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To many mortals, the flow of time is a foreign concept worthy of discussion in the greatest of their academia. Where countless debates and endless theories flow through, sages and philosophers trying to envision and make sense of one of the mysteries of the world.
To Kronii, well it’s almost the same really. It’s not like she’s the ‘Creator of Time’ or whatever it is that designed time itself. Just because she can manipulate a part of it, doesn’t mean that she can just waltz all over the concept like she owns the thing.
But if she ranked herself from ‘Warden of Time’ to ‘A human who’ll probably wake up late’, she’s surely the undisputed top on the ladder.
Kronii smirked.
Shrugging her random thoughts, she continued doing her job of monitoring the flow of time for any intruder, especially that weird blonde who for some reason learned how to duplicate herself through temporal cloning.
Metaphorically walking through the… well… metaphorical library of time, Kronii stopped as she felt a call coming from one of the realities under their dominion. For any other on the seat of the council this would be a small offense, because who in their right mind decided that it’s a good idea to waste the Council’s time.
But for the warden of time herself, a time wasted is basically a non-existent concept.
Deciding to humor their attempt to call a part of The Council for their aid, Kronii weaved through the infinitely expanding branch of realities, manifesting her vessel into the midst of a complicated summoning circle. She looked around the messy expanse of a room, before looking at the one who decided to summon her.
A flowing hair in the color of snow, two eyes reflecting the expanse of the midday sky, and three feather hairclip containing traces of magic foreign to this world. The girl looked at her without moving, an expression of shock clear on her face.
An expected response when faced with a perfect being such as herself.
Kronii stood from where she lay flat on the cold ground of the room, fixing her posture and patting her clothes to remove any dirt before looking directly at her summoner. All of this took exactly 5 seconds before Kronii started talking.
“As per the ancient rites of… you know what? I’m not really one for formalities. So? What do you call the great warden of time for?”
Probably still stuck admiring her perfect form, the human? Peafowl? The girl in front of her looked at her for several seconds before answering. Stuttering at first, she observed as the girl’s dumbfounded expression is replaced by one of determination.
“I’m not really sure. Um, I’m just experimenting on… stuff. I’m sorry.” The girl said as she looked directly at the time warden’s eyes.
“What?” Kronii asked. Because someone calling her on accident of all things is absurd even for her.
“I mean, no offense to you. A warden of time is ranked high on the book 'list of things you can accidentally summon from a miscast'. Probably 999 or something? I’m sorry, I don’t like counting. But I swear it’s something bigger than 100!” The girl continued, unaware that the look of determination is already gone on her face. Now she is looking almost everywhere to avoid looking at the time warden herself.
“What?” Kronii repeated, disbelief still on her tone as she observed the now panicking mortal in front of her.
“But I swear it’s an accident! I’m actually trying to summon something else!” The girl continued.
“And you’re trying to summon… what exactly?”
The girl looked at her, a shy smile on her face as her face reddened in embarrassment.
“Umm… I’m trying to summon a cup of noodles.”
Kronii sighed, trying to calm herself. She looked back at the girl in annoyance, now frozen in time with the smile of someone who got caught after doing something wrong still on her face.
The ability to halt the ticking of the clock. One of the perks of being the warden of time.
Composing herself, Kronii tried thinking of any justification so that she can calm her emotions. Because as the summoner herself said, it’s an accident. It’s not like the peafowl is a perfect being such as herself. Mortals are imperfect as they are. So, by logic, the girl is innocent and undeserving of her wrath.
She’s still going to kill Baelz after this.
But still, Kronii is already here. Since only boredom awaits for her back in the Council hall, she might as well make the summoning an excuse to do something else on this realm instead.
Nodding to herself, Kronii looked back at the girl that is frozen in time as she starts the metaphorical clock to enact her plans.
And along with it starts the literal clock as the flow of time begins again.
“So, a cup noodle huh? Weird taste. But say, how about this for a preposition?”
Kronii walked towards Reine, a beautiful peafowl princess standing on an altar. A flowing white gown complimenting the radiant smile on her face as she looked towards the approaching time warden. The warm sunbeams seep through the open windows, leaving the form of the white-haired girl in an ethereal glow.
She was looking at perfection, but she swears that she would never call Reine perfect. The peafowl would probably tease Kronii about it for her whole life if she ever says it to her.
As she continued her path towards the altar, Reine’s friends looking at her from the seats with smiles on their faces, Kronii reminiscent of her life with Reine and how it came to this.
It began with Kronii lying about some sort of binding decree on the spot. That she would be bound to her summoner for all eternity. All of that so she could live with Reine for her entire lifetime.
Kronii smiled. She swears that the stupid plan looks good on her head back then.
Several years of Kronii trying to masquerade as a mortal living in the world that she now learned is called Earth followed, Reine an ever-present guide to her as she struggled. The peafowl from another dimension sharing her experience of adjusting to the human world to the time warden.
With Reine by her side, she learned to enjoy what the past her would consider as pointless. She learned to laugh at stupid jokes, to cry at dumb romance plots, and to get angry when someone caused her to die on her block video game.
Now that she thinks about it, it’s probably during that time that she learned about what love truly is when she fell to the charms of the peafowl.
Ending her reminiscence, she stopped in front of Reine, tracing all the beautiful features of her friend as she smiled back to her.
“You’re beautiful on your wedding dress you know?”
“As beautiful as you oh perfect warden of time?” Reine smirked at her, Kronii’s heart fluttering from the sight of the bird.
“Of course not. But maybe a close second.”
Reine laughed at that, and on that small fraction of time Kronii experienced tranquility. She laughed with her friend, only stopping to smile at Reine to say the words that she needed to say.
“Guess I lose huh?” Kronii asked, looking at her side towards a horned girl that is chatting with several people that she also knows.
“Yeah”. Reine replied, following her gaze towards the Nephilim.
She smiled, a feeling of sorrow and acceptance inside of her as she continued talking to her friend.
“You know, while IRyS likes to brag about her being the bringer of hope, I have only felt despair when you actually get together with her. No wonder that it’s written on her resume.” Kronii jokingly said.
Reine only smiled at that.
“Yeah.”
Kronii looked at her friend from that, noticing that the peafowl is looking at her with a slight hint of guilt on her face.
“Don’t be sorry. Your happiness comes first”. Kronii replied, patting Reine on the head before saying her farewells and congratulations as she returned to her seat in the venue.
The warden of time blinked, and the eternity realigned themselves to a specific point in the past. She looked around, reality slowly making sense as it tried to restructure itself from the temporal fracture that tore through the timeline with ease. As reality began to make sense again, Kronii smiled as, after 5 seconds of complete silence, she asked the words that she haven’t said in a long time.
“Mortal. What do you call the great warden of time for?”
And just like how she remembered it, Reine replied to her with the exact same words as before.
“I’m not really sure. Um, I’m just experimenting on… stuff.”
Nostalgia hit her as a younger sounding Reine said the words that started everything to her. She looked at the peafowl, looking perfectly the same as the one from her memory of the day of their first meeting.
The only difference is instead of a shy admittance of guilt, a clear frown of confusion is what’s on the girl’s face as she looked at Kronii like she was a stranger. Like the years that they have lived through did not happen.
Because it did not. Not on this timeline. Kronii thought to herself.
She still remembers her failure, Reine getting stolen from her by IRyS of all people. Her friend has lived a blissful life on that timeline, one that she is happy about. But this time, Kronii swears that she would be the one that would make Reine smile.
With a new plan in mind, Kronii smiled at her yet again summoner.
“You know what? I don’t care about the specifics anymore. More importantly, cup noodles sound fun right now.”
This time, it didn’t go as well as the previous one.
Kronii looked at Ollie, a lone girl standing in front of a grave on top of an empty hill, the heavy rainfalls from the darkening skies above the only companion of the two.
She stood next to the zombie, which acknowledge her with a slight bow before looking back to the tombstone in front of them.
“Did you ever made her cry? Even once?” She asked the undead, which looked towards her from her question. Ollie only shook her head in disagreement.
“Good. Because only the Council knows what I would do to you if you ever did.” Kronii continued, pausing only to take a breath as she tried to prevent the tears from spilling from her eyes.
Good thing that it’s raining.
Kronii made sure that IRyS would not be part of the equation this time that she even scoured the empty fringes of Sana’s ever-expanding domain just to drag the Nephilim to annoy Baelz instead of descending to Earth.
But then Reine ended up with Ollie instead.
She looked at the zombie with a slight tinge of jealousy, before sighing in defeat. Reine fell in love with Ollie on her own accord, and Kronii would respect her friend’s decision.
Shaking her head, she looked at the empty gravestone that Ollie is looking at.
“Why are you mourning on this grave anyway?”
Ollie looked at her like she just said something stupid. After an awkward pause in the conversation, the zombie’s eyes widen after realizing something.
“Oh, no! This is where I previously sleep. Reine kicked me from our house after I have made fun of her air fryer. Now the grave is flooded because of the rain and I don’t know where to go.” Ollie replied.
“Ah.” Kronii replied, having no other words to say about the weird thing that the zombie have said.
Kronii blinked when reality once again broke at the exact spot at the exact time.
“What do you call the great warden of time for?” She said exactly 5 seconds like the previous time.
Kronii’s annoyance was quickly replaced with happiness as she looked at Reine again. The second time, she has failed to make the peafowl fall for her. But as Baelz always says to her- actually, never mind. She forgot what the warden of chaos have told her. But it’s probably about chances or something.
Anyway, the point is she will surely make her twice friend her girlfriend this time.
Ignoring the confused look on Reine’s eyes, Kronii approached the girl. Before the peafowl can say anything, she grabbed both of the girl’s shoulders and stared at her directly in the eyes.
“Ignore the cup noodles. Let’s talk about keyboards instead.”
Kronii walked at a small clearing on a dark evening, the dim yellow light of the moon faintly illuminating everything that is under it. Shadows danced on the forest around her as the wind blew past, trees and grass alike swaying under the uncaring gaze of the night.
It’s a peaceful night. Perfect for a romantic walk under the moonlight. It’s also perfect for a walk after a heartbreak.
She tried thinking about what went wrong this time. She had made sure that IRyS doesn’t stumble into Earth and she introduced Ollie to a first-person shooting game that the zombie became addicted to.
She also made sure to look out on every side for anyone that would approach Reine. All to avoid the unexpected to happen.
And because Kronii made sure each side is guarded, fate has decided to do something truly hilarious by dropping the unexpected from above.
Literally.
She still remembers the exact moment when, falling from a miscast of a flight spell, Reine collided with a descending moon goddess, making them both crash unceremoniously to the ground. Unimportant details of several romantic endeavors that Kronii doesn’t want to think about later, and Reine ended up married to Moona.
Kronii looked at the moon, and she can feel the moon looking back at her. Mocking her.
Three times the charm they said. Well, Kronii can take all the ‘three times’ on the universe.
And next time would surely be the charm.
She looked one last time on the huge tree on the horizon, the whole Earth celebrating for 9 days straight now as the festivities from the wedding of Reine and Fauna still continued. When Reine joked about eating mother nature, this is not what she had imagined.
Forcefully spinning the clock backward, Kronii blinked back on the exact location for the 22nd time. She swears that time-space would be crying right now if it’s a sentient being rather than something that is just there.
She stood up in annoyance, ignoring everything else inside the room as she walked towards the peafowl that is standing in front of her.
The second hand ticked 5 seconds.
“I don’t care about the cup noodles. Shut up and kiss me.”
Kronii looked at the reality that is trying to realign itself, wondering why the pattern of the breaking space-time always looks different from the last time. She had seen it over a thousand times now, and even once it never stayed the same.
She wiped the tears from her tired eyes, looking at Reine as the girl stared at her with worry. This time, more than 5 seconds have passed before the girl started talking.
“Umm… Are you ok? I’m sorry if-” Reine didn’t manage to finish what she’s about to ask as Kronii halted the flow of time. She looked around the scene that has repeated a countless number of times already, a messy room that she has already memorized on her mind.
Then she looked at Reine, a beautiful princess frozen in time. A familiar stranger staring at her with worry on her face. This time she asked something else, a very different one from her usual excuse about trying to summon a cup of noodles. But Kronii knows that it would not make a difference.
Flying through the stars with an alien.
Living as a fisherman on some uninhabited island.
More than a hundred marriages with IRyS.
And countless other timelines, all of them where Kronii did not found her happy ending with Reine. Many of them where Kronii is not even an important part of the peafowl’s life.
So, she decided that she would end it all right now. Well, not exactly right now, because she does not want to leave Reine worried like that. She might be giving up on her love, but time itself would end first before she dares hurt the feelings of the peafowl princess.
She looked back at Reine, touching her cheeks as the girl remained frozen in time. Whispering her name in one final goodbye.
Kronii resumed the ticking of the clock, immediately leaping back in time to correct everything. To make sure that everything is back in the beginning.
The clock ticked one second.
She looked at the dirty room. Fond memories and bitter heartbreaks flashing through her mind's eye.
The clock ticked two seconds.
She looked at Reine, ashen hair flowing like the winds that the peafowl princess proudly commands.
The clock ticked three seconds.
She looked at the girl’s eyes, an azure ocean that served as her paradise for all those lifetimes.
The clock ticked four seconds.
She tried saying a word of goodbye, before aborting it. Reine didn’t need to learn of her.
The clock ticked five seconds.
Kronii made another jump before Reine can even begin the greeting that she have heard for an innumerable time already, tears on her eyes as she reappeared in the empty library where it all begins.
There on the timeless place she cried, reminiscing about all the times that she had with the peafowl princess.
To Reine, she would only remember this as a weird meeting that last for a fraction of her lifetime. Where she made contact with a blue-haired girl for exactly 5 seconds before the girl vanished.
But to Kronii, the same 5 seconds is worth an uncountable lifetime of fond memories and heartbreaks.