Borrowed Time

A silence blanketed the workshop, interrupted by loud clangs of tools striking. The party had found Ferdinand to be quite chatty as they traveled and collected the materials. However, seriousness was clear on his face as he set down his load and asked everyone to leave him in peace.

An artist crafts his masterpieces in isolation, away from distractions and people looking on with curious eyes – that was the impression they got as he went to the back to invent the perfect weapon.

Seeing as they had time to spare while he worked, Gideon and Roze took a break in the marketplace of the city. Roze could see the exhaustion on Gideon’s face. He had continued with his trickery, managing to pay his weapon fee by making a series of instant trips back and forth in frozen time. Roze and Milipitas helped deflect Ferdinand’s attention as to the actual method, but Gideon’s promise to deliver satisfied him. After a romp around the stalls, Gideon had grabbed his fill of good food and was slouched on a bench with an empty skewer between his teeth.

Roze was listless as she sat beside him, wondering if she should be doing something more useful with her time. She brought out her wand and examined it, pondering about the new approach she used for her spells.

“We just came back from a side quest, and you’re already thinking of grinding again? That work ethic of yours is admirable. It gives me a little motivation not to be a slacker.”

Roze looked over at Gideon, who had a hand extended to her. His eyes said for them to go out and do a little experimenting in the wild. They had a few days before Ferdinand would finish crafting the weapon, but Roze looked around the rooftops.

“Pita-chan will be fine. She’ll follow along or do whatever a hunter does. She’s used to going on trips alone. Despite looking so petite, she’s older than both of us combined and then some. The wonders of an elvish lifespan.”

Roze was no stranger to solitary trips. She often went on them to forage for ingredients. However, she typically carried a homemade monster deterrent to avoid any conflict, while keeping an eye on her surroundings. That changed with Gideon traveling with her. He took them out the moment they appeared, leaving Roze no need to even react.

That needed to change. If she was ever going to become the mage that Gideon needed to break the curse, she had to learn more. Taking his hand, they headed out of the city for some practice.

v

“There, there, focus on disrupting the enemy. The best advantage you have is by stretching the two extremes.”

Gideon circled around an orc, a strong opponent for normal people but easily slow enough to cast magic upon if distracted. He had drawn the monster’s attention while Roze aimed with her spells.

“Tardis!”

The movement of the orc went to a crawl as Gideon relaxed and walked over, pointing down at its feet with a drumstick.

“Cast it as small as you can. And then release the other spell right as it hits.”

“Accelerare!”

In the next moment, the orc tripped and stumbled, literally running straight into the grass at high speed. Going from slow acting to immediate acceleration had completely thrown off its judgement, causing the monster to self-inflict damage.

With it down and injured, Roze finished it off by hurling a rock that was accelerated, smashing its head in.

Gideon flashed her a thumbs up for the successful kill.

He was surprisingly a good teacher, pointing out different ways that she could use her spells in sequence. She had never considered rapid-firing her magic in such a manner.

Every living thing had a natural perception of time. Day and night routines existed, and shifts in the seasons were gradually acclimated. A sudden disruption in the flow of time would cause an increased likelihood of poor judgment and unintended results.

Gideon was unfortunately all too familiar with his former boss coming up to his desk, just to tell him plans had changed. A panic ensued as he tried to right the course, given the new information, and often, he would turn in something subpar. It was quite different from the livelihood of an upstart apothecary. However, Roze had gone through her own share of medical emergencies, requiring quick wit and ad hoc decisions, some that would have gone better if she had been given more time.

“Looks like you have the timing down. I feel better about not expecting friendly fire, sending me wayside every few seconds.”

Gideon had been struck by accident a few times due to poor aim, bouncing him off the physically sturdier orc before him. Fortunately, the monster was too stupid to react to such blunders.

“I never asked to be treated like a princess,” Roze complained. She snuck an Accelerare in as Gideon walked away from her. She watched as his feet raced forward, ahead of his body and mind. But as it looked like he was going to fall, he disappeared and reappeared holding her hand.

“Where I come from, I’m told that every girl likes to be treated like a princess.”

Roze’s face scrunched up at that, particularly since he was making fun of her. She gave him a few light whacks on the head with her wand, which he played off with exaggeration.

“Maybe you should have just taught me properly to begin with, instead of hiding what you know until now?”

Gideon wagged his finger at her. “No, no. It’s like a proper skill unlock. Unless you figure it out yourself, it’s not my role to reveal your capabilities. You won’t grow as a mage otherwise.”

His casual demeanor clashed at times with her more serious personality. Yet, she couldn’t help but fall into his rhythm because of it. They had been traveling for several weeks, but there was a certain closeness that made that seem irrelevant.

“Shouldn’t we head back and check up on Ferdinand?” Roze asked.

Several days of camping out had passed as she grew more comfortable at using her magic in proper combat. It was far different from her makeshift applications before. Vague descriptions of magic learned through textbooks had only gotten her so far.

“Let’s go. I’m eager to see what Ferdy has cooked up for me. Well, I already know it’s going to be great, but seeing it every time, all shiny and new, doesn’t get old.”

Gideon sometimes slipped about his previous cycles. It stoked the natural curiosity Roze had for information. While she agreed that being given the answers would stunt her potential, she couldn’t help but be drawn to those possibilities.

“How lucky, being able to see your path forward ahead of time. Particularly since you have such high hopes for me.”

“It’s not always the case.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Every cycle has the possibility of something different happening. Arriving at a different time, meeting different people, making a different choice – I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve failed to convince Ferdy to join us.”

“With such a colorful personality, I wonder why,” Roze teased.

Gideon simply laughed in response.

“I’ve been thrown out of his shop several times. Once, he even turned the entire kingdom on me. Timing is everything when it comes to people, and not until I could experience the differences between choices could I see how delicate that balance is.”

“Just what in the world did you do to make an enemy out of him?”

“I told him I could stop time at will.”

Roze felt a chill. That was completely different from what she believed of the blacksmith. Rather than antagonize, he had seemed genuinely curious about Gideon’s ability. However, it had been disguised as highly destructive striking power before the secret spilled.

“As I said, timing is everything. The worst possible outcome happened when I told him upfront, before he knew much at all about me. As the son of the royal blacksmith, what do you think his first thought was, given that I was asking him for a special weapon?”

“That you would be impossible to stop should you desire to take down someone.”

Gideon nodded with a sigh.

“Kingslayer. I was dubbed as such in that cycle. My careless attempts to convince people that I meant no harm afterward were met with skepticism. I mean, if I were really such a bad person, then there would be no way of finding that out if I was serious. But that didn’t stop the rumors and bounty hunters from going after me anyway. Having no one to believe in you is the harshest way to live. That’s why I came straight to you first.”

Roze had been left at an orphanage, building up a life on her own after parting from that place. While she needed to interact with people to earn money, there was never any need to get close to anyone. Holding a secret that she knew Time magic ensured that keeping people out of her business was first on her mind.

Not to mention, she did not want to recall what could have happened to her if Gideon hadn’t shown up when he did.

“Just like with Ferdy, I didn’t always know about you, Roze. But once I did, once I saw who you were, well… I decided that I couldn’t live in this world without finding you first.”

Roze felt a blush creep onto her face. The unexpected candor from him had caught her off guard. But when she turned to face him again, he had returned to being a goofball like normal, drumming a beat with his sticks. It was clear that his head was full of anticipation of his new weapon, oblivious to how his last statement could be interpreted. The moment seemed to pass like a dream.

Roze sighed. Their journey would only last until they reached Clockenspiel and figured out how to stop the countdown that sends Gideon back in time. Given how he was still journeying, it implied that their efforts before had been unsuccessful. She was afraid to ask where they felt short.

Rather, she simply wanted to enjoy the moments of travel with everyone, knowing that her fate had always been on borrowed time to begin with.