Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

"I keep myself behind this keyhole for the safety of my reality. I have already told you of the effects if I were to enter the rift," Temporus explains, "In many timelines, you do erase my memory, but in many timelines you do not. All it takes is a glance into another timeline for me to see the differences. It is why Tenebrae and Lux are able to remember parts of Crelucium, as I permit them a share of my memory."

"It is my personal belief that the Crelucium you encountered was not the same Crelucium that Tenebrae and Lux had raised. Perhaps as an effect of a lesser god who was already unstable entering a reality outside his own, something in him changed which caused him to become more chaotic. The further he distanced himself from his home, the more unstable he became," Temporus adds, "In another timeline, he acted completely differently. Tenebrae and Lux even had another child, and she herself was not at all like the Crelucium you know. Crelucium took good care of his younger sister."

 

“I wish you were right, but we both know that was sadly not the case. On other timelines he was a good kid, but his rebelliousness reigned on the alpha.” She says. “As he was hurt or killed on the alpha, you saw he’d take from the timelines where he was stable. Taking advantage of his parallel selves I found despicable, though it is not my place to judge.”

 

"Even more so to my point of something within him changing. He was a child of light and darkness - as much as a paradox he was - he shouldn't have had the ability to tap into such temporal abilities. I believe that in passing through a rip in time and space, his paradoxical makeup was altered." Temporus responds.

 

“That’s where things get interesting. He never went through the rift. Was the damage he caused cutting through extensive? It seemed negligible here.”

 

"I heard that many rifts were opened by him, did he not pass through them?" Temporus asks, confused.

 

“Rifts are the result of realities trying to mend themselves. He never went through a pre-existing rift, always cutting new tears in reality to move around.”

 

"Well, cutting through reality would likely have the same effect on him. Tenebrae's little king has done the same before, it's only through Caelia and I's intervention he was kept from hurting himself, until he ended up creating the rift into your reality somehow." Temporus explains.

 

“He’s not a higher dimensional being like Ihra is, I’m not even sure how he moved through null more than a short distance to be honest.”

 

"More evidence to my theory of his paradoxical makeup being altered somehow," Temporus says, "Though at this rate, we're merely looping endlessly around the same topic."

 

"Perhaps I am doing so in hopes you finally see the point I've been holding in front of your keyhole? If you truly cannot discern who I am from this, then I will move on. Regardless, my dead counterpart would treat you worse than I have been."

 

"Willingly obfuscating information you deem as crucial behind silly little games will get us nowhere," Temporus says, "The information I have on you is that you're a counterpart to Xlentia. With your insistence on the topic, however, I'd be inclined to believe you're in part a version of Crelucium, too."

"Certainly acts like him." A rogue thought of Temporus' slips through.

 

“You don’t want me to act like him.” The Golden Queen says flatly. “That aside, do you really think Xlentia or Crelucium would be capable of keeping chronomantic practices in line?”

 

"So you're meant to be me," Temporus says, sounding disappointed, "I see."

 

"And thus the key is turned and the door opens." The Golden Queen says, now standing somewhat near Temporus. "You're hesitant. You fear the flow of even your own river. You may have hoped for more respect from me, but you stunt yourself. I do not consider a god who cannot trust themselves my equal." She says calmly, before, sitting down as if on a throne.

"I want to respect you. You are far more than any chronomancer I've trained, yet you put no faith in yourself. You are time. You cannot allow yourself to continue idling at this internal impasse." She says, taking a more serious and almost motherly tone.

 

"Perhaps in your reality, you embody time itself. However, while without me time cannot exist, I am not time itself," Temporus says, sitting in an office chair as if prepared for the encounter, "As with Praecantatia, I am merely the filter time passes through to fix itself. The zipper to the separated fabric of space. I trust in my various other selves who have seen failure and doom a million times over before this universe was born."

"Could I forcefully put us on the alpha timeline should I so desire? Yes - but would that make me a god, or a mortal with a lust for power?" Temporus asks.

 

"...I did not bother looking to the start of time here. If gods here do not start out as gods, what stops one from being replaced?" Golden asks, tone shifting to curiosity.

 

"When this universe began, we were already gods. We were gods before it started, even, but not powerful enough to shape this reality as we have. We cannot be replaced, however. Without us, our element dies." Temporus explains.

 

"Grace, Phoebe, Tiffany... those aren't nicknames. Those are the names of the mortals who became gods to let a dying reality be reborn as this." She mumbles, seeming somewhat speculative. "And you're the only one who's able to see outside of your loop of the cycle."

 

"Just fragments," Temporus says, something seeming to change about him as he sighs, "Whatever greater force is out there doesn't want us to remember, we're meant to be lucky we got to exist here instead of perishing with our last universe. One thing I do remember is all the failures of my selves that didn't make it, every timeline ending in everyone dead."

 

"Ihra being the one possible lead seems to be a pretty common denominator nowadays, hmm?" She asks with a giggle, then a sigh. "Why do your friends give her such a hard time? I would think you'd want to be friends with a girl who could go where you couldn't, get answers where you were thrown static."