Time is a thousand delicate tiles on an ornate floor, each tenuously linked to those surrounding it. She thinks that perhaps a better explanation would be useful, but for her purposes the concept of a corridor suffices. Sometimes the tiles can be moved, shattered or even destroyed, and when the pattern breaks, things begin to decay. Essentially, she is a glorified caretaker, ensuring the corridor is safe and tidy: she sees, feels and tastes time. She breathes time. And as an operative it would be very easy to immerse herself and lose herself in the flow of one tile in to another, ensuring that the course is smooth, exploring the myriad combinations of paths that wind their own ways to the same conclusion.
She couldn't do it without him.
In many ways he's the important one. He's her anchor, the rock that keeps her steady against the ebbs and flows of time's current; unchanging, unyielding Steel. Without a strong presence so closely linked to her own mind, she would have been lost eons ago, lost to the winding corridors that even now tempt her to set herself adrift.
Time whispers permanently in the back of her mind, growing stronger if she lets down her barriers to probe its recent past, and developing in to a harsh ache when she encounters those broken tiles. Steel soothes the ache and mutes the voices.
She needs him.
There aren't many partnerships - if any - that work as well as theirs. Unconventional as their methods might be, they tend to get results. She puts this down to their synthesis rather than their individual skills, an intricate web of argument and acceptance that despite appearances still hasn't quite found its feet: she empathises too much, and he too little.
And yet their strength lies in their weakness, a system of mutual counterbalances and checks: she teases him one minute, he snaps at her the next.
It shouldn't work but it does.
She knows that he wonders, sometimes, precisely where his talent lies, questions whether he is destined to be no more than a stepping stone for her skills. For her, the question is brief and simple: why does he work with her? Oh, he might lack the ostentatious abilities of many other operators, but he can see down the corridor of time without being dragged in. He is the glue that rebinds broken tiles, and that is entirely beyond her.
As long as they continue to understand and respect each others, she thinks, that tiled corridor is a little safer.
After all, there is a war to be fought.