KANG
You learned to notice the variations. How things could change and stay the same. Chaos. It could be controlled. Carefully. Like a river. Like a rivulet. Water. Place it on the back of hand, and you couldn't tell where it would fall. But turn over your hand, cup it, and the water would fall into the centre. Maybe a few drops would land here and there. Over the edge. But overall, you knew where it would end up. Because you were in control.
Apple.
It was in his hand. He had lost the memory of why it was always there. He didn't have the time for those thoughts. Didn't need them.
Tea. Roman.
Cup. Wooden. He didn't remember why.
His mind had made so many grooves, that a few threads had slipped away. He stopped. He needed to do something different.
Omniverse? Or just Mobius Strips? Even he still asked the question.
The TVA did their purpose. What he did? Think. Control. Wait. Ah, that was right. This was it. This was the… heh… He chuckled, thought and action blurring indistinctly, like the edges of time itself. This was the time. He no longer bothered to separate all elements, because they were all one – inextricable, woven strands of fate that he snipped and turned until he had finally created his perfect loop. Unchanging. Unevolving but also… safe…
People would live out full lives, full of purpose and meaning, never to remain long enough to know the torment of an unchanging universe. You zoom out too far… he chuckled again… and everything starts to look the same.
Pretty, though. He took a moment to gaze out of the window.
Was he dead already? No. He was getting ahead of himself. There was no past, yet he thought of a time before. War. Like a spider's web. Across everything that wasn't. Alioth had been his spider, and finally there had been peace again.
Had things changed already? Was he back to where he had started? Had he failed and died and here he was again? Had this happened before? Mathematically possible. No. It hadn't happened yet.
They stepped across the threshold to his home. He didn't see it. He just knew it. The gate would open for them. Everything was proceeding as foreseen – even without being seen. Laughter echoed in his mind, a little too loudly this time.
He felt a spot in his chest. That's where the sword would go. He just had to hold on a little.
WHERE TO BEGIN?