A Halloween present for you guys X3 Enjoy.
Time ticks away just like anywhere else inside the clock tower – it's just louder. The machinery clicks and whirls and groans in rhythmic starts and stops. Even their shadows move across the walls in perfect cadence.
The shadows move, too, across a man seated on one of the giant platforms. He is perhaps the stillest part of the entire structure. Sitting cross-legged in the center, he seems not even to breathe as the platform rotates beneath him. His eyes are closed, as if in meditation, and a white hood obscures his dark face. A giant scythe lies across his lap; otherwise, he is a vision of perfect serenity.
In the deeper darkness of a gallery above the machinery, the shadows swell and distort, leaving behind a figure cloaked in black. He does nothing at first, just peers down at the figure sitting motionlessly upon the rotating platform. After a moment, he reaches into a sleeve of his coat. With a flick of his wrist, he fans out a handful of cards. These he flings at the platform, one by one. Four of them embed themselves in the wood with a sharp clink, as if they were made of metal, at opposite corners. The platform – indeed, the entire clock tower – halts as the last card lands. It's a halt that happens all at once, not grinding and slowly as it might have normally, but one caused by magic.
The fifth card whistles through the air, directly at the face of the man with the scythe.
With a whistle of its own, the scythe slices the card in half. The pieces float harmlessly to his feet as the man picks himself up, using his weapon as a crutch.
"How very interesting," he murmurs, in a voice weighted with a curious emotion, "to be able to stop time completely. Even I do not have that power, I who have been evading time since before I can remember." He opens his eyes, one a startling, sparkling gold, and fixes them directly on the stranger hidden in the gallery.
"I was not able to harness this ability myself until I died," a pompous and evasive voice, tinged with a British accent, issues from the hood.
"I've died so many times," the man with the scythe lowers his eyes and whispers, as if in great pain, "More than I can count. Always I awake…" his voice drifts off, remembering each and every time he reincarnated, thrown back into the living world in a maelstrom of fire and frustrated, anguished roars.
Seeming bored, the stranger says lightly, "Luckily for me, I only had to pass through the void once. And, well –" a dark portal envelops him, and reappears on the platform below, which the stranger steps out of. He is careful to keep out of range of that weapon. Like a wounded animal seeking a reprieve from its pain, the man with the scythe is desperate – and dangerous. The stranger lowers his hood, revealing a pale face, the lightest blonde hair, a pair of shocking blue eyes, and a glittering earring shaped in a strange sigil. Something in those eyes warns that the stranger is dangerous, as well: an intelligent and apathetic cruelty. The corner of his mouth lifts in a sardonic smile, "- here I am. And here I will stay."
"How?" Zasalamel says forcefully, expelling the word as if ripping an arrow from his flesh. He looks up at Luxord again, an unspeakable anguish in his eyes. "How can you be immortal and yet remain… as you are?"
"A dealer never reveals his hand," Luxord quips mysteriously. At Zasalamel's bemused glance, he sighs in impatience.
"That would be telling, in layman's terms."
"You must," Zasalamel says, as close to begging as he'll get, "You have no idea what it's like to see death… experience it… hope that finally, this will be the time you stay there, only to be born again. Over and over. If you don't tell me…" he leaves the threat unvoiced, but tightens his grip on his scythe.
"I think not," Luxord smirks. "You are trying to unite the two swords, yes? A novel notion indeed. It will be quite the intriguing experiment, don't you think? One you should, perhaps, 'stick around' for?"
"What does it matter to you?" Zasalamel snaps.
"Don't you see the incredible gift you have?" Luxord asks, aghast. "All the options that are open to you, to have the time to dabble in time… this is an opportunity many would die for."
"I have died for it," growls Zasalamel, "A hundred times over. I won't do it again." With that, he straightens, tightens his grip on his scythe, and rushes the man in the black coat.
Only, in the next moment, the man in the black coat isn't there. Zasalamel pulls himself up sharply to avoid toppling over the edge of the platform. He whirls around, faster than is almost natural, as has become his habit to compensate for the hood. Luxord stands smirking at the other end of the platform, where Zasalamel had just been standing: they have switched places.
"I don't need a portal of darkness to get where I need to go," Luxord responds to Zasalamel's sputters of consternation. He holds one of his cards up to the light and twitches it tauntingly. "I simply stopped time and relocated myself to your former position. By the time I released you, no more than an instant had passed."
A deep rumble starts at the base of Zasalamel's throat and escapes through his clenched teeth. With that kind of power, the stranger easily had the upper hand. The thought troubled Zasalamel greatly; he was no weak man. Perhaps he could disarm him somehow, if those cards were the channel for his abilities…
"Enough child's play," Luxord says abruptly, "I'll leave you to your game of solitaire. If you are indeed successful in joining the two swords, I'll know. The ripple in time that would cause…" his voice trails off as a dark portal swallows him, boots to shining teeth revealed in a sinister smile.
Zasalamel exhales, relieved that the threat has retreated for now. The world becomes noisy again as the clock tower resumes its never-ending cycle, just as if it had never stopped. Zasalamel himself pauses as he reflects on the stranger's words, "All the options open to you"… perhaps there was some merit in that, after all.
But, he also thinks as he resumes his sitting position, there is one option that isn't open. And, of course, it's the one he desires most.
;-; Zas my precious bby. Thank you for reading! Reviews are always appreciated!