Chapter 368

He Who the Time Caresses

Yuun was sipping wine in silence, woven within the shadowy tendrils of reality. His eyes peered beyond the thin walls and into a tiny corner of the cosmos, landing upon a small world in the middle of nowhere, one woefully lagging behind, slowly clunking forward, awkwardly stumbling upon the universal truths.

He watched them struggle, the weave of time clouding the imagery the cosmos saw. Though his faith was still lacking, he had just enough inspiration to give it one last attempt. The Last Clockmaker... it was a wasted title, on someone like him. He hated time--despised it. Thought it useless. It was the greatest thief of them all, the time. It stole and stole, and it never gave back. Never.

It was cold and uncaring, an unfeeling thing that never lived and never died. It was the permanence of it, Yuun knew. Everyone hated the time, gods and mortals alike, and because of it... they hated him. And they hated those who came before him. For they were the Clockmakers, the one of their kind, the ilk that even the One smiled upon.

The time... the time took favor with his bloodline, for some reason. It took a liking to one of his ancestors and bled into them the tiny traces. There can only ever be seven, and they can never age, and they can never die... unless by their own will. And by the will of another.

And he was the last--the last of the Clockmakers, the last of his people. There can never be another--he made sure of that. The wisdom of the hourglass would die with him, and the cosmos would tremble at the latching tether of time. For most of his life, he despised it all--the Time was what gave his bloodline their strength... but also what doomed them.

Few were comfortable living next to an immortal, someone unbothered, someone who could bend the shape of nothing that nobody else could even see... and create miracles. They would trap boys and girls inside an invisible bubbles--and a second later, they would burst out grown men bordering on the strength of a Divine.

But there was a caveat, as always, with things that broke the laws of creation--that time... had to come from somewhere. It did not exist in some vacuum, in some bubble, waiting to be tapped by his blood. They took time from others, people and things and all of the in-between.

And they feared... they feared that truth. No one should have command over time--not even the One. And yet... the Clockmakers they did. They even built a tower that depicted exactly how much time they would use. A decade. A century. Millions and billions and even trillions of years. Entire worlds were undone by the flick of the Clockmaker’s finger.

However, no one from his family used the Clock selfishly. They were all humble hermits who had but a crate of wine and old, tattered, brown robes to their name. They wandered the cosmos in search of pure experiences, granting gifts to the potential stars that were dealt a deviled hand in life.

But wars would break out--wars spanning the cosmic years and lengths. And the Clockmakers could swing the tide as easily as flipping a page--they became a weapon, or, at least, were in demand of becoming a weapon. But a Clockmaker would never undo time for the reasons of warmongering. The time... it was a cruel, yet tender thing.

Yuun knew, as did all his forefathers--the time... was like a child. It was innocent. It knew only good, only curiosity. It never looked back, and it never looked forward, for it existed everywhere, at all times, at all points. There was no past or present, no future, there was but a dot cycling within itself, into infinity.

Few claimed to have stolen Time, such as the Thief that the Divine introduced to him--but the Time cannot be stolen. It only gives itself if it wants so. Even the Clockmaker cannot undo such a clause--though they can suggest and impart emotions upon it, the man never decides of the unmanned.

All the magic in all the worlds cannot make time do. It is a perpetual thing, like a gear with no belts, spinning unto itself with neither energy nor wind. Over and over, over and over, ticking, blinking, creaking into the eternity.

For the Gift they were given, the Clockmakers had to endure that hell--forever listening to that gear spinning. It was never so loud as to cause a disarray, and yet never quite so silent as to be unheard. It was always there, like a hum, a hubbub, pecking away at the back of their minds.

They stood in line, all of them, overburdened by one, simple truth--they were the Clockmakers, but they did not wind up the clocks. They did not control time, contrary to what most believed. For the simple lie... they were hunted down and slaughtered like animals.

Yuun hated time nearly as much as he hated the sin of man--but he was bitter, enduring through spite. He wanted to eventually witness it all end--for it would all be undone, one day. The time... always wins. It persist beyond all other dimensions. All other things end. It stays.

The end of time--many spoke of it, though most in jest, but it would come. There would be the end, and then there’d be a rebirth. And the time would saunter on, leaving behind the ashes of what once was.

Looking at the Thief, Yuun pondered--whether to help or not. He was yet to make a choice; make it truly, at least. The man lacked the fire of many who wished to cleave the skies; he spent most of his days just like Yuun, drinking, lazying about, doing nothing. And yet, when it mattered, Yuun had seen, the man was far greater than the sum of his parts. His heart was free of darkness that plagued most; he was free-spirited, unchained, unbridled in his approach to life.

Every fight was the same, though scales of them danced--though the man struggled, for some reason, Yuun never once thought he’d fail and die. And it had nothing to do with knowing the future--future, after all, was merely a different even in present.

That faith was baffling, though not unfounded. There had been those, Yuun recalled, that stirred the same flames within him, within the cosmos and even the time itself. The kind that shined brighter than any light ever could... but the kind that always shined the shortest.

Their flames would alight the entirety of creation for the briefest flicker, leaving behind a legend that was never to be believed by anyone, and they would go. One, in particular, bothered Yuun. He hated him, as he hated the time, and the sin of man.

He had seen the gears of creation, and he had seen beyond them, and he had conquered the cosmos--and one day... he vanished. He wasn’t beaten, he wasn’t defeated, he wasn’t persuaded to turn coat... he simply disappeared, leaving behind the force that stood behind him to be butchered by the armies of the Divines.

Though the records nary speak of him, mentioning him merely in the passing as a ‘foe that the Divine Halls easily conquered’, some still remember. Remember the light that could not be touched, not by anyone.

It would be unfair to compare the little Thief with that man--after all, the latter glimpsed at the rods beyond those of the Thief. Though the Thief glimpsed at the ringed gears of the reality’s machinations, that was as far as he went. That man... he gazed beyond that. He gazed upon the sight that only the One ever witnessed before. And he thusly disappeared.

“Bah, why am I pissing myself off for no reason?” he cursed, taking another swig of wine, reclining further back and sighing. His life was a tired one. He was a hermit hiding most of all from himself. He had no dreams, no goals, no loves--only anger and hate that burned through him. All agency he once had... he surrendered to that fire.

It would be nice, he mused, to change, at least for a brief moment. The last of the Clockmakers... should he die, there would never be another to measure time. To caress it. To compel it. To dispel it. In a way, it would be nearly as satisfying as witnessing it all end. This way, at least, he would get to rest much earlier. He would get to close his eyes and all the whispers in his mind would simply... vanish.

Taking a deep breath, he sat up and tinkering with the reality--just a bit, just a tiny touch. But it would be enough. After all, just a mere whisper from him could undo kingdoms and empires and even entire worlds. A tiny tinker... was already enough to give them a lot of time. Time, after all, was one thing a sword needed, he knew--for even if the boy was a sword right now, he was a dull one. An old one. One that was in need of repair, in need of sharpening, and in need of polish. And those things cannot be done over night. They require time. And the time... the time was one thing he could give in spades.

“I hope he doesn’t disappoint me,” he mumbled.

“He hasn’t disappointed me, yet,” a familiar, feminine voice spoke. She was always there, in the back of his head, mingling with the other voices. She rarely spoke recently, and though he would never admit it... it was slightly lonely without her to pester him.

“Your standard is utter crap, though,” he said.

“I am severely offended! My standard is pretty high, you know? For instance, in my eyes, you aren’t even handsome! That’s how high of a standard for handsome men I have!”

“Haah, the more I hear you talk, the more I’m starting to regret ever agreeing to anything...”

“Alright, I’ll shut up. Let me know if you need anything. Keep hidden for now; I also might not be able to contact you for some time. I’m about to do some shit.”

“I don’t wanna know. Bye.”

“Bye bye~~”

With one voice gone, countless remained. But... it was lonely again. Just a tiny bit, though. Nothing he couldn’t handle. For he could handle everything.