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Of all that would surprise the beings that only knew of the god of time through legend and whispered shadow, most surprising of all would be that she herself never counted her age in years; nor did she count the world passing by her in days. The units, she’d point out, were made by humans—for humans—with their limited lives and their minds forever set on the road ahead of them; forever bound by time, each second coiling around them like a serpent, taking life in gasps and breaths. Simple units for simple lives.
Kronii, from the start, was set apart. To say nothing of being bound by time, it would even be unfair to call her its master; its god; its overseer. Would a machine call itself the master of its own engine? A human the god of their body? No. A machine and engine, a human and body were ever one unit—inseparable, whole; known by itself as only itself.
So was it with Kronii. She was no “god of time”; she was time itself. And the only thing time cared about was happenings.
Case in point: one Amelia Watson; her Prometheus; her rabbit. Her Eve. She could hardly remember now the first theft of her watch that kicked off that mad game of cat and mouse through time—so long ago and such a flash in the eye that even if she had been human, with all their limited memories and imprinted feelings, she’d have been unable to recall it. No, the one and only happening of that day that remained flickering in her eyes, much like the flame that ticked in humanity’s own as mark of their heresy—
Was her face: a face too clean for the grime of time; eyes shining crystalline blue, lit with the flash of man’s wit, flecked by wheat-dyed hair like the fields toiled by man’s hands—
And that smile. That cheeky, insolent smile of hers; the look of someone who’d gotten away with too much; who begged for the consequences that had piled up in her name.
Kronii felt a smile come to her lips, mirroring hers. ‘With pleasure’, she thought to herself.
Thus, the chase began. Where better to start from than the beginning of the world?
“A velociraptor?” Kronii shouted over the wind rushing through her ears. “Really, I’d have expected something more fierce from a girl making her escape!”
“It’s not always about what’s scarier, Ms. Time.” Though Amelia’s eyes were dead ahead, her smug attitude dripped through her voice alone. “Heck, why’d you pick a triceratops anyway? You’re never gonna haul me in like that, you know~”
“I… no reason.” Kronii did her best to partake in a human custom with her; lying. Gods weren’t supposed to play favorites, after all.
Then, to the time of courts and courtship did she chase young Amelia; a masquerade ball in the French court.
“May I have this dance?” Kronii’s blue hair, accented by the gray and silver of her mask, hung in curls over her bare shoulders. Risqué, yes, but at worst, the confusion would serve to hinder her target more than her.
“From such a beautiful lady?” Even under the gold and white of her own mask, Amelia had picked out Kronii from across the room. “Should I dare indulge in such an honor?”
Coy as she was, their hands were what continued the conversation. As the world around them spun, the many-whispered glass braziers in their view shone in the dusking light of the sun; though further outshone they were by the gleam of the watch, currently hanging off of the blonde Lucifer’s magnificently layered dress—a sunflower double exposed. It taunted her; tantalized her like grapes from a vine, as they passed she reached out—
And what once seemed so close fell just out of reach.
“Better luck next time, my lady.” Amelia’s movements were flawless; from the dip she made to avoid Kronii’s grasp to the way her hands flowed away from her like water to the curtsy she made as she stepped away from her. To the smile she flashed. Any other girl in Kronii’s place would have been spellbound.
Lucky for her that she wasn’t any other girl.
In what, to Amelia, seemed like a moment, Kronii made a mad dash towards her, heedless of the partygoers bowled over by her violent break or the dress that tattered around her feet. There, the flawlessness of her movements was gone. She tumbled over the balcony. Kronii followed.
It seemed so easy to she who was time itself. Yet, true to the trickster Amelia so played at, she’d escaped again; this time, until Kronii had stumbled upon her in a future so distant from Amelia’s own time.
“It really wasn’t hard, you know?” Kronii sighed as she lifted Amelia up by the collar of her shirt—off-white around the hem. “Way to run into the one time period with more cameras around than people.”
She could see in the neon glow of the billboard across from Amelia's face; wincing, splattered with ripples of sweat, hair ruffled and dirt-struck as if at last the wear the chase had taken on her had finally caught up, its effects like a time-lapse over her present self.
Kronii was elated; she’d caught her prey at last, reclaimed the relic of time that had meant so much to her. With their chase at an end, she could finally return to the time beyond time that she’d left behind back to the endless monotony of her responsibility: vigil over the line that held all of existence to the beings within it, without end, for so long that time held domain over the endless expanse.
She’d like to have smiled at the thought. All her body could manage was an unfamiliar misting in her eyes; dewdrops before morning’s light.
That’s when she caught hold of Amelia’s expression. Even in what little light the cars whizzing by let off, Kronii knew what that particular turn of her lips meant; what that mischief playing at her lips spelled for her.
For when Amelia smirked, time seemed to stop. Until it was only them.
Only her.
Only her it would be. Out of her pocket dimension she stepped into a chill that hadn’t abated; wouldn’t abate, not for at least a million years from this moment. This chill, Kronii didn’t feel. As a fundamental being of the universe, she only felt that which she herself recognized as such; matters like the temperature of the world were those that she ignored with a simple brush of her hand.
That couldn’t be the chill that Kronii felt now; one that dared freeze her where she stood, a moment that refused to press onward out of—what was it? It was a feeling that burbled up along with the chill now icing her heart; fighting it and fighting her.
Kronii pressed on, pressing down whatever had taken hold of her. She may not have had her destination in mind, but the compass of her heart guided her feet through the turbulence. She heard the crunching of snow underfoot, even as she knew it to be colder than where snow could fall. She saw her breath condense in front of her, though she knew that she did not produce heat. She felt that she should be here, though she knew there was no guarantee that she would find her.
Then, she did. Before her, sitting on a precipice that seemed to overlook the end of the world, was Amelia.
“You’re late.” Kronii could hear the smile on her lips. “How is it that a god of time is always a step too late?”
“Beats me,” Kronii shrugged as she took a step forward now; no sound of crunching, her mind taking over. “How does a little brat like you go gallivanting around the timeline for…”
“Five years,” Amelia spoke matter-of-factly, a rare tone for her. No malice lay in her words. “I imagine you remember every time I got away?”
Kronii nodded. Though Amelia was looking somewhere else, she knew she’d see it. “And every time I almost caught you.”
Amelia turned around to face her halfways; with her face in profile, Kronii was drawn to her eyes, as enrapturing as ever in their sky-shining blue. Yet, those marks around her eyes—
“The watch.” Kronii continued walking towards her, until they were only an arm’s length away. “I think it’s about time you gave it back.”
Kronii watched the girl carefully. What would she do? She knew by now, even with nowhere to run but the frostbitten hell below, that if Amelia wanted to run, she would. Any little movement would be an avenue: a leap over the cliff as she shot her a smirk; a fake-out, their skin brushing each other as she slipped under her grip; some invention; some trick; some—
“Here.” What Amelia chose to do was stand. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the watch.
Of all the moves she could’ve done, this was the one that Kronii hadn’t anticipated. The watch sat in her palm; Kronii could tell it was the real thing. She looked up and, in a glance of the girl’s face, could tell the girl had no intention of moving from her spot. The watch that Kronii had so sought after was hers; at last.
“Take it—” Amelia’s tone was hushed, even more so than before. “Otherwise I might change my mind.”
“You wouldn’t,” Kronii whispered, her hand twitching forward clumsily. “I could see it in your eyes; you wouldn’t.”
“Then why hesitate?” Amelia asked, knowingly. “Why not just grab it? Run? Leave me be… forever.”
That last word was so quiet that Kronii thought she had said it to herself. It rang in her head as her hand ticked—
Forever.
Ticked—
Forever.
Ticked—
Kronii brought her hand down; and grabbed nothing but the air in front of her.
Amelia stared, wide-eyed; shock on her face for the first time Kronii could see.
“Take it? Take it?” Kronii chuckled dryly, looking away from Amelia; from her watch; from her eyes. “You think I wanted that thing back?”
“Yes?” Amelia glanced at the watch. “I stole knowledge from the gods and now you want it back. Isn’t that how the stories go?”
“Silly.” Kronii shook her head, frustration and joy one feeling for her. “You think I wanted that thing back? I only wanted—”
She shut her mouth. To speak further would do naught but bring doom upon the only mortal in her presence.
Said mortal, however, had heard enough to know. The surprise on her face turned into a shadow of something familiar.
“You sure, Kronii?” She leaned in. “Hesitate like that and I might just take more from you.”
“More?” Kronii looked up. Their eyes met. “What more could you-”
Her words were again silenced; this time, by Amelia’s lips on hers. Bliss. The word had been with her since the day she became aware of herself; one of many bits of human knowledge that had penetrated the consciousness of the universe. Until today, it was just a word. Now as Amelia pressed their lips together, hands seeking rest on Kronii’s shoulders, she was feeling, in every one of Amelia’s heartbeats, in the warmth of her hands, in the addictive sweetness of her lips, what humans across the ages felt when “bliss” passed through their lips into the world around them.
Kronii was no human. She pulled away. The girl before her shot her eyes open, eyes questioning the avatar of time.
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
Amelia couldn’t hide the hurt in her eyes. Yet, she tried. “I know.” She held her breath, as if that could freeze her feelings; this moment. “That’s why I tried to give it back, you know? Put the final piece down in these games we play with each other.”
“Games?” She was incredulous. “Is that what you think I was doing? What you meant to me?”
“No,” Amelia spoke, her voice firm, yet cracking at the seams. “I’m speaking for myself here. And I’m saying that you were a hell of a lot more than just a game to me.”
“Then why?” Kronii said, voice starved. “Why end it here?”
“Because—” Amelia stopped herself again. The words had to claw their way out of her. “Because that’s all our nightly dance could ever be.”
Kronii heard those words; repeated them in her head, 50 million times in a single second—time given only to her. Her world of one. She fell to her knees; tears fell down like shards of glass on the pavement. The truth she’d known for all these years still managed to hurt when it was told to her by the one she loves.
“I wish it could be different!” Kronii wailed; to herself, to Amelia, to the world she was sworn to. “I’d give it all up right now if I knew I could see you again!”
Amelia could no longer speak. All that she had been was now there before them. Any words of comfort would be glass in Kronii’s heart; any step away would mean a life without her.
All out of tricks, Amelia could think of only one thing. A request.
“One night.”
Kronii looked up at the girl—putting on her best smile, as tears streaked her face. “One night. We can have that, at least. Can’t we?”
At her voice, Kronii’s tears began to clear and she saw; her. In that moment; her.
Always, always; her.
“Can’t we, Kronii?” Tears silently glimmered in her eyes, as bright as the watch she’d taken; the watch that had become hers; the watch that had bound their lives as one.
Kronii had heard every word from inside herself. She’d fled—into her mind—hoping to shut the feelings out. Wrap herself in rationality—the laws that bound her presence in this existence, the doomed end of those that would cross the line between human and being—and hoped that it would be a substitute for what she’d felt in that moment with Amelia, that one instant that had now become her everything.
What awaited her was eternity. The cost: a single moment with her.
She stood up and brought her hands to Amelia’s; to the one that still held the watch.
Amelia smiled and clutched her hand around hers; both holding the watch as they did themselves.
Kronii closed her eyes and leaned in—joining their lips together again. Neither could tell how long this night would be. All they knew was that only it could tear them apart.
The snow that began to fall atop their shoulders was gentle; loving.