Chapter Text
In her first moment, Fauna was there.
Technically Kronii had always been around. But that moment, that was the one where for the first time she felt seen, felt real, felt… alive.
“Hey there!” The kirin had asked with a wide smile and proffered hand. “Who are you?”
Kronii had known nothing of herself until then, and right away she learned something. This girl was her friend.
“Time.” She’d said with a bashful shrug.
“And your name? The gods must have given you a name, right?”
“Kronii,” The warden said, tentatively taking it. “Ouro Kronii.”
“Well Kronii,” Fauna smiled. “I was just about to go on a walk, would you like to join me?”
"Yeah, I mean, sure." Kronii shrugged, letting herself be pulled off behind Fauna.
And so, for millions of years, that's what they did, they walked. Together they took in every inch of the earth, watching in wonder as plants grew and animals evolved. All around them change, but never between them.
Fauna was like the sun, bringing light, warmth and life wherever she went. While Kronii was like the moon, cool and distant, the only light that she shed reflected from her companion. They orbited in strange ways to each other, inextricably linked, never alone but never quite together either, not knowing what it was to be anything other than what they always had been.
And then that shooting star hit the earth right in front of them.
“Oops! Could have aimed that one better,” Its rider chuckled, hopping down off the smouldering remnants. “Who are you guys?”
Right then and there Kronii knew that things in her life were about to get more complicated.
She didn’t know how right she was.
Sana was a bundle of energy, putting two hundred percent into everything she did and never stopping for a moment.
Untethered to the ground like Fauna and Kronii, she would be with them one day and gone the next. Not that they minded, it was who she was and they loved her for it.
Sure, she'd leave for a time, but always eventually be back, with some stories of far off worlds and the wonders that she found upon them.
“But it’s not a patch on earth of course!” Sana would always reassure them. “Nowhere else has my Faufau and my Kronini after all!”
With or without Space, Time and Nature ever marched on, watching as life on the planet developed into creatures with real minds and intellects. They too changed, choosing humanoid forms that blended in with the people of the world.
Though eventually as an ice age dawned they would decide it best to finally stop wandering.
Kronii in particular had been longing for a place to settle after millions of years on the move. They chose a wooded hill, on a temperate part of a landmass that wouldn't be named for thousands years yet, building themselves a home from lumber far away from the eyes of the people that would one day call themselves humans.
It was odd then when, a millenia or twenty later, someone new walked into their home.
“Oh hi!” A girl would say to them one day, quite a bit before formalised language was really a thing of the emerging Homo Sapiens. Of course Kronii and Fauna immediately recognised her as one of their own, a guardian for the amazing people their planet had made.
And so they would set off again, as three, sometimes four. Finding a world that had changed more in the thousands of years they had settled down than in the two million prior.
To Kronii it felt like old times, re-discovering the world, learning of who Mumei was and the concept of civilization she had been created to watch over.
Though it wasn’t always just like the old days of course. The world had become a far more complicated place and they had become more complicated beings. Suddenly the differences between the four guardians became more than just quirks of their character.
Disagreements lead to arguments and then to strife as the four demigods knew not how to settle differences save for with their abundant power.
They needed a mediator and the world delivered one in the Chaos herself. Together as five, they formed the council on the site of their old home off on that secluded hilltop and, once again, there was peace between them. Life settled into a comfortable rhythm and before they knew it four thousand more years had passed.
The woodland around their shrine was now a bustling city they lived in alongside the friends they’d made along the way.
It might have been a beautiful existence, if Kronii weren’t all too aware of what the passage of time was doing to her beloved friends.
She couldn't hide from the facts. Civilisation was tearing itself apart and seemed intent on taking Nature with it.
She tried all she could to warn her closest friends of this, but her warnings fell on deaf ears. Mumei and Fauna had long ago decided on non-intervention, to leave it to their charges.
“C'est la vie.” Mumei had once said.
It was a sentiment she’d repeat less than two thousand years later on her deathbed.
Kronii was never the same after that. She had done all she could to save Mumei, to save one of the people she loved most in the world. She would not let it happen again. Not to Fauna.
She failed.
The earth had been damaged beyond saving by the avarice of civilization and she had no choice but to watch as her best friend, the first person she ever met… ever loved… slowly died in front of her.
“I’m just going on another journey.” Fauna had said, placing a weak bony hand on Kronii’s face. “We’ll see each other again soon.”
But Kronii knew that they wouldn’t. She was a part of time itself, eternal, immortal and would never stop. She had no choice but to do the only thing she had ever known how to do, keep moving forwards.
Aeons passed and Kronii withdrew into herself, living in the ruins of her old home, the last surviving part of a planet whose sun went supernova long ago. She couldn’t bear to face Sana or Bae. They had lost as much as her to time, Ina and IRyS both having passed with the earth. Space and Chaos too would one day be gone as total entropy reduced everything to naught but unchanging matter.
Would she be gone then? She didn’t know. She feared that she would not. She had nightmares of remaining as she was, still shepherding forwards an endless stream of time over a dead universe.
It made her angry to think about. That she would be denied her rest, her chance to see her beloved friends again. It made her so angry that, after millions of years of moping, she once more was stirred to action.
The first rule of time travel is: don’t do it. Kronii knew this better than anyone. It was a rule she knew before she knew her own name, it was etched into her very bones.
But she had always been capable of doing it. Her creators had placed a loaded gun in her hand and told her “don’t shoot.”
All she had to do was squeeze the trigger. She focused on one time, one place, one person and then, just like that. She was there, stood in the exact same spot in her home so similar and yet so different.
The pavement beneath her was solid, clean and new. The sky, a beautiful clear blue, fringed on all edges by the lush greens and pinks of springtime trees. The air smelt of cut grass and possibility, and right in front of her, walking up the path was a stranger she knew better than anybody else in the world.
The stranger’s eyes met hers and it took everything she had to not burst into tears then and there.
“Oh, hello,” The stranger said, tilting her head to the side a little, her arms dangling awkwardly at her sides. “Sorry, I don’t seem to quite know who or where I am. Can you help me?”
She smiled, stepped towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Your name is Nanashi Mumei and you’re home.”
“Okay,” Mumei nodded, “And who are you?”
“Hmm…” Kronii smiled, already preparing for her next jump. “I think I’ll leave that to you to find out.”
A much shorter jump this time but her surroundings were still notably different. The path beneath her now was but a dirt track and the shrine just a hut of timber, the friendly face before her was no less confused though.
“Kronii?!” The soft voice of Ceres Fauna stirred her heart. “When did you get here?”
“Hey Fauna,” She smiled.
“Wait…” Fauna squinted at her. “You’re… From the future aren’t you?”
“That obvious huh?”
“Kronii. I’ve known you longer than anyone,” Fauna laughed, “I could tell just from the look in your eyes.”
Kronii opened her arms, an invitation for a hug Fauna was only too eager to accept. “It’s good to see you, Fauna.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely not my Kronii.”
“I’ll always be your Kronii,” Kronii smiled, and then, she was gone again.
There was no time to even take in the scenery this time. As soon as Kronii had arrived a pair of arms were already around her squeezing her tight.
"Kronini!!" The arms' owner squealed. "Hiii!"
"Hey Sana," Kronii laughed. "This is quite the welcome."
"Well you barely visit anymore!" Sana said not letting her grip slip for even a moment. "So I gotta get all the affection in now because I don't know when I'll see you again."
Kronii's smile faded a little. "Yeah… I'm sorry, I just…"
Sana relaxed her grip just enough that the two girls could face each other. "Kronii, it's okay. I understand. Mumei and Fauna meant the world to you. You needed time and space to grieve and that’s fine because we have all the time and space in the world."
"Thank you, Sana," Kronii said, placing a now loose hand on her friend's head, causing her to beam with happiness. "I'll see you again soon, I promise."
“You better!” Sana called after her as she disappeared once more into time.
The shrine was more like it had been before her jumps this time, it's once verdant greenery now long since withered away, only remaining in existence due to divine intervention from the red haired girl standing in it’s centre, a bold flash of colour in the otherwise dead landscape.
“Hey Kronii,” Bae said, her exuberance had left her long ago but somehow her smile was still the same as it always was.
"Hey Bae," Kronii gave her best sympathetic , smile, "Sorry to bother you on—"
"Kronii, it's okay," Bae cut her off, "It's nice to spend her birthday not alone for once."
Guilt strapped through Kronii's chest. "I'm sorry I… I should have been here for you more."
"Oh, Kronii," Bae stepped up to her and placed a hand on her face, "We all mourn in different ways. I'm really just happy to see you, that's all."
"Thanks Bae, that means a lot."
"So, that grim stuff out of the way, what's up?" Bae said, withdrawing her hand, "I know you wouldn't time travel for nothing."
Kronii took a deep breath. "I have a plan and I need your help."
"A plan?" Bae looked sceptical. "Oh boy, I'm going to need a drink and a sit down for this one aren't I? Come on, I know a spot."
Without waiting for confirmation Bae walked off towards the old main building, opening up the door and stepping in, not once checking to see if Kronii was following, which, of course, she was, following just a couple steps behind into the building which opened up TARDIS-like into their council chambers.
For a second it was like stepping into a past life, she was once again the proud Warden of Time, taking her seat in dignified silence.
Total. Deafening. Silence.
Her eyes scanned the other seats. Chaos had disappeared and Space, Nature and Civilisation stood empty, as they had since Fauna…
She looked away, her heart hurt looking at them. Even though she had just seen them, their absences were too much.
“I got coffee.” Bae said, re-entering with two mugs in hand and snapping Kronii out of her ponderous malaise. "It's kinda lonely in here huh?"
"Surprised you're still maintaining the place." Kronii said while taking the coffee.
"Just sentimentality I guess," Bae smiled. "Though you're right. No real need for world administration anymore, now every world is just ash and dust.”
“Makes you wonder why we're still here."
“You know why, Kronii," Bae sighed, "We’re not like the others. We don’t stop, we don’t end.”
“I know that.” Kronii grumbled, her voice raised slightly. “It doesn’t make it any easier to take. That I’m supposed to accept that I was born to just, exist forever and watch everyone I love fade away.”
“You still have me.” Bae smiled weakly.
“Bae…” Kronii sighed. “I’ll outlive you too. You know that. Eventually even the little energy left in creation will fizzle and go out. Then it’ll just be me, alone, forever.”
Bae frowned. “Don’t say stuff like that. We can’t give in to despair.”
“Despair?” Kronii smiled. “Who said anything about despair? No, I’m not despairing. Quite the opposite. I told you, I have a plan.”
Bae narrowed her eyes. "What, exactly, are you getting at?"
"Reality is a cruel joke played on us for laughs by an uncaring universe." Kronii said, impassioned. "Especially for you and I who are given all this power and told not to use it, who have to suffer immortality even as those we love all eventually fade away. I propose nothing less than a clean slate. I know together, Chaos and Time, we can undo history, bring back our friends, Mumei, Fauna, Sana, even IRyS."
"Kronii what you're suggesting… it's exactly what we were always told to never use our powers for."
"I don't care." Kronii said bluntly. "I'll give up my powers, my immortality, everything, for another go, another chance. I'll take their powers too, give them a chance for a normal human life, give them a chance to truly live."
Bae looked at her with concern that eventually turned into resignation. "You're really serious about this aren't you?"
Kronii nodded.
"Fuck it," Bae sighed, "Then I'm with you. Let's do it, let's unmake time."
Kronii's life stopped flashing before her eyes, the last two and a half familiar decades just a footnote compared to the forgotten millions that had come before.
Not that she was in much a position to ponder the new revelations given the bullet lodged in her chest.
"That's gotta suck." Calli looked at her with sympathy, a portal of purple light closing behind her as she stepped up to Kronii.
"So that was all real?" Kronii said, looking at her, fully decked out in the reaper attire.
"Afraid so. Shitty way to learn it, though."
"Am I dead?"
"Not quite yet, but you will be." Calli said, holding up a scroll. "Though given your powers you do have a bit longer than anyone else would in your position."
"I still have my powers?" Kronii said. "I thought I got rid of them all."
"Nah," Calli waved off the suggestion. "Without your power you'd die. You're not a human, not really, just a mortal version of what you were before."
"So that's why I could move in Ame's frozen time."
"Wait, did you just say Ame?" Calli looked over to the source of the gunshot, where Ame was holstering the gun. "Watson did this to you?"
Kronii had an idea. "Not if I have anything to say about it."
Like she had done all those years ago, she focused on a time and place, picturing it vividly in her mind and squeezing the trigger.
She might not have had a lot of power or life left, but it was enough to take her the few seconds back and centimetres forward she needed.
The gunshot went off and Ame's eyes were wide as Kronii appeared between her past self and the bullet, which once again hit home in her chest.
"What—" Ame's eyes were wide and her focus shifted rapidly between the Kronii she had frozen in time and the one sporting two bullet wounds crumpled between them. "H-How are— Shit…”
The slowed time bubble fluctuated, everything beginning to move slowly once again for a split second. Ame frowned, made a quick decision, turned on her heel and ran.
Kronii dropped from her knees, to the ground now well and truly out of time.
“What… Who are you?” The other Kronii said, her eyes wide.
Kronii looked at herself with a horrible mix of pity and envy, so much she had hidden from herself, so much she had left to live for. She opened her mouth to speak but it was too late. Even without her to be it’s warden, time always rejected paradoxes.
The other Kronii could only watch as her double, cracked, split and crumbled into smaller and smaller blue quartz crystal until she was a sand so fine it was as though she had never existed at all.