Authors Note: I hate having to do one of these things, but I should probably give a rough idea of the WH13 AU I'm working with. Basically, everything canon up until the end of season 3. The pocket watch rewound time by 12 hours but let Artie, Pete and Myka keep their memories, and they were able to stop Sykes and save the day. Helena is still alive, but Steve still died and went through the metronome storyline.
Somewhere within the depths of the system that ran the warehouse a countdown was ticking. Now, to be fair, there were many countdowns ticking away within the bowels of the warehouse system, some of these countdowns had been steadily going for centuries and some for only a few short months. This one particular countdown was set nearly fifty years ago. Forty-eight years, ten months, two weeks, three days, nine hours and fifty-six minutes exactly.
Claudia is pretty darned sure that she just got bamboozled by an artifact. Maybe. Okay, so it might have been two artifacts, and it is way more than just a maybe. She is also mostly sure that it isn't a bad thing, whether it's a good thing is still up for debate. So it is a neutral thing for the moment.
She had no intention whatsoever of actually reading the misplaced journal that had somehow escaped from the Escher Vault, absolutely none. And, fine, maybe going to check out the portrait of Her Snowyness with the journal before alerting Artie about it wasn't the best idea. Neither was bringing the journal back to the inn with her. In her defense, she had completely forgotten that she was even carrying the journal at all. Which is one of the reasons she was near positive she had been duped by an artifact, or two. There had just been something about that damned portrait that had sucked her in.
When she had first noticed that she had smuggled the journal from the warehouse, past Artie and Leena, to her room at the inn she had attempted to take it back and failed miserably. Every time she had tried to pick it up intending to return it to the warehouse or giving it to Artie she couldn't find it. Plus, she wasn't sure Artie would even be able to see the journal, Myka hadn't earlier and she had sat pretty much on top of it. Plus, it's Myka, there is no way she would ignore a book.
Now she was simply sitting on her bed, staring at the journal sitting innocently in front of her trying to not think about taking it back to the warehouse so she wouldn't lose the thing again while also trying to figure out what to do about the mess. But the more she thought about everything, the journal and the portrait, the stronger the urge to read the journal became. Finally the itchy, and likely artifact induced, urge became too much.
My father told me today that I write well enough now to start writing my story so it can be added to all the stories kept in the library about all the past queens and kings and princes and princesses. 'A chronicle of our history, accounts of our ancestors who came before us so that we may learn from them' is what he always tells me about that section.
After he gave me the book mother told me that maybe this book can be like a friend, but I don't think a book could replace Anna. But she doesn't remember about my powers at all, and father says I can't tell her about them either. That and even with the gloves I can barely control my powers. I just cannot hurt Anna again.
Those 2 little paragraphs were the only legible writing on the entire first page. In fact the rest of the page looked like water had been spilled on it, all rippled with splotchy blots of ink where a word might have been. Turning the page showed that only the writing at the very top had survived whatever liquid catastrophe had rendered the rest illegible.