The Reverie of Time

“So, with Ahzef now somewhere over yonder,” Brendan snickered, “I think it’s time we address the me and you.”

His back was turned, but Aria could tell something was eating at his mind, despite the lighthearted nature of his verbiage. Before she could ask what was bothering him, he stole her breath with what he said next.

“When they took you away, I was so hurt. Like, I dropped everything, right then and there. I used to love wandering the gardens behind the house in the afternoon sun but, after that day, it was as if the flowers reflected just how dead I felt inside. The next day, when I walked out into the garden, all of the flowers had wilted, and the sun had hidden behind a blanket of dark clouds. It was a total one-eighty, and I was so torn up.”

He ran his hands through his hair, pushing his sand-ridden bangs out of his eyes. There was no telling what kind of battle awaited him, much less if Aria’s newfound confidence would be enough to shore up a win, and that scared him. Reliving their date night was a reverie he never could have imagined: the way her soft hands warmed his, the subtle way her eyebrows rose when she saw something she liked, the way she could stare at a menu for hours… the way she cried when they remembered each other again, sitting on the evening-sun-warmed railroad tracks as he buried his fingers in the soft earth… When he followed her through the tumultuous days of her past, an overwhelming sense of guilt withered his heart like wilted flower petals.

Aria wanted her revenge, and he knew that, but could he really let her fight when it wasn’t just their love that was on the line? What happened if Ahzef overpowered them? Forced Aria to submit to his insidious demands again? He shook his head. Instead of worrying about the future, he knew he needed to focus his attention on the present. If he let Ahzef have his way, it wouldn’t just be Aria’s life that teetered, swaying back and forth to the precarious tune of the devils’ insidious game. Aria had entrusted her heart to him, and it was time he placed the same trust in her.

“Every time I look into your eyes,” he said, “I imagine the two of us, back at the mall that rainy night, but it also reminds me of a past that I’m ashamed of. When you walked out of the doors after dinner, the way your hair bounced to every footstep, the way you’d turn your head just enough to see me out of the corner of your eye…” He left one hand in his hair, allowing the other to fall at his side. “I had so much I wanted to tell you. I used to wake up in the morning and rot in bed because I didn’t have a reason to get up. When you entered my life again, after all of those years, my whole world filled with color, replacing the monotony of the same, grey days that I just couldn’t fucking get away from.”

Aria moved to grab his free hand, gently holding it between hers. His words were a sucker-punch, leaving her speechless as he recounted the past. She hated herself for allowing him to think he was the problem when, as much as she hated to admit it, it was probably enshrined in some secret manifest somewhere that dictated her fate that night. Whatever the case, the pain inside her heart made her feel awful, like someone who preyed on the empathy of others with no remorse. He blamed himself for her misfortune, but how could he shoulder the blame? The sudden death of her parents in the car accident and upheaval of her entire life up to that point wasn’t his fault, and she knew she needed to make sure he understood that, but how would she convince him? Could she? If nothing else, she knew she had to try and ease his pain, even if only a little.

“I know exactly how you feel,” she soothed, “but don’t blame yourself for what happened that night, after we said bye. Your heart is frustrated when it shouldn’t be. When the drunk driver swerved into our car, it was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure, we could have walked the mall after we ate or spent thirty more seconds ordering food but… the past is what makes us who we are.” She tightened her grasp. “Just because you had more to say and didn’t doesn’t mean you get to blame yourself for my pill bottles, the friends who abandoned me, or my stupidity for ever believing I could rewrite my past to change what happened.”

A dry wind skirted across the desert floor, sending plumes of sand high into the sky as the sun beat down with ferocious intensity. Aside from the playful sand, it was a peaceful, quiet afternoon. The clouds had dissipated, leaving an empty sky, and the endless sea of sand dunes seemed eager for someone to disturb their pristine, wind-shaped slopes.

“The world was cruel to both of us, Brendan,” she said, “but you can’t let your regrets define who you are. What if I’d just kept taking the pills, thinking they made me feel better? When I met Millee in the library bathroom that day, I knew I had to stop hating myself so much. Sometimes, we have to do things we don’t like now so we can fix ourselves later.”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I’m frustrated with myself for just walking away. I don’t know how you’re so calm about this when you were the one who got manipulated by Ahzef, all because I failed to be there when you needed me the most.”

“Brendan, don’t get it twisted—I adore you. Maybe we’re all just puppets on some silly, invisible string, or maybe it’s written in some prophecy or whatever somewhere that we don’t even make it to tomorrow.” A strange, misshapen blob suddenly appeared on the horizon, sidetracking the conversation. “Before we get any further, though,” she said, pointing, “tell me I’m not crazy.”

A large shadow had begun to roll across the sand dunes like a cloud, washing over the land as it marched on. Without warning, the temperature plummeted, turning the lofted grains of sand into diamond dust, sparkling and encased in frost as they slowly fell back into the same brown dunes the wind had originally lifted them from. Seconds later, the sun vanished, plunging the desert into darkness aside from the sudden appearance of a full moon. Without warning, the ground began to shake, a chromatic dance ensuing as the crystalline sands vibrated in sync with the low, thunderous rumble.

“Thought I’d bought us a little more time than that,” Brendan grumbled. “Now, the real fight begins, Ahzef. Sure hope you’re ready because now, it’s my turn to play.” He wished there was more time to fully explain himself and his feelings, but time was a luxury offered only to the victorious. “We decide the fate of everyone else here. Win or lose…”

A longbow slung itself across his back, gleaming in the pale moonlight as it’s ruby and amethyst-encrusted make reflected his burning displeasure for the king of the devils: the soothing amethyst reflected the calm eye of the raging storm that fueled his passion for Aria; the enamored ruby reflected the reignited flames of a burning fury that fueled his detestation for Ahzef and everything he’d forced upon Aria.

The air vibrated as he swung the bow around to his front, nocking an arrow in its shelf where it sat, suspended in midair. Unexpectedly, cerise flames curled their way around the nock, down the shaft, and onto the arrowhead itself, but they didn’t seem to bother him, nor did they seem to emit heat. Instead, as they enveloped the arrowhead, they burst into brilliant lavender, transforming the desert into a regal battlefield. The sand became an amethyst-colored wonderment as the sky seemed to bleed, the bow’s ruby-refracted radiance and desert’s crystalline particles working in tandem.

Aria watched as the flames crept up Brendan’s arm, but it wasn’t the flames that mystified her—it was the way his mana had amassed around a single point… the arrowhead. Focusing mana around anything took skill, but something as small as the arrowhead was next-level mastery. She recalled her battle with Lucifero, rescuing Lacia from the clutches of her nightmare. It had taken everything just to condense the tiny, yet explosive, ball of mana she had conjured, but her adrenaline had also been working overtime to compensate for the strain it put on her body. After pulling them from the nightmare, when they made it back to reality, she’d almost collapsed that very instant. Lucifero was only the third-ranked—Ahzef was the king, and that frightened her.

“But this time is different,” she said to herself. “His mana is even more condensed than what I was able to achieve. I’ve never seen him fight before but… Like, he’s going to outdo me, and this is supposed to be my revenge.” The cold air nipped at her exposed skin, forcing a chill deep into her bones. She inhaled sharply. “Brendan, try not to incinerate him before I get the chance to pound him into the dirt, okay? You’re footing the bill for my next shopping spree as punishment if you don’t hold back a bit, you hear me?”

He chuckled, allowing his muscles to loosen up a bit. “Knowing you, I’d be broke in under an hour. I don’t know, but bankruptcy sounds like it could be a lot more miserable than what Ahzef has planned,” he joked. “If this shot doesn’t turn him into ashes, the rest of the fight is yours. But,” he cautioned, “if you need help, say something.” He turned his head to look at her, furrowed eyebrows and aslant frown doing more to convey his seriousness than his words could manage. “If he hurts you in any way…”

“If Ahzef can manage to lay a hand on me, you mean. The opening shot is yours, so don’t miss, ‘k?” she winked. “Shoot your shot, silly boy.”

Brendan tightened his grip on the bow, fingers tensing, knuckles whitening, as he pulled the string back once more. The flames had now crawled past his wrist, past his forearm and, finally, his shoulder. Embers embellished his face in a ghastly, regal hue, almost as if he’d put on a mask for some kind of strange Halloween party. Blinking, Aria swore she could see the faint resemblance of a face or two as she stared into the mystifying flames.

Juxtaposed between the fleeting moonlight and the regal flames, a human figure emerged from the fading light of the horizon, masked in silhouettes and haunting, slithering shadows—just one more thing she had to deal with. She had no doubt it was Ahzef, finally equipped to reap her life for her betrayal and Brendan’s for his lovestruck persistence—persistence to defend the girl he loved, no matter the cost.

“Aria,” he said, voice calm but steely, “if I miss or this shot doesn’t at least wound him, I need you to be ready with a follow-up of some sort. We have to keep him here until Lacia and Millee are through with their fights. If we fall…” He pulled the string back even further as the flames grew brighter. “If we fall, that’s it. No one is coming to save us.”

Aria swallowed nervously. “I’m aware. However, I think I might have something that will at least give us a chance…” Her words shot from her mouth, outpacing her lungs’ ability to replenish their oxygen. “It’s kind of been a while, but I met this dragon, or at least I think it was a dragon, named Chronyu. I can’t fully comprehend how I even got there but, just before he died, he gave me this power… some control over time. I haven’t quite figured out how it works yet, but…” She took a deep breath, trying not to pass out from lack of oxygen. “We have a chance, Brendan.” She moved her hand over her heart, closing her eyes as she calmed her nerves. “I’ll be ready the moment your arrow hits, so don’t miss.”

She watched as Brendan released his hold on the bowstring, arrow sailing through the air faster than she could even think, yet time itself seemed to crawl. Everything seemed to move like a sequence of still-frames that only played when someone scrubbed the timeline of some mysterious video editing software. Frame by frame, reality played out before her: the arrow hung in the air, still enveloped in flames, Brendan’s arm was still falling back to his side, and the crystalline sand rained back into the ground, rejoining its friends in the dunes.

She turned her attention to Ahzef, still marching across the desert, inch by inch, his shadows curling around him like wisps of smoke. For a moment, she thought she could even see the makings of a wicked grin, white teeth slowly emerging from the darkness that shrouded his form. She dreaded to think what made him so giddy.

“Still though… What’s even happening right now? Why is everything so… slow?” Her first thought was that the mention of Chronyu’s power had somehow activated the power-gift he’d imparted to her, but that didn’t seem right. “Is this Ahzef’s power, then?” She shook her head. “Can’t be if I’m the only one still able to move around like normal. He wouldn’t sabotage himself with his own power.”

Suddenly, the bracelet on her wrist began to glow, the sky-blue stones adding to the colorful mixture. She turned her head away, their ferocious luminosity painting the desert in a plum-colored hue. The bracelet itself hadn’t moved from its position on her wrist—the sudden, blinding glow from its stones, however, seemed to run laps around her wrist, whirling around like a child’s toy as they bounced from every surface, cloud, and dust particle they could find.

Her eyes ventured out into the desert, her innate curiosity winning the battle between the strange time discrepancies and the sudden illumination of her bracelet, the bracelet she’d all but forgotten about up until now. It seemed anything already on her person was unaffected by the lagging time, though it didn’t make the cerulean lights display feel any less alive. The lights shot from the stones in all directions, dancing atop the sand like an electric sprite as they danced and leapt about in a dazzling display of acrobatics. Some of the sprites leaped into each other, congealing into a new, larger sprite while others soared through the air unabated like paper airplanes—some even leapt from the sand dunes in a manner more akin to that of leaping fish.

A child-like giggle rushed into her ears as if it were eager to play with her, its innocence free-spirited and unhindered by the weight of adult responsibilities. For a moment, it lifted the weight from her heart, soothing the abject fear that had begun to amass inside. It was frivolous with excitement, almost tantalizingly so as the laughter continued. At first, she hated it—the way it seemed to mock her, begging her to come and play, yet it had also kind of grown on her.

“Little sprites,” she said, stooping to her knees, “what is it you’re doing here? What… do you want from me?”

“Come and play with us, Aria,” they replied. “Play with us and learn how to use us!”

“Learn how to use you…? I don’t think I follow.”

“We’ll show you,” they shouted in unison.

Just then, the sprites merged with the vibrant desert floor, devouring the regal refractions from Brendan’s bow and the cerise flames that embellished his arm and still-airborne arrow. The desert erupted into violet as color sprouted from beneath the sand, a waterfall of vibrant color. It was mesmerizing: the desert was awash with the sudden appearance of violet that only seemed to gush more the longer it spewed, sparkling under the moonlit sky like pristine amethysts. Happily, the desert shared some of its color with the sky, transforming the atmosphere into a similar, but slightly more muted, violet hue.

As the sky sported its newfound color, the sand began to shimmer, but not with the violet-crystalline sparkle already filling the desert floor. Strangely, the orangish-brown hues, from before the sudden rush of violet, reemerged as it overtook the already gushing color. A moment later, the desert had become shrouded in a golden blanket, overpowering the regal purples just enough to create a perfect, complimentary blend. Waves of gold rolled across the dunes, drowning the crawl of Ahzef’s murky shadows out in the shimmering golden luster thanks to the moon’s own soft glow, just enough to contribute to the chromatic concert.

Aria knelt down, scooping the sand into her hands, but she was surprised to find that the sand wasn’t sand at all; rather, the fine particulates had been transmuted into golden, grain-like beads, light enough to be carried away by a gentle breeze, yet just heavy enough it was able to take on an identity of its own. Their texture was more immaculate than silk and smoother than the surface of water. The beads slipped through her fingers grain by golden grain. She took a breath, blowing into her hands, a golden cloud scattering into the air before her as it caught the cerise refraction of Brendan’s flames.

The colors reminded her of the clock she used to have at her parents’ house, before the accident; it was mostly plastic on the outside, painted a marvelous gold, but the cerise hands had fascinated her, stuck at 2:06—at least until she replaced the batteries later that afternoon before pinning her newest knick-knack to the lavender-colored wall above her bed. Years later, she’d learn the significance of the time, specifically the numbers: two and six symbolized love. Now that she was older, and understood the symbolism better, she couldn’t help but feel as if the current moment had been destined, a moment in time woven into the fabric of reality just for her. If she could check the time now, would it also be 2:06?

She wiggled her toes, watching as they reacted to her nerve impulses, squirming around inside the inky fabric of her thigh-highs. For years, she felt like she was drowning inside the same void, one that devoured the light she so desperately sought as it left darkness in its wake; she squirmed until she was finally free—free from the daily crumbling walls of her mind. Each sunrise fueled the insatiable appetite of her demons as they lined up, taking turns turning her already broken walls to dust. Every day felt the same, an endless loop of déjà vu that greeted her every time she opened her eyes, wishing she could just disappear into the same shadows that lurked in the corners, monitored her every move.

“Maybe you are just a pair of tights, and maybe my toes are nothing more than just pieces of flesh inside a dark prison. Kind of like me… Like I was.” She walked her fingers over her feet, feeling every toe. “But if I hadn’t been through so much hell, would I have met such wonderful people? Would I have remembered my friends and the people who love me for me? I don’t know… Maybe I’m weird for comparing my life to a pair of tights, but it’s the truth…”

She looked up, again, surprised to see that, this time, instead of the desert, the sprites had undergone some kind of mystifying transformation. Instead of the sonorous, electric-blue entities that had emerged from her bracelet, she found herself staring at a sky full of jellyfish; while she hadn’t expected jellyfish, much less airborne jellyfish, to begin with, she also hadn’t expected them to be multi-colored: their bells stole the violet hues that painted the sky as their tentacles harbored the same crimson refraction as the cerise flames that emblazoned Brendan’s bow.

“You see, Aria,” the voices of the sprites came, “you just have to be like the jellyfish. Feel the ebb and flow of time like the waves on the ocean.”

“…How do I do that, exactly?”

“The same way you feel the magic in the air around you. Temporal mandates are woven into everything. If you can see them, you can rewrite them.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Wait! Does that mean…?” A solemn look crossed her face. She shook her head, knowing better than to play with the laws that governed death. “No… Even if I could do that, it would be wrong… No one should play with life, much less death.”

“When you control the mandates, you conduct your own timeless performance for all to see—dead or alive. Magic sensitivity is only one layer of many that you can tune, time included. Think, Aria,” they echoed. “When you want to play another melody, do you play it in the same key as the last, or do you change keys?”

“I, uh… Well… I’d probably change keys, but the new key would depend on how I’m feeling.”

“You don’t have to change keys, silly girl,” the voices giggled. “We didn’t say you had to play a different melody,” the jellyfish-sprites emphasized. “You are free to choose the way in which you see fit to conduct your own symphony, but keep in mind… Temporal mandates are the same way. They require you to tune your magic sensitivity to see them in the same way you tune an instrument’s strings to guide its sound.”

“Ah… I think I understand! There are different kinds of temporal mandates, like music notes. If I tune the strings of a violin, I can play a different pitch which then affects the key. By tuning my sensitivity to magic, I can see different temporal mandates like the notes on a sheet of music.” She rose to her feet, re-tightening her sandal straps around her ankles. “So, to do that, I should think about the fine tuners of my magic, like a violin…”

She closed her eyes, allowing herself to feel the magic in the air around her: pockets of warm air currents that ebbed and flowed, even in the stillness. The regular cacophony of thoughts that riddled her mind had quieted; she stimulated her vagus nerve, vying for complete calm. As her body entered a hypersensitive state, a new sensation greeted her: chronolysis.

The facets of her identity began to unravel, caught in fragments of time and liminal space. Days of the past surrounded her in a cocoon of emotional resonance, musings of halcyon days where the world felt at peace, at rest. She went deeper, grasping for something that came from nothing, something that was tangible yet intangible. As she felt her body ease further, time began to march to the beat of her heart… and the disharmony of the final piece to her fragmented past that still lingered like the reverberation of a music note, its discordant key waiting for someone to tune its strings.