Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Let’s have a little heart to heart. Have a seat, lassie.” 

The Conductor's voice rang out through the darkness. His hand gestured slowly towards the empty seat across the table. Hat kid was wary of his sudden calm. She was in a bad way: bruised, bleeding, and exhausted. She stood upright, her body tense and her shaking hands hidden behind her back.

She looked around briefly, a feigned innocent glance accompanied by a small hum. All of the exits were sealed - assorted plywood walls had been rolled in front of them courtesy of the express owls. She heard The Conductor’s fingers drum on the table, watching as his jagged smile twitched with an impatient curl. 

She took her seat.

“That’s more like it,” he approved. “Now, lassie, I’m just as sick of this fight as you are. I don’t think my beak can take much more thrashin’.” He rubbed the front of his face, as if to prove his point.

Hat Kid turned away slightly, catching a grumble between her clenched teeth. Her hand pressed into a gash in her side from a very real, non-rubber knife. Other small stings flared up to remind her that that wasn’t the only place she had been sliced.

“So, here’s what I’m thinkin’, lass,” The Conductor continued, oblivious. “Ever since yer arrived on this planet, these Time Pieces have been falling from the sky. Now, I can understand if you feel they belong to you. I get it. But did yer know they can rewind time?”

Hat Kid narrowed her eyes.

“Aye, so ye did know,” The Conductor nodded. “Well, you see, with one Time Piece, I could reclaim the trophy that belongs to me! That’s right, the loss of award forty-two!”

Hat Kid felt a scream rise up in her throat. Of course this all came down to his stupid movies, his stupid awards, his stupid competition. She quietly swallowed and didn’t make a sound. Her chest squeezed as she tried to take a calming breath, and she set her mouth into a flat smile.

“I got 2nd at the 42nd annual bird award! Me! Can you imagine? DJ Grooves managed to get the first place trophy!” he blathered. He leaned across the table; the cloth wrinkled a bit under the pressure of his palms. “I need just one Time Piece to fix this mistake. Can’t you spare just one Time Piece?”

Hat kid looked away. She twisted the corner of her cape into her fist as her eyes trailed up the pattern of a set wall that was almost obscured by darkness. Faint white blotches looked a bit like skulls at a distance, but that seemed just a little too on point. They were probably just flowers. No one would make skull patterned wallpaper... would they?

The quiet plinking of the piano filled the heavy silence. 

Option one was to say ‘no’ outright and let the fight continue. That was what she was supposed to do, what she had been trained to do. But she was exhausted, injured, and her chances of winning seemed slim to none.

Option two, she could say yes, but then The Conductor would be free to mess with time as he wished, and there was no way that wouldn’t end it total timeline annihilation. And really, what guarantee did she have that The Conductor - overrun with power as he would be - would make good on his promise to let her go?

She wracked her brain for a third option, grimacing at the memory that bubbled up from the depths of her exhausted brain. She heard her professors' voices, somewhat grating and deeply ingrained, bringing her back to her lessons. To the day when the door of her classroom was solemnly closed. One professor's brow had been tightly knitted and the other’s lips pressed thin. The lights had been turned down and blinds closed and the usual upbeat lo-fi shut off. They had all turned to the last pages of their textbook and beheld the title: The Time Traveler’s Deal .

There had been an unspoken plea behind her teachers’ words that day. Learn this, learn it well, memorize it, and may you never have to use it.

Well… it looked like she would have to use it.

“ If this stupid planet has a deity, ” she prayed, clenching her fists under the table. “ You’d better help me. ”

She turned back to The Conductor. His head was bobbing along to the music as he waited for her response. She supposed he really was that serious about reclaiming his supposedly ‘lost’ reward. That was a hopeful sign, for her sake.

She placed her hand on the table. He snapped to attention, as if he had just opened his (as far as she knew nonexistent) eyes. “So, ye made yer decision, eh lassie? You gonna let me keep this Time Piece?”

“Maybe,” she said, with a biting cheeriness. He opened his mouth to reply, but she shushed him, crawling across the table to press a finger to his beak. He tilted back from her hand and shook his head in a way that made her think he must have gone cross eyed from following the movement. “I said maybe . But I need you to make a deal with me first.”

He batted her hand away with a faint grumble. “I’m not liking the sound of that, but I’m willin’ to hear you out. Tell me about this… deal .”

“It’s simple , really. This is the patented Time Traveler’s Deal,” she waved her hand in the air as she sat down cross legged on the table, enunciating each syllable with significance while trying to keep the sickly fire in her stomach from infecting her voice. “I need to come with you to change the past. Then I’ll need to travel with you to the new present and future, to make sure your new timeline holds and no paradoxes form.”

“ The forty-eighth theory of time travel - keyword: theory, not law, ” Her professor's voice sang in her head. “ Should any person or persons attempt to change the past out of a motivation of pure selfishness - using the power of the sands of time - it will ultimately result in a future in which that person or persons will endure misery and suffering.” 

At that point, in her memory, he had lowered his baton and twisted both ends between his fingers. “ Should you find a person or persons who are somehow an exception to this... theory, ” he had continued. “ May some god help you. ”

“Aye, is that all?” The Conductor asked with an innocent lilt. “That’s not too much of a problem I supp-”

“And,” Hat Kid cut him off. “I need to have control over the Time Piece while we travel.”

The Conductor’s jaw tightened. He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the Time Piece. He flipped it a few times in the air, flicking it off the tips of his fingers and causing more stress to Hat Kid’s already frayed nerves. “What’s stopin’ me from saying no? What’s stopin’ me from just smashing this to pieces right now and changing the past all by myself?”

Hat Kid could smell the fire and brimstone. “Do you really think you know how to make a timeline stable? All by yourself?” She scoffed out in one frantic breath. “You really want to watch it all crumble before your eyes like a… like a burnt cookie ?”

The Conductor stopped tossing the Time Piece. He looked between her and it with a torn glance. She reached out her hand: an invitation for him to seal the deal.

He took her hand, reluctantly, and shook. Hat Kid kept a firm grip on his hand, interlacing her fingers with the feathers in such a way that he couldn't pull away without risking them all being painfully plucked out. He stared at her, looking surprised but not unimpressed by the bold move. 

“Hand it over,” She hissed.

He pushed the Time Piece across the table and she took it, freeing his hand. She hugged it tightly, wishing she could just leave with it now, but she was still trapped miles below the studio. If she had been at full capacity she might have stood a chance at flying out, hatbutting her way through the layers of wood and concrete back to her ship, but in her current state she wasn’t even likely to make it through the first few levels of the basement.

She slid down from the table and walked forward, beckoning for The Conductor to follow suit.

She gripped the Time Piece and twisted the ends slowly. The wood creaked, but finally released with a click , allowing one of the wooden ends to pop off. She reached out, took The Conductor’s hand again and roughly pushed his fingers open with her thumb, exposing his palm.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, giving him one final chance to back out and save her the trouble and pain.

He gulped, but nodded anyway.

“ He’s nervous, ” she thought. “ Good. ”

She cupped her hand over his own and very slowly tipped the Time Piece. The soft, glowing grains spilt into her hand, and she allowed them to overflow down into his awaiting palm.

Chapter Text

It's difficult to explain what Time Sand feels like. Very few people have had the misfortune of touching it. This was certainly the first time that Hat Kid herself had ever felt it on her skin, despite her extensive experience with handling Time Pieces. Usually, sand being outside of the glass was bad news for everybody involved. Back in school, a broken hourglass had meant minutes to hours of standing still, waiting for someone with proper training to show up with a broom. It also usually meant that someone was in deep, deep trouble.

So when the golden, silver, pearl white sand spilled into her hand, she had no idea what to expect. 

It turned out any expectation would have been correct.

The sand was burning hot for one millisecond, then ice cold the next. It was the softest thing she had ever felt and yet so jagged that she feared it would shred the skin off her palm. It was wet and sticky as bog mud, and it was dry as sun bleached bone. 

And it felt full . Her heart swelled with overflowing joy that dashed itself instantly. Tears pricked at her eyes. A pure, ecstatic laugh bubbled up from her belly. She couldn't stop crying as her giggle morphed into a loud wail. Her fists balled. Her teeth clenched. Her heart fluttered. Her legs shook. Invisible sun warmed her skin and she knew she had never been more alone. Unseen rain dripped into her hair and she knew she was truly loved. She had lost everything. She had everything she needed. She knew the meaning of life. She didn’t know anything and never truly had.

The sand felt like everything, because it was full of everything . All of the good and bad, love and hate, just and unjust actions, all of history and the time yet to come was condensed in those particles.

And then it was over.

Hat Kid came back to her senses on the cold tile floor of Dead Bird Studios. Her ribs felt too tight in her chest. Her brain felt like a scrambled egg.

“Oy, lassie? You feelin’ alright? That was quite a ride!” She opened her eyes when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Conductor stared down at her, his head tilted in a way that made his longer feathers look like the ears of an inquisitive dog. She scooted back from his outstretched arm, burying her cheeks into her sleeves. Her eyes were strangely dry. Hadn’t she been crying?

“I’m fine.”

He curled his hand and watched her, looking like he wanted to say something, but no words came from his mouth. He closed his beak with a clack and took a look at their surroundings instead.

“Oh, look at ‘er, lass. The ol’ studio, back in her glory days. Er, her earlier glory days, that is. The place is still as spiffy as ever in the present too.”

Hat Kid, for her part, didn’t see anything different about the old building. The paint didn’t look any fresher, the floor didn’t look any more even or polished, and dust covered  props were still littered around the room.

“Ah, and those awards!” He pressed his face to the glass of his trophy case. “All gold for me and all silver for DJ Grooves - as is rightly deserved.” 

The Conductor peaked towards the door. “Cold and rainy, just like I remember it. I should have known it was an omen,” He shook his head. “But that’s where you come in lassie!” he ran back to her, grabbing her hands, pulling her to her feet. “It’s not too late! We can fix the terrible injustice that happened today!”

Hat Kid jerked her hands away. The Conductor's fingers closed slowly around empty air as he leaned away, clearly taken aback. 

Hat Kid dug her fingers into her palm. She took in a breath and let it out very slowly. No wasting time, on to the next step.

The Time Piece flickered lightly at her feet. She picked it up, checking for any damage. It was back in one piece. A thin trickle of sand was just beginning to form a small pile on the inside.

She held it up, and it began to glow brighter.

As if on cue, the front doors were blasted open by a gale of wind. The Conductor gasped as a pile of coats and scarves all but clawed his way into the building.

“Well, I’ll be a turkey's uncle, it’s me!” He walked in a circle around the figure with fascination, watching as he peeled off the wet layers of clothing.

And there he was: Past Conductor. 

“Not too shabby, eh lass?” He asked, elbowing Hat Kid. She winced - heart lurching as his elbow dug into a bruise on her shoulder - and shoved him away. It wasn’t difficult; the bird was mostly feathers and hollow bones, and not much taller than her. It was hard to believe just how quickly waving a knife around had made him such a deadly threat.

Past Conductor wasn’t much different from the one she had with her. He was wearing that same trademark black suit and hat. He was noticeably younger. His feathers were… less angular, more fluffy, and had a bit more of a youthful sheen. She wondered how far back in time they actually were. 

He seemed, what, twenty years younger? Had he held a grudge about this for twenty years? 

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Past Conductor paid the two of them no heed as he marched deeper into the studio, a chipper skip present in his steps.

The Time Piece began to glow. The floor beneath them blurred with motion, and suddenly they were standing before a cheering crowd of theater goers, all of whom were jittering in their seats with palpable anticipation. 

Past Conductor was lounging in a front row chair that had been reserved just for him. He had propped his head and feet on the arm rests as he lazily nibbled at some of the feathers on the back of his hand. Hat Kid turned towards the sound of talons on hardwood, her eyes drawn way up onto the blazing bright stage towering behind her. 

Hat Kid hissed at The Conductor to urge him to turn around. He stopped admiring himself and looked back at her, following her gaze upwards.

A dove with long white feathers and a peacock with a bejeweled tail were strutting across the stage. The Conductor let out a soft, awe-filled hoot. 

Past Conductor didn’t even sit up.

“Thank you, one and all!” The peacock spoke into the microphone, his voice bursting with showmanship. “It has been a wonderful evening of deliberation, celebration, and shattering expectations! Our favorite directors have truly given us a battle to behold - I would even dare to say that we have seen some of the best films in the history of cinema this year!”

Past Conductor let out a soft, cocky hoot as the rest of the crowd burst into applause.

The peacock continued. “But now, my friends, is the most important moment of the evening: the moment you’ve all really been waiting for! The announcement of the winner of the Annual Bird Movie Awards!” He stepped back, gesturing towards the dove. She stepped forward, waving an envelope. The crowd murmured with bird sounds of all kinds as she slid the notecard free.

“And the Annual Bird Movie Award for Best Bird Movie this year goes to,” she paused, allowing the faint thunder of a canned drumroll to swell with dramatic effect. “La La Luna!”

Past Conductor’s shout of “What!?” was instantly drowned out by the sound of squawking penguins as they swept their award winning director right out of his seat.

“Woah, easy darlings, easy!” Past DJ Grooves laughed as the tidal wave of penguins washed him onto the stage. He grabbed the microphone with one flipper and hefted the golden award with the other. The light glinted off of his buttons and belt as he paused to take in the applause. He was grinning from one point of his glasses to the other when he finally lifted the microphone to his beak. “Why, thank you darlings! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart! I’d like to thank my mom, the moon penguins, my-”

“Cheater!”

A hush fell over the crowd as a spotlight fell onto Past Conductor. He was standing up in his chair, pointing a sharply accusing finger at the DJ.

“ What was that, darling?” DJ Grooves gasped.

“Cheeeeeeaterrrrrrr!” Past Conductor accentuated the word, not caring that every camera was now focused on him; not caring that everyone in the room was glaring daggers at him.

“Darling, I do not like what you are insinuating,” Grooves’s voice was laced with warning, likely accentuated with an unseen narrowing of his eyes. “Are you saying that I couldn’t beat you fair and square?”

“Ain't nothing square about this, peck neck. You cheated!”

“Darling, watch your language. This is being filmed live!”

“I’ll say whatever I like, you cheating peck neck!”

The peacock leaned over the edge of the stage to a few of the owls in the nearby audience, hissing out of the side of his beak. “Get him out of this room and away from the cameras !”

“But we-” the owls began to protest.

“Get. Him. Out!”

The owls collectively gulped and nodded, scooting out of their seats to approach Past Conductor, who was still ranting and stomping his foot ineffectively against the plush cushion of his chair.

“And another thing you peck- Hey, let go of me!” Past Conductor screeched as a few of the owls gently grabbed his arms and pulled him down from his chair, likely intending on escorting him out. He yanked his arm away, his clenched fist accidentally striking one of them directly in the beak with a nasty, audible crack . The owl let out a strangled hoot as he stepped back, covering his face. 

A single line of blood oozed from under his feathered fingers.

All hell broke loose.

The crowd began booing and hissing. Popcorn, soda, and other snacks began to fly. A few birds even managed to dig up rotten vegetables from under their seats to throw at Past Conductor, all together ruining his suit and coating him in sticky candy and smelly juice.

“Darlings please!” DJ Grooves called out, but no one was listening to him anymore. The moon penguins surrounded him, shielding him from any potential collateral damage.

Several birds grabbed hold of Past Conductor’s arms, much more forcefully than the owls had. Time sped up as the Time Piece forced Hat Kid and The Conductor to follow the mob. The ground slid under their unmoving feet as they watched Past Conductor get dragged away, kicking and screeching and clawing. Hat Kid watched in silence as they tossed him into a muddy puddle in the parking lot, not feeling quite as sympathetic as she thought she should have.

“And stay out!” spat one of the birds.

“Ye can’t kick me out of my own studio, peck neck!”

“You stay out until tomorrow, ya’ hear? If you can’t grow up and accept your loss like an adult, then we don’t want to see your mug ‘till your next movie, got it!?” They slammed the door shut, splashing more water in Past Conductor’s face.

“ Well, ” thought Hat Kid. She crossed her arms and peered down at the frustrated, soaked bird. She had to admit, it was kind of nice to see someone kick his tail after he had nearly sliced her into ribbons.

“Oy, look at that sad sack, eh lassie? Brings tears to my eyes, it does. I sat out in this parking lot for the rest of the night, ye know,” Conductor sniffled, kneeling to be on the same level as his past self as the pouring rain rippled around and through his form.

Hat kid glanced at the warm glow coming from the windows of his train parked on the other side of the lot, and elected to say nothing.

The Time Piece glowed again. The two of them were brought back into the studio, right into the middle of a rip roaring disco party, DJed by none other than Past Grooves himself.

The Conductor jumped to his feet and stormed up to DJ Grooves, sticking his beak directly into the penguin's face. “This was the worst night of my life, my career , and ye were in here partyin’! You just left me out in the cold while yer patted yerself on the back for cheatin’, didn’t ya?! What do you have to say for yourself, DJ peck neck?!”

DJ Grooves didn’t respond. He continued to bob his head as he worked the turntable.

“Don’t ignore me you-” The Conductor leaned forward, open hand reaching for the collar of the DJ's coat. His grasping fingers slipped through the material like it was mist, his fingers closing in on themselves. The Conductor stood stock still, his loose fist raised as he watched it slide in and out of Grooves’s shoulder. He reached up again and wiggled his fingers directly into the lenses of Grooves’s sunglasses. “What… what is this?”

“He can’t see us! No one can!” Hat Kid called up to him. 

“Well, good grief! Why can’t they?”

“We’re… uh… we’re…” Sands , how to explain this . Her own language had a word for this, a beautiful word of ancient origines that perfectly described the situation, but there was no way The Conductor would understand it. They were… interposed? Centroidal? No, she needed a simpler word. Between? Yes, between. 

“We’re between,” she said.

“Between what?” 

“ Between reality and fiction, ” She thought. 

“Between timelines. The one that actually happened, and the one you want to create,” She said.

“Oh,” The Conductor stepped back. He shuffled off the stage and back to her, a sour mixture of concern and anger in his tight expression. “But if they can’t see us, then how are we supposed to fix this?”

“Like this,” she replied, holding up the Time Piece. 

Time reversed around them. A silent scramble of the night’s events played backwards in fast motion, until they landed just outside of the room where the award ceremony had taken place, its seats empty and waiting. In front of them was an ornate box, the lid of which was sealed with at least five different visible locks.

“The voting box!” The Conductor exclaimed. “I forgot we used to do it this way. They switched to cellular phone voting almost twelve years ago.”

Hat Kid held the Time Piece up to the box. The outside edges faded away in the corona of the hourglass’s glow, revealing the ballots inside. One by one they glided out of the box, floating into the air as their creases unfolded; most of them revealed loving, handwritten votes for La La Luna .

“Looks like DJ Grooves didn’t cheat after all,” Hat Kid mused.

“Humpf, well, I smell voter fraud,” The Conductor protested.

“Conductor, there’s only like eighty ballots. And they're almost all for him. The ceremony is in less than an hour.”

“He cheated, lassie. That’s all there is to it. He could have replaced the box, or bribed a host. Either he did it himself or… or he got one of his stoogey penguins to do it for ‘im!” Conductor stomped his foot. “Just fix it lass! ‘Less you want to go back on our little… deal?”

Hat kid sighed. She held up the Time Piece and carefully shook it. The pattering of sand that was in it shifted, and the ground under their feet began to tremble faintly. She watched the ballots closely, delicately adjusting her grip on the hourglass’s wooden frame.

Slowly, the writing on the ballots began to un-write itself. An odd zipper-like sound filled the air: the sound of a pen writing backwards. 

The Conductor’s movie filled in the empty blanks: Fast and Feathered: Train Drift .

“That should do it,” Hat Kid exhaled, feeling even more drained than before. The cut on her side burned, and her ribs heaved with every panting breath she took. 

“Ooooh, I can’t wait lassie!” The Conductor shouted, grabbing her hands and jumping up and down. “I can’t wait to see the look on DJ Peck Neck’s face when he loses again !”

Hat kid pulled away from him, watching with growing disgust as he bounced around like a toddler.

The Time Piece glowed, and everything passed in a blur as they lived through the ceremony again, only with The Conductor winning the award this time. The shouting mockery of both Conductors gave her a headache, and she hardly paid attention through any of Past Conductor's bragging mess of a speech. The Time Piece dragged them through the after party, and Conductor gleefully danced around his past self, soaking in every minute of his victory.

Hat Kid found a quiet corner to wait him out.

She curled in on herself, taking a private moment to check over the gash on her side and make sure it wasn’t getting any worse. It wasn't bleeding anymore. It made her feel queasy but it didn’t look gross . It looked about as okay as a long, clean slice through skin probably could look. 

While she waited for The Conductor to get bored, she pulled a sewing needle out of her pocket and began stitching up the cuts in her clothing, hoping that providing a bit of cover for her wounds would make for less of a risk.

She looked up as someone came trudging in her direction. She was expecting it to be The Conductor, ready to move on, but it wasn’t.

It was DJ Grooves.

The penguin sat down right, well, in her in the corner. She scooted back so she could see him.

She watched as he took off his star glasses, slowly lowering them onto his belly as his tiny gray eyes blinked at the room. He squeezed them shut and pressed a flipper to the bridge of his beak. 

“So many years,” he muttered to himself. “I thought I had it this time. Everyone said they really liked this one, that his was just so cliche …”

He took a shaky breath and looked up at the ceiling. He slid his glasses back on and got up. He shook his head, lifted his shoulders, turned the corners of his beak up into an award winning smile with a small flare of his hands over his cheeks, and meandered off to the dance floor to congratulate Past Conductor.

Hat Kid stowed her needle and thread. She lowered her hat down to her chest, holding the brim over her heart as she ran a fist through her hair. Why couldn't Grooves have won the stupid pecking award back in her timeline?

“Oh, what a parrrrty!” Conductor interrupted her silent mourning as he waddled over, his arms stretched over his head. “Ah, to be young again. Well, what’s next lass?”

Hat Kid placed her hat back on, pulling the brim low over her eyes. She held up the Time Piece and waited as the glow enveloped them. Soon they would see the new present they had created. Things would be a bit trickier now. They had officially created a paradox, and that would result in a fracture in the timeline, an unstable rift between the real and the fake.

From now on, they truly were between.

Chapter Text

Waking up face down on the floor of Dead Bird Studios was not something that Hat Kid would have ever predicted happening in her life before this whole stupid adventure began. Waking up on the floor twice in the span of both one day of her life and twenty years of real time was more than unheard of.

And yet, here she was.

She could already hear The Conductor squawking, and she was not ready to get up for that. Maybe if she stayed on the floor and kept her eyes closed, her alarm would rudely awaken her and this would have all been just a very, very bad dream.

…

Now she could hear two Conductors squawking. 

She sat up to see what they were fussing about, barely surprised when she was greeted by a familiar sight.

The Conductor was locked in an argument with DJ Grooves - the very same argument she had witnessed when she had first arrived at the studio. The Conductor from her timeline was nearly shoulder to shoulder with him, squabbling in sync with his new Present counterpart.

Hat Kid was already having a hard time keeping them apart. They were completely identical now - the only way she knew which one was hers was because he was standing to Present Conductor’s left, notably not parallel to DJ Grooves.

The doors of the studio slid open. Conductor, Present Conductor, and DJ Grooves didn’t even acknowledge it; too caught up in their argument to care.

As for Hat Kid, she couldn't look away.

It was her .

Her own self: uninjured, unbothered, and completely oblivious to the fact that another version of herself from a different timeline was staring at her from across the lobby.

Great, as if she didn’t already have a headache.

There she was, being herself, having her own thoughts - just wanting these birds to move on so she could go and find her Time Pieces back. She didn’t know anything about The Conductor or Grooves yet. She didn’t know that she would become the star of their movies. She didn’t know that she would grow close to them and eventually sort of think of them as friends. She didn’t know that The Conductor would betray her.

She didn't know. She was her but she wasn’t her . 

She wished more than anything that she could tell herself to turn around and leave. 

“-I’d visit me grandchildren!” Present Conductor was still full force into his argument.

“Nonsense, darling, nonsense!” DJ Grooves chided. “You owl express birds are just going to record another dusty, cliche, boring movie. You’ve done so for every past year, darling!”

Hat Kid blinked. Admittedly, she had only heard this argument once before, and she didn’t have the most clear memory of it, but she was certain that something was off about the DJ’s response. It was shockingly venomous; she could hear the disdain hidden just below the surface of his smooth voice.

“Ha! Dusty or not, ye haven’t bested a single one, DJ Grooves !” Present Conductor boasted back.

“Not one!” The Conductor praised his present self. “Wow, it’s a dream come true!”

“Conductor darling, this year that’s going to change. Your over-baked movies don’t stand a chance against my fresh, flashy props!” Grooves was grinning with a contempt that Hat Kid had never seen in him before, but his smile dropped when Present Conductor came out with his own case of Time Pieces. “Where did you get those?”

“These are our new props, DJ peck neck!”

“No darling, those are my props! I’m not going to let you cheat your way through another movie by plagiarizing my hard work again !”

“As if I would steal from you ! Fine, you keep your props! I don’t need them! In fact, I’m feeling generous: why don’t you take them all?” Present Conductor grinned. “We both know these fell from the sky. Only a fledgling would use props that he didn’t design himself!”

Present Conductor waved his hand and the owls dropped the case onto the tile floor with a careless glass on glass clatter. Still smiling, he strutted away towards his side of the studio with his crew in tow.

DJ Grooves was fuming. As soon as the owls disappeared through the door, the DJ ran up and boarded it shut. “That does it! Just try and steal my ideas when you can’t get out of your own studio, darling!” He headed towards his own half of the studio, but paused at the reception desk. “Oh, and Receptionist, darling? Please seal up that vent, I don’t want any owls sneaking into my set.”

The Conductor was laughing as the penguin disappeared into his side of the studio. “Oh, look at him!”

Hat Kid wasn’t laughing.

She watched her present self as she wandered around the lobby, trying to get information out of the various birds that were waiting around. It was mind boggling to think that she must have had a totally different impression of the two birds then she herself had had when she had first arrived at the studio.

Her eyes fell on The Present Conductor’s trophy case. Each section had been stuffed with twice the usual amount of awards.

A flicker caught her attention. Present her was speaking to the badge seller, who was selling her a scooter badge. Despite the way their face twitched around, Hat Kid swore they were glancing at her, their green eye flickering between the two versions of her. She shook the thought away. They couldn’t see her. She was between. It was just wishful thinking that someone might see her and save her from all this.

The Time Piece rattled on the floor. Hat Kid picked it up. It was almost half full of sand. It seemed to buzz, flashing with heat for just a second. A high pitched creak emitted from it as the glass cracked ever so slightly just under the frame. Hat Kid’s gaze darted around frantically. She hadn’t expected things to start getting unstable this early. 

Far in the distance, over halfway across the parking lot, she watched as a white hot crack split reality and struck one of the cars, causing it to vanish. It reappeared a moment later, several stalls over, merged diagonally within another car. At the same time, the crack in the hourglass mended.

The alarms on the cars started blaring, letting out twin echoing screeches that Hat Kid could hear all the way from the studio. She gritted her teeth as a couple of penguins ran outside to check out what had happened.

“Hey, Lassie! What are ye starin’ at? Stop lollygaggin’! I want to see the rest of the studio!”

Hat kid slowly stood up, her teeth still pressed tightly together. Her side pulsed and she slapped a hand over it, crouching over to suck in a few shallow breaths. No blood was visible through her recently mended dress. That had to be a good sign right? It had to be.

The Time Piece glowed, pulling them into a journey through the studio. The Conductor mostly watched himself, taking great pleasure in explaining every little backstage detail about the making of Murder on the Owl Express and Train Rush . Hat Kid tuned him out, since it seemed that he had blatantly forgotten that she had been a part of the whole thing the first time. She was more intent on watching herself: sneaking through the train to avoid the C.A.W. agents, making a mad dash for the front of the train to stop it from blowing up - it seemed that Present Conductor had stolen a few Time Pieces back from DJ Grooves so he could bribe her. 

She almost missed those times. Sure, she had been scared for her life when she found out the train had been rigged to explode, but she had to admit that the impromptu obstacle course had been exhilarating! And investigating the murder? She’d had so much fun doing that! (Even besides the fact that she thought the poor owl was actually dead at first.)

She missed those times. She could almost see the growing affection for the two birds deep within Present Her’s wide eyes as she helped them to create their movies. 

But then… DJ Grooves…

Something was… different .

Not too different… but just enough that Hat Kid could see it. It seemed like every chance he got he mentioned how much of a cheater The Conductor was. ‘That cheating Conductor’ he would call him, much like The Conductor called him ‘DJ peck neck’.

And then there was the awards ceremony.

The Conductor won, of course.

He stood on the stage with his owls. Hat Kid noticed, just like in her own timeline, that there was no formal ceremony. There was no fanfare, no decorations. It didn’t even take place on the same fancy stage that it had in the past. There were television cameras, but the peacock and dove and large crowd of birds were nowhere to be seen. 

A glimmer in the shadows behind the cameras caught her eye. DJ Grooves was watching from the darkness, his shimmering shades silently focused on a time piece clenched tightly within his palm.

“ Oh, ” Thought Hat Kid.

Her own Time Piece flashed, and they were back in the basement.

And there she was, clutching her side. Hat Kid’s fingers subconsciously ghosted over her matching injury.

But she was not alone.

Shwing ! Two knives clashed, sending sparks flying across the dance floor. The two birds jumped back, heels sliding across the floor, their glares sharper than their blades.

“How dare ye?!” Present Conductor screeched. DJ Grooves didn’t reply, responding instead by jumping for the rafters. The sharp points on Present Conductor’s beak ground together as he spat and hissed. “Get back down ‘ere this instant !”

“Oh ho ho! Ladies and gentlemen !” The DJ cried as he slid down the cord of a dangling disco ball. He slammed his heel against the shimmering squares, shattering them as he drove the ball into the ground. 

“Peck!” Present Conductor dove across the floor, swiping Present Hat Kid up to help her dodge the resulting shock-wave.

“ Our turn now!” Present conductor shouted over the music that blared from the thumping speakers. “Are ye ready lass?”

“Aye aye, Conductor!” Present Hat Kid replied. Disco lights swam in her wide, determined eyes.

“Here we…” Present Conductor flipped up into the air, hurling Present Hat Kid towards the DJ. “ Gooo !”

Present Hat Kid flew across the battlefield and cannon-balled right into DJ Grooves, who was still recovering from his own crash landing. The impact sent him skidding back. He flipped his knife and dug it into the ground - splitting one of the floor lights in the process - in order to keep himself from smacking into the base of the stage.

“ Oooh , darling, darling, you’re so rude !” DJ Grooves turned his knife in her direction and began to rapidly strike, but before he could make contact his blade was once again deflected by another. Present Conductor flicked his wrist and the knife twisted out of Grooves’s grip and spiraled across the colored panels. Present Hat Kid took the opportunity to give the penguin a good smack with her umbrella.

DJ Grooves huffed and retreated to the stage. He kneeled for a second, taking in a stuttering breath and pressing his hand against his beak. A shrill whistle burst from behind his thumb and the duo were suddenly bombarded by stage lights, tossed by moon penguins from up above. While they were dodging, another penguin tossed the loose knife up onto the stage at Grooves’s feet.

Grooves raised his flippers and framed his enemies between his thumbs. “Picture perfect!” 

Present Conductor and Present Hat Kid shielded their eyes as several cameras snapped in rapid succession. 

The lights went out with a clank!

A chill went down Hat Kids spine at the familiar muffling of the music.

“Lassie?” Present Conductor called into the darkness. His outline was barely visible in the pale glow still being shed by the floor. “Las- ungh!” A blade slashed across his arm.

Hat Kid felt her Conductor flinch by her side. She scrunched her nose into the darkness.

The lights flickered back on just in time for them to see Present Hat Kid fall from the rafters directly onto Grooves’s head.

Present Conductor shook out his wounded arm, clenching his fist. “Good shot lassie!”

DJ Grooves staggered to his feet, wobbling back as he rubbed his forehead. “All right darling, that's it! Time to bring out the big guns!”

Webbed feet slapped against the glass floor lights. Present Hat Kid cried out as a few penguins tackled her down and strapped something to her back.

“Do you recognize it Conductor? I stole it straight from your set!” DJ Grooves boasted.

Present Conductor just laughed. “Sure I do, and I’d recognize your shoddy work anywhere!”

Present Hat Kid was busy panicking over the realization that it was, in fact, a bomb strapped to her back. Present Conductor was much calmer about the whole situation. “ Ha ! Don’t worry lass. DJ peck neck knows nothing about how my explosives work!”

“Ha! That detonator is stupid! It’ll never work!” Conductor yelled in agreement with his present self.

“Watch yer hat, lassie!” yelled Present Conductor. Present Hat Kid had just enough time to pull her top hat off before a blade swung over her head, slicing off a few hairs and cutting cleanly through the antenna attached to the bomb. Instantly, the bomb fell from her back and exploded with a tiny, harmless pop .

DJ Grooves stomped his platform shoes loudly on the stage. “Why, you-!”

He was cut off by the clank of elevator doors. 

Present Conductor smirked, the feathers around his neck fluffing proudly. “Calvary's here.”

Express owls poured out of the elevator, each one of them waving their own knife. They set their sights on Grooves.

DJ Grooves posed, arms wide like he was about to take flight. He gritted his beak and growled through his nares.

The owls didn’t budge. The tips of their blades pointed unwaveringly in his direction.

Grooves pulled back, his posture straightening as his arms lowered. Hat Kid still couldn’t see his eyes. She could see the way his brow knitted over his glasses, pulling together into a lopsided peak. His beak wavered, but no sound came out.

The music faded away.

Grooves’s knife clattered into the silence, settling on the flickering dance tiles. He slumped onto his knees, and exhaled flatly. “I hate you, darlings.”

Hat Kid flinched. Her heart felt like it was in her guts. This wasn’t the DJ Grooves that she knew, but somehow, she still felt betrayed. It seemed like there wasn’t a single person on this planet who wouldn’t double cross her for a Time Piece. First that girl, then that ghost, then Conductor, and now apparently the DJ too.

“Oooh, I can’t believe that DJ Peck neck, attacking ye like that! Can ye believe this lassie? At least I was there for ye, eh?” The Conductor beamed, placing a hand on her back with no hesitation.

Hat kid shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. She could feel her upper lip curling. 

“Eh…?” The Conductor urged again. He pulled his fingers back. The feathers on the back of his head twitched as the corners of his mouth drooped ever so slightly. “Er, yeah?”

Hat Kid looked back at the battlefield, where the DJ was being silently led away by the congress of express owls. 

She wished Grooves had been there during her fight.

The Conductor placed his hands on his hips. He gave a curt nod, smiling broadly. “Yup, I’d say this present is a win! I’ve got all the awards, and you’ve got my protection! Happy endings all around and all that!”

Hat Kid’s knuckles began to turn white as she gripped the Time Piece. This was not good ! This was the opposite of good ! This was catastrophic !

If he liked this timeline, then he would want to keep it! And - any omnipotent being have mercy on her recently reclaimed soul - if he wanted to keep it she would have to tell him he just couldn’t ! And then he would know she was bluffing the whole time!

And if, time forbid, he tried to force this into the real timeline?

That would be the end.

Hat Kid had been reading about this stuff since she was three ! First from picture books and later from textbooks and scientific papers. Her mind flashed with artistic renderings of horrific scientific theories. Burning worlds covered in lava, white hot cracks in reality that swallowed towns whole, large groups of people straight up ceasing to have ever existed .

Those pictures were the most horrible. Artists and scientists alike couldn’t seem to decide if people would simply vanish, or if they would be torn apart atom by atom. The latter was more popular with the artists and writers on her planet, though.

As the Time Piece begin to glow brighter, all she could do was pray to some benevolent being that Conductor's future would be much much different - and much much worse.

Her life and the universe depended on it.

Chapter Text

This time, Hat Kid didn’t wake up face down on the floor.

She didn’t know where she was exactly. Everything was dark. She felt trapped, her body was pinned between… something . Her front and back were pressed against uncomfortably shaped walls. Her left arm and leg were trapped against another, more solid surface. Only her right arm was mobile. She wrapped her fingers around one of the weird shapes that made up the wall in front of her and pushed. It didn’t budge.

She reached around blindly with her free hand. Her breath began to quicken against her bruised ribs.

She was stuck. 

She couldn’t see. 

She couldn’t move .

She flailed her free limbs, panic rising, mind racing. She was trapped between the time streams. She would never find the Time Pieces back. She would never get to go home. She would never see her family and friends again. She must be dead, she was trapped, she must be dead, she must have died -

“Lass? ...Lass? ...Lass!” The Conductor’s voice broke through her panic. It wasn’t the most comforting sound, but she was willing to take what she could get. “Oy, lassie! Hold on, I’ll get ye out of there!”

She felt a hand grab her arm, and she was slowly dragged forward, out from between the walls. She fell onto the floor in front of him, and he grabbed both her arms and helped her to her feet. She tried to suck in deeper breaths between her gasping. The area around her came into focus as her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, aided a little by the dusty light of the setting sun.

Trophies. She had been trapped between trophies .

Dozens and dozens of trophies, stacked into high, golden walls. 

The Conductor and her were sitting in the only spot that didn’t have trophies - a small walkway between a set of double doors and…

The reception desk of Dead Bird Studios.

The Conductor was looking around. For the first time Hat Kid could remember, he was speechless.

A rustling and the sound of an old TV popping on caught both of their attentions. Coloured light flickered from behind the reception desk.

The TV came into view as the two of them walked up. Conductor stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what else, or who else, was also behind the desk.

Future Conductor was lounging on a sparkly pink bean bag. His beak hung slightly open as he sat, captivated by the tiny bubble TV. He gripped the remote in one hand and a metal flask in the other.

He looked scrawny. His feathers were dull and coarse - and in several spots had fallen out completely, leaving bald pink skin. His hat, suit jacket, and tie were nowhere to be found. His white shirt was unbuttoned all the way down to his waist, with only the bottom few buttons holding it together, the outline of at least one rib plainly visible under a small patch of exposed skin.

Conductor’s gaze was transfixed on himself. Hat Kid was more interested in what he was watching.

A peacock, the same one from the past though now with a regal plume of graying feathers, stood on an open air stage. A spotlight cut through the darkness of the twilight to illuminate him, as well as a lineup behind him consisting of a few much younger birds, a few other animals, some humans, some nomads, and what looked like... a subconite?

The Peacock had just finished giving a speech and the crowd was cheering. He stepped back as someone else took the stage. It looked like… a lady mafia?!

Sure enough, a mafia with auburn hair had taken the spotlight. She was dressed up in a white pinstripe suit and was wearing large green and blue jewels on her hands and around her neck. 

“Hello!” She greeted the crowd. Her voice was gruff and filled with excitement. “On behalf of mafia, mafia would like to thank pretty bird for honor of announcing movie award. Mafia is best at everything, but perhaps not best at movies this year,” She gestured to the lineup behind her, none of which were mafia. The crowd tittered politely. 

“There is always next year, mafia supposes!” She laughed. She tore open the envelope she was holding and shook its contents into her hand. The card looked comically small in her large fingers. She held it high and it shimmered holographically in the light. “This year's World Movie Award goes to… Attempted Murder: A Story of Loneliness and the Search for Friendship , directed by Raavin Rook!

A cheer rang through the audience as the contenders on stage rushed to congratulate a small crow that was among them. He let out a tiny, startled caw as he was lifted into the air by his competitors, who shouted out his praise as they carried him to the front of the stage. The mafia quickly lowered the mic for him. Hat Kid was practically squealing at the sight. He was so young, so tiny. His feathers still had a tinge of fledgling fluffiness. Most of his body was covered by a huge, armless gray hoodie that hung down to his knees. His big eyes were nearly overwhelmed with excitement. He was shaking as he approached the mic, opening his beak to give a speech-

Pop , the TV turned off. 

Future Conductor huffed at the now blank screen. “Pecking waste o’ my time.” 

He raised the flask to his mouth and tipped his head back, burrowing deeper into the bean bag. His brow immediately furrowed as the flask came up dry. He clicked his beak for a moment as he dangled it over his face, staring at the silvery object like it had just given him devastating news. Then he shrugged. Stowing it away in a pocket, he got up and started stumbling towards the door. “No sense being thirsty on such a lovely night. I’m going out!” he declared to the empty room.

“What… What is this? Where is he off to?” Conductor asked as he watched his future self wobble off towards the front door of the studio.

The Time Piece flashed again. Colorful lights strobed. Hat Kid blinked at the sudden change of brightness as she looked around. They were in a nightclub. Future Conductor was sitting at the bar. He was holding an empty glass, his head rested on his folded arm.

“Another!” he demanded from the penguin behind the counter. The penguin raised an eyebrow over his sunglasses, but didn’t comment - instead pulling out a bottle filled with a clear, bubbly liquid. As he poured it into the glass, Hat Kid caught a glimpse of the label: Alpine Sparkling Water. She wondered if Future Conductor really liked the stuff, or if he was simply too out of it to notice.

“Be back soon, everyone!” A familiar voice rang out over the dance floor, and several of the penguins let out ‘awws’ of disappointment. “Now now, darlings. I won’t be gone long!” 

Some fast paced dance music started blaring over the colored tile. The clacking of platform shoes was just barely audible over the din. 

Future DJ Grooves approached Future Conductor, sliding onto the stool next to him. Future Conductor turned his head - which still rested on his arm - and held up the glass as if he was offering it to the DJ. Grooves shook his head in response. 

Future Conductor turned his attention to the large monitor behind the bar, finally raising his head off the counter. The awards ceremony had long since devolved into the afterparty. The contestants were carrying around Raavin like he was their new king. The camera landed on a few of them slugging back drinks, footage that was likely going to come back to haunt them some day. Hat Kid wasn’t sure if all of them were old enough to be drinking. The cameras cut back to a couple of garish parrots, who were sitting in crescent swivel chairs near the now mostly abandoned red carpet. They were gossiping about the young directors, mostly dishing out rumors and half truths that were likely to boil someone’s blood.

“Look at what a circus our profession has turned into,” Future Conductor commented.

“You know they used to do that to us too, right darling? We were just too… preoccupied to notice,” Future DJ Grooves corrected. Hat Kid noticed a streak of grey cutting through the center of his afro.

“Peck! Who cares! We were adults, we could take it! These young upstarts are rubbish, rubbish! Children! Peck!” 

“Did you even see any of their movies, darling?”

“Of course I did! Every single one! Rubbish, I say!” He rested his face fully on the counter, seeming to lose interest in his drink. “That shadowy, ghostly, childy lad should've won. Those voters wouldn’t know what a perfect tragedy looked like if it kicked them right in the beak.”

“Mmm, you have to admit, Raavin’s movie had heart, darling.”

“Bah! Too much heart! It was utterly unrealistic! No one makes friends that easily! That pecking ‘enemies to friends’ blather is really getting under my damn feathers!”

“Well, agree to disagree darling.”

Future Conductor pushed himself up from the bar. “Agree to nothing! Goodnight!”

DJ Grooves stood up too. “One second, darling. I can’t have you leaving my bar looking like that . What would the press say?” He grabbed Future Conductor’s shirt and began to button it up. Future Conductor stood impatiently through the whole ordeal, the skin above his beak turning a noticeable red under his thinning feathers. DJ Grooves straightened his shirt collar. “Same time next year, darling?”

“Sure, whatever, DJ peck neck,” Future Conductor muttered as he sharply turned away and stumbled back towards the door.

Conductor finally spoke up once the old bird had departed. “What… what the peck happened here?”

In response to his question, a glow began to emanate from the Time Piece. The flash overtook the two of them and suddenly they were back in the lobby of Dead Bird Studios. 

Hat Kid looked at the Time Piece in her hands. It was almost completely refilled with sand.

Now - very unlike before - the lobby was alive with disarray. The brightly lit room was packed from one trophy case to the other with assorted props and equipment, all in various states of being unpacked from crates and foam. Owls and penguins flitted from one side to another, attempting to separate glitter from greasepaint and cactus standees from galaxy ones. 

In the middle of the chaos, Future Conductor, or rather, a version of him from a bit farther back in the future (peck, this time travel stuff was annoying sometimes), was in deep disagreement with the peacock who had hosted the awards ceremonies. This Future Conductor still had his full outfit, and his feathers - while still rougher than Conductor prime’s - were in healthier shape, and none of them were missing.

“What do you mean, change the awards?! Why would you ever change the awards?!”

Commotion rotated around the two of them like a hurricane. The peacock had a feathered hand pressed to the bridge of his beak. “Because,” He said this as if this was his thousandth time explaining: “No one wants to watch the Bird Movie Awards anymore! I’m just saying, we think it would improve public interest if we expand our horizons! Open things up! Start letting people from outside of the bird community compete for a change!”

“Why the peck would you want to do that?”

The peacock inhaled deeply through his nares and exhaled through his beak. “Because! No! One! Is! Watching! The! Awards!” he screeched, stomping his feet alternately with each syllable. His manicured talons left scratches in the recently waxed floors, joining a hundred other brand new scuff marks.

“Well, why aren't they watching, darling?” DJ Grooves finally spoke up. He had been sliding behind Future Conductor, a small disco ball sandwiched between his hands, when the peacock’s outburst had grabbed his attention.

The peacock turned to him. “Finally, someone who asks the real questions! The truth is: no one is interested in your petty conflict anymore!”

Future Conductor and DJ Grooves both took a step back. “Petty?!” they both exclaimed.

“Petty?!” Conductor repeated.

“That’s right, I said it! Your conflict with each other may have been entertaining for the first thirty or so years, but it’s become old, stale, and somewhat pathetic to most of our focus groups. Your entertainment value as rivals ended the millisecond you ran out of movie ideas! Do you realize that there hasn't been a birdy blockbuster in nearly a decade , or are your beaks so buried in your own nests that you haven't been paying attention? No one wants to challenge you because you're both dominating this industry with stubborn iron fists! We need fresh blood! You’re old , and it’s time you both grew the peck up!”

He turned his back to them, his tail swishing across the floor in the sliver of space between the three of them. He craned his long neck to look back at the pair. “We’re rebranding. From now on, you’ll be competing in the World Movie Awards, against contestants from every walk of life this planet has to offer. If you two don’t like it, I suggest you retire. Heaven knows you should have retired years ago,” He turned back to the door, gathering up his tail with a quick sweep of his arm to prevent it from getting trampled. He shoved through a small gathering of penguins and owls, sending them skittering and squawking out of his way, and opened the door with a reverberating slam.

The room paused. Props stopped moving as conversations dropped off. All the eyes in the room turned to greet the sound, and met the eyes of an angry celebrity as he looked back one last time.

“Good luck,” He growled, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Future Conductor and Grooves stood parallel in stunned silence. A grain of sand tumbled through the Time Piece, almost audible. 

Future Conductor turned on his heels and poked his finger into Grooves’s beak with a growl. “This. Changes. Nothing .”

The Time Piece began to glow again, and time around them sped up. Hat Kid and Conductor watched the world go on like a movie on fast-forward as everyone resumed their tasks. Props and crates filtered out until the lobby was cleared for reception once more. 

The lobby lights flickered and winked out. The Time Piece flashed, and then they were no longer there.

They were in a theater, one far more large and grand than Dead Bird Studio could ever hope to offer. A large crowd gathered in front of the stage, milling around like ants in double time. Hat Kid shielded her eyes from the stage as the flashy pre-show lights turned into a strobe effect at the increased speed, the scene around them starkly silent in comparison. Then, all at once, sound exploded back into existence - led by the boom of a voice into a microphone.

“And the winner of the first annual World Movie Award is… Missing the Last Ride Home , Directed by Catonio Cat!”

The spotlight shifted from the stage to glue itself onto the form of a tall, lanky black cat as he dashed down the center aisle as fast as his hind paws could carry him. His arms were waving as the crowd - despite still being mostly composed of birds - cheered loud enough to drown out whatever gratitudes were pouring from his lips.

The peacock passed the mic over, his chest feathers fluffed with pride under the low neck of his suit. The crowd hushed as the cat took the microphone and lifted it to address the remaining intrigued murmurs. He took in a breath to speak, and-

“I said : this is bullshit!”

The crowd went cold silent in an instant, over a thousand faces tightening into the same grimace. 

The peacock snaked his head over to speak into the mic, his eyes half lidded but brow furrowed. “Can we get security in here, please?” He spoke in a dead monotone that Hat Kid couldn’t believe his showy voice was capable of.

“Oh, come on ye pecknecks! Yer just going to let some cat wander in here and steal my - I mean- our prize like that? It’s for the birds!”

“You're telling me,” Someone muttered, their voice just loud enough in the dead silence to bounce all over the room's acoustics.

“Peck off,” Someone said a little louder.

“You’re just jealous that someone else could make a train themed movie that was actually good .”

That comment was enough to send the rest of the crowd into a low cacophony of murmurs.

“Did you see the one about the forest?”

“What about that horror one?”

“Best movie I’ve seen in years -”

“-drawings played so fast it looked like movement!”

“It made me feel seen-”

“I actually wrote canon compliant fanfiction about that one because it was so good -”

“I cried for thirty minutes -”

Most of the crowd had risen to their feet in an effort to speak with as many of their neighbors as possible. Future Conductor’s head swiveled around, beak agape, as he realized no one was looking at him anymore. Hat kid thought he seemed smaller, somehow, as his arms pulled in close to his chest.

“Peck all of you!” He cried. He grabbed the brim of his hat and slammed it against his knee with a harsh slap . The conversations slowly petered out as the creatures around him began to glance back in his direction.

“Security, if you please,” The peacock muttered again.

“Nay. Don't bother ,” Future Conductor said, the ‘r’ sound rolling in his throat.

He screwed his cap back on his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He ducked low and began a silent, plodding tread up the aisle. The crowd's heads swiveled to follow him, tracking his trek as if he had a spotlight of his very own.

He reached the heavy double doors at the end of the carpet. The push bar was nearly over his head. He slammed his palms into it with enough force to make the colliding metal sound like a gunshot.

The door slid back into place after him, the clicking of the latch whisper quiet, almost inaudible in the stuffy silence.

“Sorry, you may continue,” The peacock spoke once again to the cat on stage. His voice was like a pin puncturing a balloon. The crowd shuffled softly as they all took their seats once again.

The cat nodded, and lifted the microphone back up to his mouth.

The time piece glowed. Whatever he had intended to say became silent as he paced quickly across the stage. The crowd applauded, muted by the rapid passage of time, then filtered out and disappeared. The empty theater flickered as the sun rose and set in rapid succession.

Their location changed. The sun slowed to a halt in the cloudless sky.

“What kind of sick play is this Grooves?” 

Future Conductor stood, his spine as straight as a signal pole that had been tilted slightly by a gale force wind. His fists were tightly clenched on the ends of his straining arms. Opposite of him was Future DJ Grooves, one hand outstretched, the other clutching the retractable handle of a glittery hard-shell suitcase.

“It’s not a trick, darling. This is the key to my half of the studio.”

Future Conductor sputtered. “And... and... and yer… Oh, I get it, yer expectin’ me to pay your bills -”

“No,” Future Grooves declared. “The money I owe will stay under my name, and I’ll pay it back in time. I’m leaving , darling. I’m quitting .”

“You can’t just quit -”

“ Conductor. ” 

“I… uh,” The owl shut up under the weight of his title.

“I’m broke . I’m spent . I’ve got nothing left to my name but a handful of silver trophies, a night club, and enough cash to restock the bar of said nightclub with the faint hope of turning a profit. I’m going back to doing what I’m good at. So, you've done it. You’ve won, darling. You never have to see me again. That's what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”

Future Conductor’s fists trembled slightly. The sun beating down on his hat cast a hard shadow over his brow.

“Peck off,” He hissed, lifting his hand palm up.

“What was that, darling?”

“If yer so eager to get back to yer precious moon, then just peck off already!”

Future Grooves gave a curt nod and dropped his key into Future Conductor’s awaiting palm. He breezed past the stiff postured bird, his platforms barely clacking on the asphalt. “Best of luck darling.”

Future Conductor didn’t turn around to watch him go. Future Grooves sped up as he walked, and seconds later Hat Kid watched the trail of a rocket take off into the sky.

The location changed. Time slowed. Future Conductor picked up the phone.

“I swear I can pay you back. No, this isn’t like last time. I’m gonna win for sure I- Hello? Peckneck hung up on me.”

Time sped up. Time slowed. Future Conductor clutched his hat as he stared up at a rather large falcon, clearly sweating beneath his yellow feathers. 

The falcon was dressed in a suit. A thick wad of paperwork was clipped to a clipboard in his hand. He flipped nonchalantly through the papers. “If you would be willing to liquidate some of your awards here, it would probably cover the rest of your expenses...”

Future Conductor’s fingers dug into his hat as he grinned up at the falcon. “I’m sure there is no need to take such drastic action. I’ll win the next award and then I can pay back my loans. I swear it.”

Time sped up. Time slowed. 

“Genuine Dead Bird Studio Props for sale, right here! Own a piece of your favorite movies!”

“Are you selling any of those trophies of yours?”

“...kindly peck off ma’am.”

Time sped up. Time slowed. 

“Mafia will pay forty thousand pons for pink tie.”

“Sold!”

Time sped up. Time slowed. Future Conductor was on the phone again.

“No, I absolutely will not part with my awards! It’s out of the question! I… My house? Well, maybe… What's your offer?

Time sped up again, and only then did Hat Kid realize she hadn’t checked up on Conductor prime. She had been so caught up in the melodrama of his life collapsing before her that she had forgotten that he was watching it too.

She turned to face him, preparing an enquiry that died in her mouth.

He was trembling, pink skin noticeably pale under his feathers. At some point he had taken his hat off and he was now hugging it tightly to his chest. Hat Kid didn’t know what to say. Was this too much? As much as she hated him for all the pain he had caused her, she couldn’t help the pity that stabbed through her as he continued to stand like a bird in headlights. 

She couldn’t find words. Time was slowing down again. It was too late.

It was night, but it wasn’t dark. They were standing on a train platform, a stark world of parallel lines made by concrete and benches and lamp posts. The yellow lights of the lamps above turned the platform into a harsh prism. It cut the darkness so absolutely that it was like they were in a room with walls made of void. There was not even a flicker to grant an inch of territory to the darkness beyond.

Down the platform a bit was Future Conductor. He was holding his hat lightly in his hands, looking downright sickly in the bright light, the yellow tint eating away the color of his feathers and leaving him looking a bit gray around the frills.

He was talking to an owl, who was dressed in a lab coat. Hat Kid presumed it must have been one of those ‘science owls’ she had heard the mafia prattle about once. She had never actually seen one until now.

There was a loud clunk , and a new light popped into existence, just as perfectly non-flickering as the one that lit the platform.

And there, illuminated, was The Conductor’s train.

“No,” Hat Kid turned as the Conductor exhaled the one word plea. “I would never… surely I would never…”

“Well, it’s a mighty fine piece of machinery, Conductor,” The science owl spoke up. “A bit archaic, if you ask me, but you’ve never asked me before so don’t worry about starting now.” He waved his hand in the air.

“Runs as well as the day she was built,” Future Conductor croaked. He sounded proud, if a little too quiet.

“And that’s no surprise of course. What is a surprise is that it’s almost never been on time a day in its life, but I’m sure that’s no fault of the machine.” 

Hat Kid could see Future Conductor’s feathers bristle for a moment, but he cooled off before the owl continued. 

“I have to say, I’m quite surprised that you’ve finally agreed to talk to me, Conductor. I mean, the science owls have been trying to talk to you for ages. My secretary nearly fainted when you said yes. I think he was ready for another earful. You’ve always been incredible at improvising loud and… passionate monologues about your train.”

“How much?” Future Conductor asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. What’s your offer?”

“Ah,” The science owl began patting at his coat, quickly locating a thick notebook that was branded with a silhouette logo of an owl’s head. He pulled out a pen and filled out the first slip before tearing it off the spine and handing it over to Future Conductor. 

The Conductor next to Hat Kid started chewing on the brim of his hat as he watched his future counterpart look over the note. Future Conductor showed no emotion as he took in the amount of digits he was looking at. There was no push at his brow that would indicate a widening of his eyes. His beak stayed firmly shut.

He tucked the note away into the collar of his jacket, his face still solid as a stone statue. He held his conductor hat in both hands. He was stationary: no sign of pondering, no intense contemplation. There didn’t seem to be a tense muscle in his body.

Seconds stretched on. The Time Piece hummed, flickering faintly, and only then did Hat Kid understand why the moment seemed so drawn out.

Future Conductor held his hat out, a sacred offering. 

The science owl picked it up from his palms and secured it on his own head with a couple of crumpling twists for good measure. It looked too small on him.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Future Conductor left without another word.

Conductor, Hat Kid’s Conductor, collapsed to his knees. His hat slipped from his hands and rolled across the concrete.

The Time Piece flashed, bright and blinding and final, and they were back in Dead Bird Studios. The lights were out, the doors were boarded, and the awards loomed. 

Conductor kneeled, dumbfounded, on his knees - his hat resting about a foot away.

The sun had almost set outside. All that could be seen through the doors was the empty parking lot and the old studio sign, bordered by an orange glow. Some of the letters were missing, their absence creating yawning gaps in the sign's long shadow.

Hat Kid was struck by how cold it was. She wrapped her arms around herself, grateful that she’d had the foresight to fix her clothing. Her ribs ached.

Future Conductor was back on the beanbag. He had passed out while watching an old movie on the television: it looked like one of his own. He was shivering, despite being cocooned in a fuzzy pink blanket. His breath escaped in steam clouds as he snored. 

Conductor, seemingly not bothered by the cold, sat down on the reception desk to stare at himself.

“Oy, what a sad sack,” He muttered. “Lassie?” He addressed Hat Kid with his back still turned to her. “Why did this happen? All I wanted was to win…”

She took a deep breath. “You never know what a small change in time will do,” Her teeth chattered as she spoke.

“Can I still fix this? Now that I know about it, if I choose this timeline, can I make it go differently?”

“No, this is what will happen. You won’t remember this,” She gritted her teeth, hoping he would buy it and give up so they could go home. They needed to go soon, she could hear the Time Piece creaking.

He frowned deeply, seemingly still wrestling with his thoughts. “But this, taking back what's mine, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Hat Kid felt something against her hand. Her side was damp beneath her palm.

“But, you did show me… I guess it never was mine. Maybe DJ peck neck did deserve that award all along. Is this the universe's way of telling me I was wrong?” He looked at himself again, then at the towers of trophies, then at the boarded up doors to the studio. “When I was a lad, I wanted nothing more than to have these awards, like they did on TV. Ye don’t win awards for drivin’ a train though. I guess that’s why I wanted to make movies in the first place. And then that peck neck showed up at me new studio, acting like he owned the place, and it turned out he did! He must’ve tricked the landlord, cheated his way in. I just couldn't let him beat me lassie, do you understand?”

He sat for a moment in silence, awaiting her response. He didn’t get one. Instead, there was a loud crack , like thunder.

“Lassie?” he called out. His voice echoed in the studio. 

He turned around. A lone Time Piece sat on the floor.

Chapter Text

“Lass?” The Conductor bent down to pick up the Time Piece. There was not even a footprint in the dust to point to where she had gone. “Lassie, where did ye go?”

The Time Piece felt hot in his hands. A crack shot across the glass, visible for hardly an instant before it reversed its course. At the same time, a crack shot through the air beside The Conductor like lightning, just barely missing him. Burning white light squeezed in razor thin beams from between its edges.

“What was that!?” he shrieked, though no one was around to hear him.

Crack! Another bolt shot through the air, slicing into a row of trophies and causing them to disappear.

“Is… is this one of those paradox thingies that the lass was talking about?”

Another crack branched across the hour glass, causing a few grains of sand to slip out. The Conductor squawked as the particles seared into his feathers. The studio around him shifted - not with a flash of light but rather piece by piece: like a puzzle being taken apart and reassembled - but the parts were all from different puzzles, all askew and overlapping each other's edges. His future self was still there, sleeping, while his present self was arguing with Grooves in the midst of half a pile of trophies. One or two of the lights flickered on while the rest remained dark. The express owls moved forwards and backwards through his studio door, bringing out an empty case over and over, but reversing just before they made it to Present Conductor’s side. Meanwhile, Past conductor clawed his way into the building from the blazing parking lot in rain soaked clothing.

The bits of broken glass from the Time Piece forced themselves back together, and slowly the messed up details began to disappear; the puzzle pieces packed away until everything was completely replaced.

The Conductor’s memory was shaken as the details of his surroundings fell into order. A warm, sunset lit room pulled itself together from the chaos. The more it stabilized the more Conductor recognised it: the bookshelves, the toy boxes, the train track patterned carpet.

A tiny owl rested on his belly on the floor. His head was propped up in his hands. He kicked his feet as an old rabbit ear TV hazily broadcasted an awards ceremony.

Birds stood on a clean, brightly decorated stage. Even in black and white, The Conductor could recognize the sight of the Dead Bird Studio stage back in its glory days, only a few years old and the wood polished like new. He’d never had the money to take care of it like that.

The little owl - Child Conductor - was letting out soft hoots, hardly able to contain himself. The envelope with this year's winner had just been opened. The television went fuzzy for a moment, just long enough that the Conductor missed hearing the winner’s name, but that didn’t matter. He knew the director’s face.

The TV fazed back in and there he was, the ol’ puffin. This had been the first time that Conductor had been old enough to actually understand what was happening during the ceremony. He had drank in every moment of it, from the lights to the cheers to the trophy .

Child Conductor had taken to jumping around his playroom, bouncing off couches and shelves with reckless abandon. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew he would win!” he cried to the rest of the house. “His movie was so good! I knew he could do it!”

Conductor frowned. What movie had the puffin made? He remembered this day with such clarity and yet he couldn’t remember that.

Child Conductor bounced up and down in place, his hat falling back off his head and onto the floor. “I’m gonna make movies jus’ like that someday! People are gonna love 'em and give me awards too!” He reached into one of the drawers in a nearby dresser and pulled out some lined paper and a handful of crayons. He plopped himself down and started scribbling some nearly unintelligible words onto the paper. Once he was satisfied, he put it in a box that he had decorated with a drawing of himself holding an award.

What had he done with that box? He couldn’t remember.

The little bird yawned loudly. “My life’s gonna be so great. I’m gonna make movies and people will love ‘em and give me awards… n’ I’ll be so happy...” he trailed off as he started to teeter over.

The Conductor watched his child self curl up on the soft carpet. 

Happy. He scoffed.

The hourglass in his hands began to seethe icy energy. Wood and glass splintered and suddenly the sleeping form of his child self was lying in a pool of ketchup, a rubber knife buried into his side. The playroom groaned and contorted, its circular walls squashing to frame Conductor and the child in a rectangular room. The floor began to shake rhythmically as the blank nighttime desert began to crawl in the windows, moving ever backwards.

The Conductor could only watch as his child self slowly stood up, coughing as blood red dripped from his beak and mixed with the tomato red on the floor. The little owl looked straight at him, terror plastered all over his fluffed feathers. The little bird was covered in slashes, and Conductor paled as he felt his empty fingers wrap around a cold handle. Child Conductor’s gaze flicked from the owl’s face to his hand.

Conductor lifted his arm, watching as the sharp blade of a steel knife came into his view. Child Conductor cowered. “Why?” he asked.

“Wha-! No, laddie, I didn’t do this, I-”

“I thought we were friends!” The bird’s form flickered, replaced by another that matched it in height. 

Hat Kid stared up at him, face furrowed, teeth clenched. She was holding a hand against her side while she wiped blood off her lip with another.

The train track carpet sloughed and crawled away, revealing hardwood with glowing yellow cracks. A dresser warped and popped, turning into a jukebox that blared a familiar electric tune. The floor Hat Kid stood on creaked, falling about a meter - though her stance didn't even wobble. The Conductor towered over her as a spotlight snapped on over his head. 

Express owls fell into the room, passing through the ceiling to dangle from the rafters. Some even stuck their head through the windows, cheering him on with reckless loyalty. 

Hat Kid stood at the tip of his blade. Her battle stance was low against the floor. Her eyes blazed in the shadow beneath her hat.

Blood and ketchup seeped into the wood beneath her boots.

“I… I did do this. What was I thinking ?”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” She asked him, her voice a near scream over the music and manic owls. “Are you sure this is what you want?!”

Conductor sputtered. “No! None of this is what I want!”

The Time Piece glowed. The music stopped. The owls froze. Glass and sand hung in the air.

The world around him shattered.

The Conductor woke up, finding himself on the frosty parking lot of a rundown Dead Bird Studios. He looked around, quickly hoisting himself to his feet. “Lassie?!”

The sun had long since set and the lot was bathed in the dim blue light of the moon. The icy wind hit him for the first time, stealing his breath before he could call out for Hat Kid again. He clutched his arms and bent over, shivering.

Where had she gone? Had she left him here? 

He turned as a rumble brewed behind him. A harsh yellow light sped down the tracks that skirted the parking lot, bringing with it the sound of clacking wheels. A shrill, metallic whistle screamed into the air as the express passed. The parking lot flashed with light as the train breezed by, whipping trash into the air and blowing around the spindly bits of flora that were attempting to reclaim the asphalt into nature.

In the strobing coach lights, The Conductor was finally able to see someone else in the lot. Whoever they were, they looked too big to be Hat Kid. He carefully walked over, not wanting to get swept up by the gusts that the speeding train was creating. As the figure came more into view, he could see someone else, someone who appeared to be cowering on the ground in front of the intimidating silhouette.

Someone in a top hat.

“Lassie!” Conductor gasped. He started running towards them, aiming to take out whoever it was that was towering over her. He tackled full force into them, sinking into them but ultimately not moving them. He began to punch his fists into their side, but his hands only seemed to bounce off of their soft coat.

“Conductor, stop it!” Hat Kid’s voice rang out as the person easily lifted the owl off the ground by the collar of his suit.

“Hey, put me down ya peck neck!”

“Is he with you?” An even tempered voice asked.

“Yes,” Hat Kid replied.

The Conductor was gently set back down on the pavement beside her. He looked her over for injuries. She was holding a damp towel and carefully cleaning off some cuts and scrapes on her arms. 

“Oh, ” Conductor thought. “ Oh, right... ”

For the first time since this had all started, he looked at her. Really looked at her. She was covered in bruises and cuts. He could see patches in her clothing that she must have mended on their journey through time. There was one sewn up cut in her dress that made Conductor’s blood freeze; it was long and clean, and had a drying stain that showed up as a darker purple.

Conductor looked at his hands. “I did this,” he whispered.

Hat Kid paused her actions, her eyes wide. She grabbed him by his lapels and shook him. “It’s about time !” 

“Excuse me,” The calm voice interrupted. “I have some bandages for you.”

Hat kid let go of The Conductor’s suit as the two of them turned to the third person. Conductor jumped at the sight, watching as they flickered and glitched in place. Then, recognition dawned on him. “Aren't ye the stranger that was in my lobby? What are ye doin’ here?”

“The Badge Seller, at your service. I have been to many strange worlds, and my travels have left a permanent mark on me. I no longer live in merely one plane of existence. I felt - back so many years ago - when the timeline split and the between was formed. I’ve been living in all three ever since. Though, I can assure you, this is not the strangest place I’ve been.”

They reached behind their back, sliding their hand through the fabric of their backpack instead of opening it. They rustled around in the pack for a moment, before pulling out a handful of different bandages: some paper, some fabric, and even a few small adhesive ones. They handed the bandages over to Hat Kid. “You’ll need to put these on yourself. My hands are not as steady as they used to be, I'm afraid.” As if to prove their point, their arm flickered away and rematerialized a few inches closer to their body.

The Badge Seller stood between Hat Kid and The Conductor, so she could have some privacy while she dressed her wounds. The Conductor shied away from their gaze. The Badge Sellers face was solid like stone, lacking any change in expression. Still, the heat of their gaze was hard to ignore. Their green lit eye bore into The Conductor, so much that he couldn’t stand still. He began to sway from leg to leg. He grabbed his hat from his head and began to wring it in his hands.

“You hurt that child.”

The words hung heavy in the air. Conductor broke down, his fingers clawing into the fabric in his hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking-”

“You weren’t!” 

“No, you're right! I was just thinkin’ about my lost reward, the one DJ Grooves took from me. I just wanted that night to be better! I’m sorry-”

The Badge Seller’s hand lashed forward, gripping the owl by the shoulder. The Conductor stood rigid as their hand uncomfortably glitched in and out of his arm.

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” They said.

“I’m done,” Hat Kid announced as she walked out from behind The Badge Seller, pressing down the last adhesive bandage onto her chin. Still holding his shoulder, The Badge Seller pushed The Conductor towards Hat Kid like a scolding parent.

The Conductor rubbed his arm. “Lassie I… I have something I need to say,” She looked at him. “I’m sorry . I’m so very sorry. I attacked ye, and I never should have done that. I realize now that I… well… I could have killed you,” He looked out towards the decrepit studio. “That's me, in there. We really are one in the same. No matter what happened that night, whether I lost or won that award, I still wound up unhappy, and it… it doesn't have to be that way. Not anymore.” 

He took in a breath and steaded his thoughts.

“Ah, what I’m saying, lass, is that I was wrong. I convinced myself that some award was more important than your life, and I was wrong. I was wrong to hurt you. I’m sorry lass, can ye forgive me?”

Hat Kid shook her head. Her expression was pained and pinched. “I accept your apology,” She said. “I think that maybe I can forgive you. Someday. Just… not right now, okay?”

Conductor placed his hat back on his head. “Okay, lassie.”

The Badge seller let go of his shoulder.

Hat Kid held up the Time Piece. “Can we go back now?”

The conductor had no idea when she had gotten it back. He smiled. “Please.”

The Badge Seller waived. “See you both again soon!”

“Clear the way! Clear the way! We got an injured child here!” The Conductor screeched at the express owls as they frantically pushed the set walls out of the way. “Oy, move it you peck necks! She needs medical attention!”

The Conductor was gently supporting Hat Kid as they ran for the elevator. Owls hooted with confusion as they obeyed their director, uncertain as to why he was suddenly helping the girl he had been fighting minutes before.

They ran straight into DJ Grooves as they entered the elevator. “Darling, what happened to you?! I heard that a fight broke out, I was on my way down to see if I could help!”

“It’s a long story, DJ pe- Grooves . Just hit the button, we need to go !”

As they began to go up, DJ Grooves frantically looked her over, squawking at each of her injuries. “What did you do?!”

“I attacked her and I’m sorry !”

“You attack-”

“Shhh!” Hat Kid placed her hand on the penguin's arm. “We already worked it out. Please, my head hurts.”

They rode in silence for a moment. The Conductor tapped his foot. “This is a long ride, isn’t it?”

The silence went on for a few more seconds.

“Er, ya know lassie,” The Conductor spoke softly. “I think you’ve given me a great idea for my next movie. What do you think of the story of a bird, who travels on a time traveling train to change his past, but finds out that no matter what he does, the future never turns out the way he wants? I think I’ll call it,” he swept his hand through the air. “The Time Travel Express .” 

Hat Kid tapped her chin. “Could be interesting,” she smiled. “I like it. Maybe if I’m in the area again sometime, I’ll drop by and see it.”

DJ Grooves, on the other hand, was laughing. “Darling, you’re going to make a sci-fi movie? This I gotta see! You really think that you can pull it off? After all, I know how badly you want that award.”

The Conductor smiled, looking at the floor. “Heh, yer right, I do really want that award. But, somehow, I think that this movie is going to be meaningful. So what if I lose this year? There’s always the next.”