Alphen had died.
He knew that. He'd lived out a good, happy life.
But something even greater than Chronos wanted his friends and him, and for what, he didn't know.
"What happens now?"
Chronos took a step forward, the clock behind him spinning rapidly. The numbers etched upon each sphere glowing with a reality-bending light.
"Now…" Chronos raised a hand at them, a beam of light building within his palm, "…you start over."
Time-Travel Fix-It AU
A/N: Lemme know any spelling or grammar mistakes and I'll get around to fixing them.
Chronostasis – Chapter 7
The two sat away from everyone else, Rinwell's fellow mages feeling slightly confused and at odds with her sudden display of proficiency in both technique and power along with Law's own status as an outsider to the enclave causing them to seek momentary refuge elsewhere while the mages got to work in restoring order amongst their community. Law and Rinwell sat atop a bluff overlooking the remnants of the Dahnan mage enclave, something that couldn't have been said before in their own past.
Rinwell could hardly believe it.
They'd saved the Dahnan mages, they'd single-handedly prevented the genocide of an entire race (sans the Renans who were technically abducted and brainwashed Dahnan mages but that was semantics).
Rinwell also realised that they'd also inadvertently proved that the theory of Perfect Loop time-travel wasn't plausible and that timelines divergent. If Law was to be believed, they had indeed travelled back in time, but they hadn't regressed to their proper ages, being two-years older than they were meant to be.
The Crown Contest had also just started so the fact the Law and Rinwell were technically meant to be nine and seven respectively but were physically eleven and nine added up correctly.
But back on the topic of divergent timelines. With their act of preventing the extinction of the remaining Dahnan mages along with the fact that they hadn't simply been wiped out of existence did indeed prove the theory of time-travel forming different branches of reality for every action changed and taken, alternate universes essentially. That changed many things of what Rinwell could now do, no longer needing to feel as if she was walking around on eggshells.
Of course, finding out how much Law had changed in her absence was staggering.
"What do you mean you formed the Silver Wolves?!" Rinwell yelped in shock, looking at her long-time love interest, something that they'd agreed to put on hold for the moment considering their ages, as if he'd grown a second head. Her mind rearing at the fact Law, lovable idiot that he was, had already messed up the timeline! She'd been needlessly worried about creating a paradox this whole time because Law would have already created one with everything he'd done.
She wasn't about to let go that he renamed the Silver Swords to the Silver Wolves though!
"Yeah, met Bregon and he helped me get a cure for my mom for the Reville Prison Tower." Law grinned as he pulled out the glowing green phial of elixir strapped to a cord around his neck from beneath his fur-like clothing. "When he asked me what I planned to do while I waited for the next cargo transport back to Calaglia and I suggested we form a resistance group. And bam, that's how I became the leader of the Silver Wolves! Actually… I'll probably have to give that title to Bregon when I leave, now that I think about it…" Law mused thoughtfully.
Rinwell could only pinch the bridge of her nose, a headache forming with everything that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours, the most prominent being that Law had helped her with fending off Almeidrea and that her parents were still alive!
She felt about conflicted about that last one, however.
She loved her parents she really did.
But… she'd had sixty years to come to terms with their deaths. She'd lived without them for an entire lifetime, free of her parents making decisions for her and she wasn't sure what they'd do if they knew she was planning to leave the enclave.
"Hey, Rinwell."
She looked up at Law.
"I…" Law began, rubbing the back of his head, "…I know you're probably going through a lot right now with your parents being alive and all but… do you, y'know…" he trailed off.
Rinwell's chest grew fuzzy.
Even after forty years apart, Law was still able to read her like an open book.
"Do I want to what?" she asked curiously, probing at the indigo-haired boy from her perch on a nicely-level rock, overlooking the enclave as Dahnan mages tried to get their community back to working order, everyone pitching in.
Law let out a deep exhale. "Do you wanna come with me to Calaglia? To meet my mom and… dad…" the purple-haired boy rubbed his hands nervously. "I mean, I've met your parents now so you should meet mine, right? …Or at least my mom."
It was true, following Almeidrea disappearance, Rinwell had taken the time to introduce Law to her parents, Arche and Cynthia, explaining that they'd been friends for a while, something which was hard to sell since she couldn't recall a time when she'd left their sides when she was younger, their overprotectiveness fierce. With Law's help in saving them, a large amount of suspicion of the outsider to the enclave was shelved. Of course, it also helped that her father was swamped in taking care of planning since he was the most well-known and well-respected of the surviving population of Dahnan mages and ended up in the position of direction relief efforts to give their explanation more thought than was necessary.
The idea of seeing Law's parents did have it's positives to Rinwell, most being that for the first-time in sixty-something years he'd be able to see Zephyr again.
Whatever Rinwell may have wished to responded with, Law didn't get a chance to hear as footsteps crunched behind them, the two of them whirling around in the case it may have been danger.
They needn't have worried though, since it turned out to only be Rinwell's mother, Cynthia, as she carried a small wicker basket with her.
"I thought I'd find you up here Rinwell…" Cynthia gave her daughter smile, a smile she extended to Law who gave a nervous one of his own in return. The braided woman walked up to the two of them, clasping the wicker basket before her, taking in the view of the village from the overlooking bluff.
The smile she wore on her face as she looked at what remained of their already diminished community faded into a smaller, sadder smile. "You should go with Law, sweetie," she said quietly, her dark braided hair swishing, her eyes never wavering even as Rinwell and Law looked at her stunned.
"W-What?" Rinwell stammered, surprised by her mother's words. "Mom, why?" she questioned incredulously.
"Oh, Rinwell…" Cynthia looked at her daughter as if she was in front of her while also being so far away, almost out of reach. She turned around and knelt against the earth so she was eye-level with Rinwell. "I don't how or when it happened, but… when your father and I weren't looking you grew up so without either of us knowing…"
Rinwell felt an almost alien surge of emotion in her chest, one she was familiar with.
It was the same one she'd felt days ago when her father left her in that bunker with Hootle.
Fear.
Fear that she was about to lose her parents again.
She leaned into her mother's touch as Cynthia's fingers gently stroked her cheek, fearing what she'd say, desperately hoping it to be anything else.
Her mother's eyes looked exactly like her father's had.
A simultaneous swirl of harrowing despair and hope for her.
"But you grew up too fast, even now I can see it in your eyes…" watery forest-green eyes stared into Rinwell's golden brown, "…and now, that Renan Lord will hunt us Mages down. You, most of all after your actions three days ago."
Law stood to the side, awkwardly trying to do his best to not fidget or make a sound while he intruded on an obviously private moment.
"As much as I wish for you to stay here, to protect you from whatever may come…" Cynthia whispered, hoarsely, her voice choked with emotion.
"...I know you'll be in more danger with us than away from us."
For Rinwell, it finally was the way her mother's voice wavered that it all hit her.
As much as she was worried about her parents being in her life once more, it didn't mean she wanted to lose them from her life!
Rinwell's eyes teared up as she realised her decision was already made for her, her own family wanting her to leave them for her own safety.
She'd be leaving the enclave just like she had a lifetime ago, only this time, there was still an enclave to leave.
"Mom…!" Rinwell sobbed, launching herself at her mother who quickly set aside the wicker basket within her grasp to give her daughter a tight hug, let her tears soak into her shoulder.
As Rinwell cried, Cynthia looked over at Law he stood to attention as he noticed the mother's attention falling on him. "I know you'll protect my daughter dear, but… you must protect yourself as well, okay?" she hummed, her motherly words causing Law to give a reflexive nod of affirmation.
"Yes ma'am," Law nodded seriously, recognising a parent's plea. It was the same as the one his own father had given Alphen and Shionne back in Messia 224, to leave him behind. He could hear the plea, unsaid but nonetheless spoken in the words of Rinwell's mother. "We have people we can count on as well…" Law murmured lowly, but not low enough that Cynthia couldn't hear them.
The thanks in her eyes were enough of a response.
The braided-haired seemed to almost relax at Law's assurance, her shoulders sagging as Rinwell finally let go, exhausting her supply of tears into her mother's coat. She held Rinwell by the shoulders at arms-length, ignoring the way salty tears soaked her left-shoulder. Eventually, she let go and presented the wicker-basket she'd brought with her. "Here…" she murmured as she gently, almost reverently, opened the lid, "…I made this for you."
Inside the basket was a feathered garment carefully woven to evoke the image of an owl when worn. Grabbing it, Rinwell carefully brought it out to allow it to fall to it's full-length. The feathers that made up a large portion of the skirt, bracers, and stockings were white closest to the torso which faded into black feathers the closer they travelled outwards. For her hands and feet, she was presented with taloned black gloves and shoes respectively, reminiscent of the talons of a Dahnan owl, but for a human instead.
The centrepiece of the outfit, however still laid within the wicker-basket.
Laying within its carefully constructed confines, was a two-part headpiece. The first was a brilliantly snow-white hat, perfectly ovular to fit snugly atop Rinwell's head along with a rounded-rim, affixed to the front-end were two brown owl tail-feathers. The second part of the headpiece was an intricately carved white wooden mask, made in the likeness of an owl.
Not any owl though.
Rinwell could recognise this face anywhere.
It was Hootle's.
As if summoned, the aforementioned snowy baby Dahnan owl flew down from its place above the children and landed on Law's shoulder, giving Rinwell an encouraging hoot. "Hello to you too, featherball," Law said good-naturedly, earning him a sharp peck from the snow-white owl that he laughed off.
"I started on the garments a month ago, just shortly after you came home with that little friend of yours," Cynthia admitted, eyes glimmering with joy as she watched Rinwell turn the garment over back and forth to get a full look of the outfit. "I had some other mages enchant the clothes so that it would always grow or shrink to be the right size for you…" she said but the joy in her eyes dimmed as her fingertips traced the etching of the white wooden mask that still sat within the basket.
Eventually, her fingers clasped its edges to bring it out into the open.
"This one your father made for you," she looked into its empty eyes. "Whatever waking moment he had just after that Lord came… whatever moment he had between helping with the reconstruction efforts… he made this for you. In case you need to hide your face from that Lord… anything to keep you safe," Cynthia said softly.
"We both enchanted this so that it would never fall off without your permission, and that it would never pose a problem to you, whether it be breathing or anything else."
"Mom… I-I…" Rinwell felt her throat swell up, trying to say words but they just weren't coming out.
"I love you, Rinwell…" Cynthia cut her off, cupping her daughter cheeks with both hands as she stared deeply in her eyes. "We both love you, and we would give our lives for you… never forget that."
"I-" Rinwell tried again and this time, she finally managed to get it out. Her mother's forehead and her own met, gently feeling each other for what may be the last time. "I love you mom… I love you both so much."
"Thank you."
The whispers of thanks left her lips, but it wasn't solely for her family. She also directed it to whatever greater being than Chronos that had allowed for her to say what she'd never gotten the opportunity to say before in a past life.
A chance to say goodbye.
Three months.
Three months.
Dark-grey eyes slowly slid shut as Zephyr leaned back in his old wooden chair behind his desk, gritting his teeth as he rode out the dull rage that thrummed between his ears, rushing blood like the sound of what he imagined the waves of Ganath Haros to sound like and Renan war-drums in his mind.
Three months since the new Crown Contest started.
Three months since Terra's sickness continued to get worse and worse, sometimes causing her to cough up blood in the middle of the night, the Calaglian heat and dust only exacerbating her condition. Tilsa was no longer certain she'd survive the next couple of months, never mind until the end of the new Crown Contest.
…Three months since Law, their son, disappeared.
Zephyr sagged as the weight of reality almost became too much to bear within the small confines of his office, if it could even be called that considering the Crimson Crows were always switching between hideouts whenever the Renan patrols got a little too close for comfort. After a time, the beating war-drums receded leaving only a light-headedness from the sudden decrease in blood flow along with a hollow pang in his chest as he thought about his missing child.
It happened some time during the night.
Zephyr and Terra had given Law the only cot between the three of them, a bed that amounted to little more than a turdy cloth suspended flat between two horizontal wooden poles securely that sat inter-crossing with each other in the form of an X-shape, but certainly more comfortable compared to the stone floor of their hideout at the time. While Law was given the cot, Zephyr and his wife, Terra, snuggled together against the warm walls of the Calaglian cave.
After they'd closed their eyes and fell into a deep slumber borne form another day of leading the resistance, tragedy struck
They'd woken up to Law missing, his bed empty, multiple scattered tracks across the dusty floor in what seemed like a struggle, and a single set of tracks leaving the hideout. The size and shape of the track were indistinguishable because of the constantly flowing dust and heat eroding any possible way of identifying who it may have been but still nonetheless recognisable as a set of footprints leaving the cavern.
Zephyr didn't know how it happened, but someone had managed to get into their hideout, subdue and secure Law, and leave without notifying a single person.
Without notifying himself or his wife who were sleeping five-feet away!
It wasn't like he and Terra were the only one blaming themselves either. Nayth, Grenar, Tilsa, and Dyron all blamed themselves as well. They'd helped him and Terra raise Law ever since Terra gave birth to him, so to see that the child they'd helped bring up get kidnapped in their own home was devastating, more so since they couldn't have done anything to stop it.
Morale within the resistance plummeted overnight, even for those that weren't particularly close to Law and Zephyr was right along there with them.
He didn't blame them though.
No.
The fault of the matter lied with him.
He hadn't noticed an intruder so close to his family and it had cost them.
It cost them dearly.
'I'll find you Law… I swear it.'
A screech of steel knocked Zephyr out of his reverie as he realised somehow, he'd at some point gotten hold of the only candelabra on his desk, atop it the sole candle that lit his office surroundings and the cavernous area they used as their temporary hideout, his grip easily warping the weak cast-iron metal within his grasp. He let out a deep breathe, exhaling the budding frustration that was building within his chest once more. The body-scarred man stood up, releasing the new twisted piece of metal and hot wax with a clatter against his table, a wooden chair scraping against the stone floor as it shifted out of the way against Calaglian stone.
Zephyr began to make his way over to where his and Terra's accommodations were located for the moment within their temporary hideout between Ulzebek and the Iglia Wastes.
When he opened the door, he found Tilsa sitting by his wife's bedside.
"How is she?" he skipped the pleasantries, striding over to his wife, her face slick with sweat even under the leaf-thin cloth blanket draped over her and her skin a pallid and sickly shade of white. Her dark-purple hair clung to the sides of her face, matted with perspiration. Her breath came out in shallow rattling rasps, a sign of how rapidly her health has begun to deteriorate over that past few trying weeks. Law's disappearance and Terra's own mounting stress over the loss of her son was causing her condition to escalate beyond what they currently had to help her.
Inwardly, Zephyr was glad that they'd pried the soul core out of her hand. The device that sucked astral energy out of living Dahnans would have surely taken her life by now had it still been implanted within her.
"Not good…" Tilsa confirmed his worries. "With her current condition and how fast we're going through medicine… we don't have much time at all. I'd say two weeks… maybe a month, tops."
What?
"W-What?" Zephyr voiced, whirling around wide-eyed at his medical officer. "I thought you said she still had three maybe four months!" he exclaimed distraught.
Tilsa grabbed her left arm with her right by the elbow, a nervous tick she developed as she was forced to be the bearer of bad new time and again. "I did but… she's been under so much stress…" Tilda explained haltingly, "Her body's unable to cope with both her disease and the strain she puts herself under. With the disease, it was bad enough already as her lungs have a build-up of phlegm and inflammation that are constricting her airways, but the stress certainly isn't helping her situation or her recovery period."
The Crimson Crow's chief medical officer was once again forced to break the news, only this time to a friend.
"She's overworking herself to death even if she can't move a muscle."
Zephyr's face fell as he looked at his sleeping wife.
His large hand grasped her small one as he brought it to his forehead in a silent prayer. To who, he didn't know, because if a God was alive they had abandoned them well over three-centuries ago. "Is there anything we can do?" Zephyr asked hoarsely, "Raid some Renan supply convoys? Plants and herbs that might grow in the realm?" he suggested plaintively.
Tilsa tittered. "Certain higher-grade gels might help, so would some panacea bottles but anything that would help fix her condition is beyond what the travelling vendors sell… Low-grade gels and spices will help numb the throat and ease the pain. That's all we can do now…" she said lowly as he grieved over his dying wife.
He gently held Terra's hand in his own, taking in her prone unconscious form.
"Grenar and Nayth are taking a look at some of our other hideouts, old ones. I kept some old stock just in case of emergencies, so there's a chance there might still be something we can use," Tilsa informed him dutifully. "Dyron's doing some rounds outside Ulzebek for chilies and herbs we can use to numb the pain. That's the best we can scavenge at the moment. We either hope for the best… or make her passing as painless as possible"
Zephyr barely heard her, almost as if his mind was swimming in murky waters as he continued to look at Terra.
"Zephyr?" Tilsa asked softly.
"R-Right…" he knocked himself out of his funk, wiping his wet eyes on his sleeve before turning to his Chief Medical Officer. "Administer whatever we can spare… please," he softly plead. If he could have, he would've given his wife everything he could, everything they had. He would've gone out hunting for a cure himself if given the chance.
But he couldn't just leave her.
Not after what happened to Law.
So here he was stuck heading a resistance group, doing his level-best to not give all their supplies to his wife. They'd both agreed to give their lives for the cause, to free their people, not to destroy it. Whether it meant failing to lead when it was needed most or taking up the resistance's supplies for themselves, they'd promised each other they wouldn't let each other be the reason the Crimson Crows fell apart.
He had never wanted to tear down a promise more than that very moment.
The hardest of choices required the strongest of wills, and Zephyr wasn't sure he had the strength to make the right one.
Heavy footfalls resounded through their hideout, fast and becoming increasingly closer which caused Tilsa and Zephyr to look over to the entranceway of Zephyr and Terra's accommodations.
Nayth came crashing through the entrance way, only taking a moment to brace himself on his knees and catch his breathe when he finally caught sight of the leader of the Crimson Crows Resistance. "Z-Zephyr!" the brown-haired man gasped, his strangely thick clothing being more of a hindrance in cooling off from his sprint.
"Nayth?" Tilsa's brows furrowed as she took in her fellow resistance member, surprised to see his sudden return. "You're back early, did something happen?"
Nayth nodded as he managed to get his breathing under control. He looked Tilsa in the eyes.
"The Zionne Mines hideout…" he said eventually between reliving gasps of air, "…it's been ransacked. There's nothing there we can use for Terra."
"What?" Zephyr's own brow raised in surprise and irritation.
The Zionne Mines had once been one of Calaglia's primary sources of Fire Astral Energy since it led straight into Berg Volcano. The only reason it had been closed down was because of the high-mortality rates of Dahnans and Renans alike, the Zeugles there being of the unnaturally strong variety. The variety that had, at a time, been able to fell a Fire Lord in the past.
That, in turn, gained the Zionne Mines a certain amount of reputation and notoriety, a notoriety that the resistance had used to keep intruders away under threat of death.
"Yeah," Nayth nodded. "That's not the only thing I found there though."
His left-hand man reached behind him, tied to his waist was a cloth bag.
A cloth bag he handed to Zephyr.
Despite the bulkiness of the bag, he was surprised to find it far lighter than he'd expected. He pulled open the drawstring.
His heart clenched.
"H-How?" Zephyr murmured as he looked at a small set of clothes he hadn't seen in well over a month, a set of clothes that Terra had at one-point taken the time to put together with her rudimentary understanding of how to sew.
Law's clothes.
"I don't know…" Nayth could only stare helplessly as Zephyr's grasp on the bag became reverent, his hands trembling. "All I know is that it's been there a while. Found them covered in dust, and not the type you get from rolling around in the dirt. The kind you get from leaving something still for a couple of days, maybe weeks or months."
"…was there anything else?" the larger man couldn't help but ask hopefully, a shake in his voice that if Tilsa or Nayth heard, they didn't mention.
Nayth's shake of denial caused Zephyr's heart to plummet once again, any closer hint they had of Law's whereabouts disappearing like a drop of water in Calaglia. "There were some tracks, but they were too old to follow. I only got as far as Ulzebek before they were gone, getting messed up with the footprints of everyone that lives there. Whoever took Law though, they also took my family's coat, hat, and scarf I kept stored away."
Zephyr only stared it the small bag of clothes as he sat down by the foot of his wife, another reminder of everything he was losing.
"Wait… your family coat?" Tilsa tilted her head in confusion, "That really thick winter one? Why would anyone want that hot thing?" The brown-haired response was only to give a helpless shrug, just as confused as to why anyone would want such clothing in a realm as hot as Calaglia.
Zephyr felt as his blood roared in his ears once more, thrumming like crashing waves as his vision turned a dull red-haze. Footfalls echoed against the hideout walls once more as a blue-clad teen burst through the entranceway.
Grenar.
"E-Everyone!" Grenar yelled grabbing the there's attention even as he was out of breath. "D-Dyron's in trouble! Iglia Wastes. Chilies. Giganto Zeugle!" he rushed out, tension skyrocketing at the blue-clad boy's final set of words.
Giganto Zeugles.
They were a different breed of zeugles compared to normal or unique variants, far stronger along with being far more versatile in terms of their attacks, and throughout all of Calaglia, there were at most three Giganto Zeugles in total, perhaps four if the rumours about Glanymede Castle housing one was true.
Only one of the Giganto Zeugles could be found in the Iglia Wastes.
Thuderite.
An enormous mollusk-like zeugle. It's strength and speed enhanced by its sheer size. It was also capable of attacking with electrical strikes strong enough to internally destroy a person's organ and vaporising them in a near instant, hence the name 'Thunderite'.
Zephyr has personally warned everyone within the resistance about the danger that Giganto Zeugles presented, this one most of all as it was the strongest within the Realm. He'd also warned them since they'd need to be wary if the Zeugle ever approached their hideout, if it ever did, everyone was required to evacuate.
"Prep your gear."
The three members of the Crimson Crows stopped for a singular moment, taking in the large lumbering form of their leader as he stood up, softly placing the bag of Law's belongings by Terra's feet. His brows furrowed into deep trenches as he took long deep breathes, visibly centering himself.
War-drums rang in chest.
"Grenar, Nayth, you're with me, ready your weapons. Tilsa, get a cot ready for Dyron in the medical tent when we get back and keep some supplies ready for injuries," he ordered, the three nodding at his orders, rushing to get ready.
He walked out of the room, already seeking out anything that would calm the paternal rage and frustration that had dug deep into his very bones, the murky water within his mind being replaced with the clear-cut haze of paternal rage-borne aggression.
A fight would do just fine.
A/N: So, I actually like the idea of a less put-together Zephyr. He hasn't lost everything that mattered to him yet, but he has lost Law and now he's in the process of losing his wife who he's helpless to do anything about. He's also seven years younger so that's seven years worth of life-building experiences that he's missing out on.
It's interesting to write a Zephyr that has anger-problems even if he does try to suppress it as best he can. But of course, that anger's got to be released somehow, and I am of the opinion that stupid decisions made under duress runs in the family.
EDIT: Gonna be limiting my chapter updates to once a week since work is ramping up with end-of-year work and I need to focus on that.
Current Chapter - 6 years and 9 months before start of Canon, 3 months after the start of the Crown Contest
Estimated Level, Age, and Clothing for Characters
Rinwell –
Level: 30 (Experienced but her body is that of a 9-year-old. With her long life experience and control over magic, she's certainly stronger than Law and on par with Shionne but still limited by her young body) - Currently on par with Wind Lord Almeidrea
Age: 9 years old (Should be 7 but was aged up by two years because she didn't regress in age properly.)
Hair: Parted Bob-Cut
Body: Small Inherited Coat
Attachments: None
Weapon: Secret of the Stars
Law -
Level: 25 (Experienced but his body is that of an eleven-year-old, so he's definitely nowhere near when he fought Chronos Post-Game) – Currently on par with Enraged Earth Lord Dohalim il Qaras
Age: 11 years old (Should be 9 but was aged up by two years because he didn't regress in age properly.)
Hair: Ceremonial Wolf Hood (with dark-grey scarf to cover face and neck)
Body: Ceremonial Wolf Garb
Attachments: Ceremonial Wolf Tail
Weapon: Ceremonial Wolf Blades