"Fa-father time?" Nick stuttered, surprised to see the sloth sitting at his workbench.
"Yup! It's me." He replied, speaking at a normal speed Nick had never heard a sloth speak before.
"How did you… When did you…"
"How did I keep from being frozen?" He offered, to which Nick hastily nodded. "Simple. I wasn't here."
Nick stared in confusion, knowing the sloth couldn't possibly have moved quick enough to escape the arctic blast that swallowed the entire mountain.
"I'll explain." He held up a globe for Nick to see. The flakes of snow swirling within the glass. "Time for you goes in one direction. Much like these snowflakes you are headed in one direction. Have one small event happen in your life." He shook the globe slightly, causing the flakes to scatter again. "And your life changes direction. Your path and the events in it change, but the outcome is the same. Well, at least for mortals. For beings like you and the elves, your lives continue to swirl and mingle. But, you only exist in a single instance. You can neither go forward to the future nor back to the past. I, on the other paw, exist in every instance of time. I was born in darkness and witnessed light come into existence. I saw the first crumbs of dirt join into planets. And I can see the day it all comes to an end."
He was silent as Nick seemed to process everything he'd just been told. Offering only a small smile back to the vulpine, who slowly began to understand.
"So you… you know what happens? You can see how we can get out of this?" He asked.
"It's not so simple." Father Time replied. "Everything I do now causes the future to change. Every word I speak causes a difference in the timeline. And I see it happening in real-time. Whatever I tell you will affect the decision that you make. And every step you take changes the outcome. So what I can offer you is clarity on your current situation. But you must reach the conclusion yourself."
"What… what do I need to do?"
Father time shook his head. "No directions, only clarity." He said.
Nick thought for a moment. He looked around the room, at the piled snow and the snow globes.
"How did Jack do this? How do the globes hold that kind of power?"
Father time held up the snow globe to Nick. "What do you know about these?"
Nick took the snow globe into his paws, looking into the swirling flakes. "I know they let us travel to places quickly. That I can use them to see if a child was naughty or nice. Carr… Judy said she used one to learn about my past when I first became Santa." He said sadly.
"Even among those that created the globes, there are few who understand what they're capable of. Even fewer who are able to wield them as Jack did."
"What do you mean? What makes him so special?" Nick asked with a sneer and animosity in his tone.
"Jack is an elemental. Or at least, the offspring of them. That gives him a special bond with the magic that was used to create them."
Nick let himself absorb the information and process it to his situation. "Alright, we know the how but what about the why. Why did Jack do this?"
"You already know." Father time answered.
"What? That rant he had earlier? All he did was blame this on the season. He said winter caused him to do all this. You'd think a guy named for the cold wouldn't blame the coldest time of the year for all his problems."
"Jack doesn't blame the season."
"What?" Nick asked, confused by this revelation. "But he said…"
"As an elemental, he exists in his element at all times. It is always the coldest time of the year for him."
Nick started to pace, leaving a trail in the snow. "If winter isn't a season then what else could it be? A place perhaps? Somewhere Jack grew up or lived? No that wouldn't make sense. But if it's not a place or a thing then it could only be…" Nick's eyes widened as realisation hit home. A memory came to the front of his mind. One of a broken heart and a strange new acquaintance. He looked back at Father time who now wore a smile across his lips as he spoke one word.
"Clarity." And he vanished.
Later that night
As Nick walked the dark streets of Zootopia, a dreadful sense of deja vu came over him. He'd walked these streets hundreds of times, seen these buildings everyday. Yet, he knew why he felt this way. And that feeling only compounded as he rang the doorbell to this particular house. The same house he'd visited a hundred times before. He watched as the door opened, feeling a melancholy smile upon his lips. The one mammal left from his old life that he hoped to never lie to. He spoke, hearing the sadness in his own voice.
"Hello Claire."
A/N:
I apologize for the short length of this chapter. But it did take almost a year an update out and I was happy with getting to this point. What did you expect? I made father time a sloth for crying out loud! Honestly this little interaction between Nick and Flash as father time was really holding me up and now that it's done hopefully this story will be wrapped up with a pretty bow on top this month. Things are already on track for it to be so. Unless father time wants to slow things down again. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it and I hope you like the ending!