The Butler and The Hourglass

The village breathes like a wounded animal: steady, but shallow. Lanterns line the patched streets, shadows stretching long across the dirt. The laughter of children comes back in fits and starts; too loud at first, then shrinking, as if even joy is afraid of breaking something fragile.

I walk slower than usual, my hand wrapped around the pen. It doesn’t glow now, doesn’t hum or pulse, but it’s there, my reminder that I’m still here. That I’m still Aya. My legs shake anyway, like I borrowed them from someone stronger and forgot to return them.

Dalylah finds me before I reach the square. Her armor is scuffed, her braid loose, but her chin is high. It takes her a second to say it, like the words catch on old barbed wire in her throat.

“I was wrong.”

I blink.

“About what? You’ll have to narrow it down.”

Her jaw tightens, but she doesn’t look away.

“About you. I thought you were just… fragile. Dangerous. But you didn’t run. You kept standing when even I…” She cuts herself off. Breathes. “I owe you an apology.”

I’m too tired to gloat. So I just nod.

“Accepted.”

That’s when Yuki joins us, slipping out of the shadows like she belongs to them. Her bow is still strung, though the village is quiet. Always ready. Always watching. She stops beside me and crosses her arms, her gaze flicking between me and Dalylah.

“You know what gets me?” Yuki says, and her voice has that clipped sharpness that hides something softer underneath. “Not that you doubted her. Everyone doubts. Everyone screws up. What pisses me off is how much energy you waste fighting the wrong person.”

Dalylah bristles.

“I wasn’t…!”

“Yes, you were.” Yuki cuts in, calm but merciless. “Every time you looked at Aya, you saw an enemy instead of an ally. And while you were doing that, she was saving your people. Our people. So tell me, Dals, are you going to keep picking fights inside the trench, or are you going to stand with us before the next wave hits? Because we could really use your help.”

The air hangs heavy. Dalylah’s hand flexes against her sword hilt, then falls away. Her mouth opens, closes, then opens again.

“…I’ll stand.”

“Good.” Yuki exhales, softer this time. She doesn’t smile, but her eyes linger on both of us, steady as a drawn bowstring. “Because I don’t have patience for war on two fronts. Not with him out there.”

I look between the two of them, my chest lighter than it’s been in days. For once, it feels like we’re not three broken pieces grinding against each other. For once, the cracks line up.

I sigh, relieved we understood each other, and start to walk back to my library. Both Yuki and Dalylah follow me, talking in between themselves. I eye them, confused, but let them come with me.

The library doesn’t creak like wood as we enter. It groans like marble under strain, like some cathedral too ancient to stand. The light from the torches shivers. The shelves climb higher and higher, tilting until they look like the ribs of a beast.

Clocks appear where there should be blank wall - hundreds, no, thousands of them, each ticking to its own rhythm. Noon. Midnight. Thirteen o’clock. Some strike seconds out of order, some refuse to move. The sound overlaps until it becomes its own storm.

Dalylah stops with her hand already on her sword, eyes sharp, posture coiled.

Yuki moves beside her, bow in hand, expression calculating.

“Not Aya’s usual mood lighting.” She mutters. I snort.

And then, the air smooths. A man materializes from the shadows with the composure of someone arriving fashionably late to a dinner party. His suit is immaculate, not a wrinkle to be found, and a leather-bound ledger rests under one arm. His skin is pale, his eyes deep-set, with the faint tiredness of someone who has been working the same shift since the dawn of time.

The God of Death.

He bows low, gloved hand across his chest.

“Ladies. My apologies. Records were… Out of date.”

“Seriously, did you all tie her up somewhere so you could storm her domain?” I ask, incredulous. Death laughs before setting his book down.

The ledger flips open. My stomach turns when I see my own name, neat and cruel, next to a line of numbers I know too well: a death date. Mine - the exact date I laid on bed and came here. He doesn’t hesitate. Just draws a crisp black line through it, the way you’d void a receipt.

“A reprieve.” he says, calm as you please, but I can see the twinkle in his eyes. “More paperwork for me, more time for you. Please try not to squander it.”

Dalylah takes half a step forward, blade half-drawn, knowing what’s happening from my memories, but not really believing herself.

“So she wasn’t supposed to be alive? That’s what you’re saying?”

Before he can answer, all the clocks stop. Utter silence, so complete it’s almost a pressure. Then they start again in unison, the tick tock a thunderous heartbeat.

The floor shakes.

And he arrives.

A giant. A man carved out of inevitability itself. Hair and beard long, white threaded with gray, eyes glowing like sand in hourglasses mid-turn. His body is vast, built like the kind of warrior who lifted mountains instead of weights. He leans on a staff taller than I am, capped with a clock face that ticks in slow, deliberate beats.

But when he looks at us, the heaviness eases. His presence isn’t crushing. It’s grounding. Like the kind of grandfather who can pick up the whole house if it catches fire - and would, just to save you.

The God of Time.

His voice rolls like bells over water.

“Time does not stop. Not for me. Not for you. But… Some learn to bend it, just enough to breathe.”

Dalylah straightens, sword at her side, chin high.

“So what? She’s a mistake? A glitch you tolerate?”

Death makes a sound like a sigh disguised as a chuckle.

“Oh, all of you are mistakes. None of you should be standing here. Yet here you are, wasting my ink. A nuisance, yes… But one worth noting.”

Yuki shifts her grip on her bow, steady as iron.

“We’re alive because we choose to fight. That isn’t your charity, your victory. That’s ours..”

Time regards her, unblinking. He doesn’t smile, but something like approval hums in the air.

“Precision.” he says, voice slow, deliberate. “Clarity. Threads like yours resist the years.”

Dalylah bristles, glaring between the two towering figures.

“You talk like we’re just threads to weave, mistakes to catalog. But we’re people.”

For the first time, Time bends down, lowering until his vast form is nearly level with her. His eyes glow like sand sliding, but his tone is steady, almost fond.

“Child… All people are threads. Some break quickly. Some last longer. But a strong thread can carry more than its share of the cloth. That is no small thing.”

Dalylah swallows hard, but doesn’t back down.

Death is the first to move. He closes his ledger with a snap soft as a sigh, then fixes those hollow eyes on me. There’s no cruelty there, no pity either. Just… Assessment. Like a doctor who has seen this same wound a thousand times, but still bothers to check the pulse.

“You are not a mistake, girl.” His tone is level, but the weight lands all the same. “You are an exception. And exceptions,” he adds, lips curling in the faintest ghost of a smile, “Are the cracks that undo whole systems.”

My throat tightens. I should be grateful. Instead, all I can think is how strange it feels to have Death himself tell me I matter. Like the universe just graded my existence and scribbled an asterisk next to it. I wonder if there will be a footnote too.

Time shifts beside him, the clocks on his staff ticking in unison now, a rhythm that steadies the air. His gaze slides from me to Dalylah, who still hasn’t lowered her blade. The reflection of those hourglass eyes catches in her steel.

“The fire of imperfection…” he rumbles, voice warm and slow, “Burns hotter than perfection ever could. You do not yet see it… But you will.”

Dalylah’s jaw locks, defiance in every line of her shoulders. But there’s something else in her eyes, too. A flicker of doubt. Or recognition. I can’t tell which.

And then Time turns, looking toward Yuki. His stare lingers, patient but unyielding. He doesn’t speak immediately, as if letting the silence measure her instead of words. Finally:

“Clarity sharpens. Precision endures. Even when years grind stone to dust, some blades do not dull.”

Yuki doesn’t flinch, doesn’t drop her gaze. If anything, she lifts her chin.

“Then I’ll make sure mine doesn’t.” She replies, cool as a promise.

The air shifts again. Not hostile. Not tender. Just… Charged. Like all three of us are standing trial in front of forces that neither bless nor curse lightly.

And for the first time, I realize: they’re not only looking at me. They’re weighing all of us.

Then, it happens.

No thunderclap. No burst of light. The Gods simply… Fold away, as if they were always printed between the lines and someone has now turned the page.

The clocks stop mid tick, pendulums frozen. The smell of wilted flowers fades. The marble sheen dulls, wood returning to wood, paper to paper. My library - now our library, I guess - exhales back into itself, quiet and familiar.

I don’t. My hand is still clenched tight around the pen. But it doesn’t feel like dead weight dragging me down. It feels like a grip. Like certainty.

Dalylah’s blade lowers by inches, the steel catching the last ghost of golden light before winking out. She glances at Yuki. Yuki meets her stare. Neither speaks, but in that silence I can read it clearly: they both understood. They were seen. Measured. Not discarded.

The air settles. Pages flutter shut. My pulse doesn’t.

And in the quiet that follows, one sentence lingers in my head, unshakable, branded like ink that refuses to fade:

Even exceptions must be recorded.