buries the emotions that threaten to overwhelm her, because now there is a choice she needs to make. To let Time die peacefully, or to kill him herself and give them both a small hope of salvation—that she could inherit the power that he has left to pass on.

"Do you regret choosing me?”

Time’s eyes open slowly, and his head shifts in her lap. He stares at her, and a last look of understanding passes between them.

Not for a second, Time says to her.

She smiles sadly. Setting Time’s head down, she goes back to his side and takes out the daggers she had sheathed. She forces herself not to pause as she cuts into his chest and rips out his heart, letting the ichor ooze between her fingers as she ends Time’s life.

She cries then, obnoxiously loudly and messily, as she holds Time’s heart in her hands and consumes it. She will kill Ambition. She will kill Reverence. The humans can sort themselves out afterwards, they always do, but she will right the wrongs that she and Time started.

She wishes she was not alone. That she could go back to when it was just her and her dragon curled around her. But Time cannot stop, and so she continues forward.