Take Your Time Now

[Pharaoh]

"Take Your Time Now"
65 Ash, 123
Kaiserlicher Kommandopalast
Leirstadt, The Kaiserreich of Karnor
Timeline Unknown
(Continued from “Time Eats All His Children in the End”)

► Show Spoiler

Everything happened so suddenly. At one moment Finn realised his hand was linked with that of Arkænyn Princeps. Their eyes met and then he felt that hand grip more tightly, pulling Finn as Arkænyn was being pulled by some unseen force from the surrounding sea of temporal energy. They would hear the beginning of a frustrated cry from their temporal chaperone that was cut off as they phased into another reality. The pair stumbled as their feet found the ground, Arkænyn toppling to his knees with a grunt and pulling Finn down with him. Their illusory disguises faded within moments as they assessed their surroundings.

The odours of industry assaulted their olfactory senses as their eyes adjusted to the dimly lit chamber. The floor was tiled with cold, metal panels the clangour of which echoed through the high ceilings with their movements as they reclaimed their footing. Phædreon was nowhere to be seen.

“Halt, ihr Zauberer! Wie konntet ihr unsere antimagische Verteidigung durchdringen?” A distorted voice from behind them shouted, muffled yet amplified by the spiked helmet that topped off the articulated body armour of an imposing figure towering over them. As a hiss of steam burst forth from a vent in the suit, it was clear from whence the smell of oil and smoke originated.

“Und du wagst es, eine Elfe hierher zu bringen?” The fuzzy voice hissed through speakers in the helm as the head seemed to turn toward Finn in particular.

“Ihr müsst mit mir jetzt kommen!” The figure commanded, raising one of his arms on which an ostensible projectile weapon of some sort was mounted. Gesturing with the arm that was not aiming an apparent canon at them, the figure shouted:

“Jetzt!”

Finn would sense notes of a familiar Symphony nearby— Like Arvælyn’s, perhaps even more so than Arvain’s had been. He could not glean the distance, but he could tell that the owner of the Symphony had not marked him as he’d marked them.

Heavy double doors of brass creaked and whooshed open with the grind of gears, as the towering soldier nudged the weapon against Finn’s back to urge him toward the opening.

!	Message from: Pharaoh
	Due to the extra-linear/transdimensional nature of this thread it will be considered contemporaneous to the current playable season of Searing 124, despite the times and places that may be touched upon in alternate realities.

[Finn]

and from the ground beneath my feet,
I hear the anguish of the street
(a choir never complete!)

and like an old forgotten tune,
a song that no one knows,
forgot how it goes...

There was a moment of surprise, then a moment of acknowledgement—a veritable ballet of the tiny muscles in their hands.

There was a squeeze of acceptance, honest and unaware of consequence, comforting, and then a squeeze of panic.

Moment was insufficient to describe Finn's experience of Time while hurtling through it, but, poetically, it contained multitudes and he was comfortable with that. He was not comfortable when he felt Phædreon leaving or being pulled away. Arkænyn remained, and so he held all the tighter to the one person in all of this reality who knew his reality as well, as well as anyone can know another's reality.

The tether of their joined hands pulled him down to his knees. Reacting on instinct, his other hand went to Arkænyn to check he was unharmed. But he felt the glamours slipping away in a vague sort of way where a sense of symphonies intersected with a sense of seemings. He heard the collective surprise, the shock, and anger with his ears and his Rune. Words were coming at him so fast it took him a moment to realize they were Kathalan.

His broad back and shoulders hunched over the platinum prince as if expecting to take a beating in his stead. He got carefully back to his feet, attempting to assist his compatriot in doing the same.

It took a moment to reorder his mind to translate words from Kathalan into sense, and then his own thoughts into Kathalan words. He had known a bit of vocabulary just from living in Karnor, learned quite a bit more of the language while learning Zaichaeri and Gelerian music, and then latched onto as much as he could learn so as to assuage knee-jerk reactions when he heard it spoken. It had taken some time (and eventually some time with the Assessors) to work through the trauma he associated with the people who spoke that language, and this was hardly the optimal situation to hear it without warning.

But he held an empty hand up to appease, to show it was empty of weapon.

"Entschuldigung! Entschuldigung!" And, "Es tut mir leid." At least, like many a musician, the music of language came easily and he spoke well for all that he wasn't entirely fluent.

He didn't want to let go of Arkænyn's hand, but he had to. He put it on the elf's shoulder in a condescending, patriarchal sort of way.

"Ja, ja. Natürlich. Dieser Elfe und ich werden sofort mit dir kommen. Wir sind nicht aus eigener Kraft hierher gekommen. Ein Elfenmagier brachte uns ... irgendwohin. Er hatte einen weißen Streifen im Haar." He indicated where Phædreon's hair was white. Then he indicated Arkænyn with disgust. "Ich habe das Experiment des Magiers gestohlen."

He glared at Arkænyn, shoved him viciously. In Vallenor, "Behave yourself, filthy elf."

Finn didn't have to hide his intimidation from the armored Zaichaeri, although he supposed this could have been the Imperium; alternate timelines were strange like that. But while he was adopting xenophobia and human supremacy on a dime, he was also plying another Kraft. Living with Arvælyn, it was easy to forget that he himself was a more powerful Mesmer than most Mesmers.

He was also masterful in how he used his voice and language. He daren't use Aværys' grace as he hadn't learned how to do so without shining like some solar avatar, but he wove themes into various melodies around him. To Arkænyn, comfort and command: do as I say. To the symphony that felt so very familiar, empathy and concern: help this one; he is special. To the general audience: trust in me and my words. To the armored enforcer: satisfaction in his authority being respected, and a desire to believe this one.

The bard embedded his Craft so deep in his voice that one would have to be looking specifically for his works to notice. His work was elegant, finessing with less power more carefully and precisely applied.

[Pharaoh]

► Show Spoiler

Arkænyn seemed no less impacted by gracing another life where Finn was not the spouse of his Umbrian rival, but someone of great import to him personally. The Knight of Auris cum Prince of Solunarium was less attuned to his emotions than Finn, and so perhaps it lent support the human's deception that the Platinum Elf was in tears as the ruse began. To whatever eyes hid behind the visor of the spiked helm, it may well have appeared that this elf's distress was born of bondage rather than the far more complex genesis that catalysed it in sooth. If the mech had magical defences, they seemed to be ineffective against Finn's Craft... perhaps due to the phenomenon Phædreon had exposited about alien magicks in divergent worlds. Finn could sense that his soothing coercion was calming the ghost in the shell, though suspicious inquiries still hissed forth from the speakers in the helm.

"Ich verstehe nicht. Wie bist du dem Elfenmagier entkommen? Was für ein Exemplar ist dieser Elf? Wie habt ihr unsere Verteidigung durchdrungen? Ich habe gesehen, wie ihr aus dem Nichts aufgetaucht seid."

These were not questions that stilled the soldier's urging forth. He posed them even as he corralled the pair of prisoners and escorted them down a corridor lined with pipes and humming with moving machinery. The heavy, leaden steps of the mech to their rear thundered against the metal of the floor, gears churning out of sight beneath the thick armour and the occasional hiss of expelling steam adding another layer to the percussion of industry and innovation.

"You understand him...?" Arkænyn whispered in Vastian, figuring that even in the unlikely event that he was overheard despite the helmet and the background noise, some henchman was not likely to know the language that was isolated to an insular Atraxia in their own reality.

Their trip took them through the labyrinthine halls of a mechanised palace, passing several other mechs along the way. They might note that along the journey, they so no one in the flesh. Theirs was the only skin bared to the world, until they reached their destination: A grand chamber arrayed like a throne room, but in lieu of gold filigree and precious artwork, it was industry and technology on display. Within the room, there were human officers in uniforms that confirmed Finn's suspicions that this was a Zaichaeri facility. He might recognise them as members of the Order.

At the far end of the room, stood a daïs upon which a sort of monolith stood, though what that was would be unclear until the heavy grinding of gears and expulsion of steam caused the entire thing to turn round to reveal that it was a sort of throne. The figure who sat it would be known to Finn, if not Arkænyn, his coppery hair suiting the surrounding motifs quite aptly.

► Show Spoiler

"Knien Sie vor Oberst Kavafis vom Orden der Versöhnung nieder." The armoured soldier demanded, using the inhuman strength of his mechanised arms to push both prisoners to their knees.

As the Oberst's eyes fell upon Finn, they widened slightly his breath catching in his throat, though he hid it well. There was recognition. After a pause, the officer unclenched his teeth.

"Danke, Leutnant Kämpfer. Lassen Sie uns allein. Sie alle, lassen Sie uns allein." At a gesture from the ginger, the officers present exchanged a few glances and began to file out of the room, followed by the pendulous footfalls of the mech exiting behind them. When the door whooshed shut, it was just the time-travelers and Aurin, who looked to all the world like he was seeing a ghost.

[Finn]

"Sie stellen Fragen, die nur der Zauberer beantworten kann," Finn said apologetically.

Then, to Arkænyn, with mock severity in Vastian, "I do. You have heard of the Order? This is where they reside." He didn't want any cognates to give away what he was saying, and saying as if he were angry and exerting authority over the elf. "Here, only human lives matter. I pray you, pretend to be cowed, if not servile. I can only protect you by abusing you."

And then he said no more to Arkænyn, lest the man in the mechanical armor take umbrage.

"Oberst Kavafis!" was all he managed, too surprised to hide his recognition completely. He had been about to kneel when the position was forced upon him, but he didn't fight it. His silent song called for compassion and understanding, however, to the mechanized infantry and the colonel of the militarized Order of Reconciliation. He was otherwise quiet and hoping Arkænyn's princely pride would defer to wisdom and caution and that he wouldn't put Finn into a position where he had to risk everything just to save his platinum arse, even though echoes of another Finn's love left the odd frisson in his own symphony.

This man, or a version of him from their own time, had been Arvælyn's first love. Finn had written songs from both of their perspectives, having heard both their symphonies when thinking on the other or in the other's presence. He listened via his Rune, unsure what best role to play on this strange stage where an actor was familiar, but not his role.

When Kämpfer quit the room, Finn remained kneeling, his eyes on Kavafis' boots.

Whoever this Kavafis was, Finn and Arkænyn were in his power. There was a possibility they could fight their way out, but they were vulnerable here without Phædreon.

[Pharaoh]

► Show Spoiler

"Ist das nicht bequem für Sie?" The tinny voice projected from the mech suit replied, its sarcasm evident in spite of the many obstacles presented by the armour's method of delivery. Still, Finn's manipulations staved off further interrogation from the soldier as they made the rest of the trip to their destination.

"Fine." Arkænyn replied curtly, through gritted teeth. His violet eyes, still moist with tears, darkened as distress was supplanted by anger with no outlet. He was growing increasingly familiar with that feeling of helplessness, which had been all but alien to him for most of his life and the more it accrued, the harder it was to brook. Finn would sense that he might need to exploit his Craft to keep a lid on the rage of the Platinum Prince.

Arkænyn grunted in protest as he was pushed to the ground, wincing as he fell hard on both knees. He snarled, looking up to the apparent commander- just a regular human, as far as he could see. He might have been armed, but he dismissed the imposing metal soldier and the other officers who rendered them outnumbered. He glanced sidelong to Finn. There might be an opportunity to exploit here... But he lowered his eyes for the moment.

The Oberst stared long and hard at Finn, his gaze pained at first, before becoming angry. It was then that Finn sensed it. The echoes of Arvælyn's Symphony that he'd sensed nearby were deriving from Aurin. A discordant din of distrust, anguish, nostalgia and fear racked through the Symphony which, though borne by an entirely different person than Arvælyn, felt more akin to Finn's husband than Arvain, who'd looked a great deal more like him. After staring at length and fighting to control his feelings and force his mind to reasoning, Aurin spoke in Common:

"Finn is dead. He-..." Aurin winced, "I killed him. So, who are you?" His teeth were clenched as he hissed the words through them, "And why do you wear his, of all faces?"

[Finn]

"I am Finn," he said carefully but confidently. He was glad they were switching to Common. Now he only had to manage to aetheric symphonies and his native language. "This is my face. This is not my Zaichaer, however. My subordinate and I were tracking a particularly murderous mage and she... well, she found help from a sort of magic I had never encountered before. In our tracking, we ran afoul of similar magic. The elf who wielded it..." He shook his head. "One moment we were in one place, and the next, we were where Kämpfer found us, only slightly less confused than you are now.

"Please, have you seen a golden elf called Thalya? She might have gone by another name, but she tried to kill my..."

His Craft was hard at work, ensuring that his clever use of truth had the right effect. Whoever Arvælyn was or had been in this reality, Aurin would be able to take it personally as well and, hopefully, help Finn complete his mission.

"I don't know what your Finn did to earn your ire. I know we are trespassing, but your and yours are not our target. We did not come here intentionally."

The Aurin in his own reality did resent Finn, but tried not to. He was a complicated bundle of paradoxes and dangerous neuroses around a knot of trauma. Finn knew this without delving deep into his Symphony, though he knew that he had passively absorbed a great deal of what had gone on between Aurin and Arry over the years; it had seeped into some of his music that came out as stories of other people.

Regardless, this one seemed at least as complicated, which meant this would have to be done delicately.

[Pharaoh]

Aurin cringed at the words of defiance and the voice that uttered them: "I am Finn."

"This was never his Zaichaer and he'd have hated what it became." The Oberst replied almost reflexively and, though little of this showed on his face, his Symphony sang of regret in having let that thought loose into the world.

Aurin's disbelief at the circumstance fed his mighty disbelief in Finn's account, but whatever wards may have been established to defend him from Mesmer were not functional against the alien magic and his sole personal defence was a strong will, which was not sufficient to counter Finn's level of power. So, in spite of himself, he answered the question through gritted teeth.

"I have not seen an elf other than the one at your side in some time..." He said, looking to Arkænyn, whose defiant eyes rose from the ground and forced Aurin's askance. There was guilt that surged in his Symphony in response to this elven enmity.

"My ire?" The Oberst was aghast, momentarily dumbstruck. When words failed him, a growl of frustration tumbled from his lips as he shot up from his seat and jogged down the steps of the daïs to pace. Finn didn't know Aurin well, but he did know Arry and the gesture was so similar to the draconic elf's responses to frustrations he could almost smell the smoke of Arvælyn's fiery rage wafting from this human's sighs of vexation.

"Things in the Southlands must be very dire, if they are taking such desperate measures. I don't know what you think you know about me, or what you hope to sus for your masters abroad, but you've already lost. Your tricks won't get you far here and whatever salvation you may have thought was here? Isn't.

"You don't see signs of the Withering, right? That's only because there is nothing left to feed it while it ravages the tightening borders of wherever you were sent from..." He paused his pacing to look at Finn intently, narrowing the eyes of a seasoned interrogator.

"...and where was that? Is there fight left in Sol'Valen? In Ecith? Even if I wanted to help you, and this strange appeal to my sense of... I don't know, guilt? Nostalgia? Whatever. Even if I wanted to help you, we don't have a fix. The Dornkirks didn't loose this thing into the world as a half-measure with an antidote hidden in their back pockets. This was their... 'Endlösung der Magierfrage'." He laughed, bitterly, but that faded quickly into deathly dolour as he bade:

"You need to resolve yourself with their solution's... finality." He approached them both slowly, but his Symphony revealed no fear for his person. This was someone who had faced death in so stark a way that it intimidated him no longer. He survived by rote, not because he held any passion for life. Finn would sense that, if he or Arkænyn made any move against him, it was a coin toss whether he'd fight back or consider his death a coup de grace.

"Tell me: What do you think you know about me? Why are you here, of all places? Why..." He gestured to Finn, "...this?"

[Finn]

Finn listened with his ears and with his Rune, he observed with his eyes and whatever senses a man had that he couldn't articulate. He didn't know if this was a world where Arvælyn even existed, or perhaps his soul and Aurin's soul were one. That gave him a pang of compersion and something else he would have to attempt to name later.

Eventually, he found he was frowning. Everything was turned about here and he had to adapt, to think on his feet, in a way even the Sentinels couldn't train. While listening, while attempting to sus what was actually going on here, he was also reaching out to Arkænyn, weaving their symphonies together much like their fingers had intertwined in the space between realities. They would have to move and act as one, think and feel, as well.

He didn't understand chronomancy, but he had, with his sense of the slipspace, felt something that might have been the version of the slipspace that a chronomancer manipulated—knowledge by the shape of a thing, by its lack. He knew the edges of that magic now, though he couldn't touch it, couldn't sense it directly. He used his own Rune as a beacon, slamming a thread of the slipspace against what would have to be a thread of time, making them resonate so Phædreon could hear him calling, track him down.

"I don't understand," he said, his frown remaining. He wasn't even sure he would understand if he hadn't compartmentalized his mind. "I tell you I don't know anything that is happening here. I have never seen a Zaichaer that I could love." The Withering Sickness; the elves of Sol'Valen had been beset by that plague and found a fix for it before Finn was even a twinkle in his parents' eyes. This world's Dornkirks had invented it as they had invented their parasitic weapon that fed upon aether woven into magic, apparently.

Had it killed Arvælyn?

He twined his song around his improvised instrument of cosmic percussion. Time was the string, space was the hammer. He played one note on Eikaen's pianoforte, attempting to call Phædreon back. He didn't want to know this reality's horrors. There were enough in his own. He wanted to go home. He wanted to take Arkænyn home and keep him safe, to— No. He wanted to take him home and keep him safe, but what else he wanted to do was, of course, reserved for Arvælyn. This was too much for a mortal mind. As much as he had attempted to prepare himself, he could sense the weak spots in his psyche, not yet cracks, but in danger.

No wonder Phædreon was strange, but he had the means to shield himself whereas Finn and Arkænyn did not.

"I did not come here on purpose," he repeated. "I did not come to upset you. I need to find Thalya and rub her face in justice. I have nothing for you. I am not the Finn you knew, and you are not the Aurin I know. We do not belong here."

[Pharaoh]

Aurin tipped his head back, to laugh darkly at Finn's characterisation of Zaichaer. The gesture seemed to startle Arkænyn who was already, quite understandably, on edge.

"She is an exacting old bitch, isn't she...?" He looked around them at the pipes and grates, inhaled the aroma of grease and smoke. "...The Zaichaeri Reich. The sort of battleaxe cunt who wants to turn you into someone you're not just so she'll like you better, and you do, or you die. But I was a survivor..." He sighed, as he stalked back up the steps of the daïs to reclaim his metal throne. He tapped a button, to open a compartment and reached into it to produce a pistol.

"I don't have any living confessors left, boys, so you're going to have to do." He said, turning the gun sideways and polishing it with a rag. Finn would sense no imminent threat in Aurin's Arry-like Symphony, but he was clearly jarred toward instability. There was the sense that, here and now in front of these strangers, he was dropping a mask he'd been wearing for a long time. His accent turned undeniably Antiran and his mannerisms grew more akin to Arvælyn's as he spoke on.

"I wish I could believe that you were Aurin's oversight, but he's an exacting bitch too. He didn't try to turn me into someone I wasn't, but he resented who I was, after..." He trailed off, a pang of rage and sorrow swelling in his Symphony.

"I don't know who Thalya is, I'm sorry to say." He checked the chamber of the revolver, and spun it with his finger, before locking it back into place.

"You're right. I'm not the Aurin you knew. I'm the Arvælyn who superimposed himself onto Aurin's Symphony to end the cycle and preserve himself, or... or some form of himself in this world of waning. I have to imagine I am something different and Aurin... Oh, he's still in here under lock and key." He tapped his own chest with the barrel of the gun to indicate.

"But he killed my bard after I killed his smith, and I wasn't going to last this regime in that body, so here we are, innit?" He shrugged. His eyes widened as the air warped behind Finn and Arkænyn, startled, he aimed the pistol at the anomaly as Phædreon burst through, and the sound of a gunshot pierced echoed through the hall of hollow pipes.

[Finn]

The strange familiarity in the symphony soon accompanied an Antirin dialect of Common. He frowned, putting pieces together, but he was only on the cusp of realization when Arry-cum-Aurin made it clear.

"Arry?" he asked quietly, a catch in his voice. It wasn't his adorable Arry, nor his admiral Arvælyn, but if bards sang of love as something between souls, then was there a version of Arvælyn whose soul wouldn't make his own resonate? As things became clear, his own melodies took on tones of infinite sadness.

Finn didn't know if his timeline was the superior of all, but he was glad that Arvælyn and Aurin were at least on cordial terms in his reality. Perhaps after a few more fights, things would start to settle into a steadier place for them. But certainly, this was a sad example of what might have been: Arvælyn and Aurin committing murders because they couldn't treat like civilized adults. His Arvælyn had blood on his hands now; Finn wasn't certain one could rule without such damnable spots.

This Arvælyn had taken his Rune's power to a terrifying conclusion. Finn hadn't known they could do that. He wondered if the Mesmers of his Solunarium knew, or if this was some desperate genius of this timeline's Arvælyn alone. He didn't have time to think on it, though; in that sense of Time that was merely feeling for it where Space made room, he felt the shift. Phædreon was returning!

Everything moved so quickly, reaction was as quick as thought.

Arry Indwelt took sudden aim and Finn, on his knee, reacted magically rather than physically because that was faster. He blinked from his position to an interdicting one between bullet and chronomancer. It wasn't even dramatic. He couldn't fling himself like a kineticist. His bulk merely appeared and the shock of the bullet went through him before he could even shout no. There was only the grunt that accompanied the impact, and he crumpled immediately to the floor.

He would have liked to have been thinking heroic thoughts, but in truth, he was merely shock and pain.