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Pariah burst through the door and Clockwork followed close behind. “You have a responsibility—”
Pariah whirled around, pulling at the collar around his throat. “I don’t have a choice!”
“You had every choice,” Clockwork said. “You could have done anything. Been anything. You chose your path and now you need to make up for what you’ve done.”
“Oh, don’t pretend this isn’t all about that brat.” Pariah scoffed. “The all-seeing unbiased master of time falling so low as to be concerned with a human half-breed—”
Clockwork’s staff appeared under his chin, the tip digging into his throat.
“Do not call him that,” they snarled.
Pariah grabbed the staff in a stone hard grip. “I will say whatever I please.” He pulled the staff out of Clockwork’s hands. “That is one of the few things you and your masters haven’t yet stolen from me.”
The staff disappeared and reappeared in Clockwork’s hand. They glared at Pariah. “Oh poor you. What a terrible sentence, being forced into indentured service for the crime of razing the Realms in your conquest for a permanent dictatorship.”
“You used to believe I was righteous. Yet now you lap at the hands of those disgusting ‘scholars’ and now look at you.” Pariah stared at Clockwork’s scarred eye and scoffed. “It didn’t matter what you did, in the end they still treated you the same as I.”
Clockwork’s nostrils flared, mouth open and ready to protest, when a flash of something passed on one of their mirrors adorning the walls. All of a sudden, they deflated, rubbing the bridge of their nose. “This is not about me—or us.” They gestured to the mirror. Danny sat curled atop his covers, his duvet stained with luminescent splatters of red and green blood. “Do you believe another soul should suffer as you and I—a young soul, who has done nothing but exist?”
Pariah’s gaze flickered to the mirror and back. “It isn’t my concern what those eyeballs do in their spare time.”
“It wasn’t the eyeballs, it was his own people.”
Pariah raised a brow. “A rebellion? All the more reason to let him reap what he’s sown.”
You fucking hypocrite. “He is not their king. He protects them from those who would harm their lands.”
Furrowed brows now. “A guard, then?” Pariah paused and Clockwork could see the gears turning behind their eyes. “Has he attacked other villages, plundered homes, stolen children?” Clockwork shook his head. “Then what?”
“They fear him for his strength. His existence as half-ghost. His unpredictability.” Clockwork put his hand to the mirror. Their form grew a beard and developed a hunch. They sighed. “Nothing more.”
“Then it must be his association with you.” Pariah pulled at his collar again. “I am familiar with the consequences.”
“They had their eyes on them long before we met!” Clockwork spread their arms wide. “They used me to look through one of countless possible timelines; picking one that suits their biases that he would become some heartless destroyer of the Realms like…”
Pariah glared. “You had best not be speaking of my attempt to unify and fix the unstable political climate these Realms consistently suffer from.”
Clockwork growled. “This isn’t about you. This is about the boy—Danny. He needs help and I am unable to. Look deep within that twisted core of yours and remember what started your ‘noble quest’ to begin with.”
It had started with a child. One torn limb from limb for the crime of being born to ghosts from two different territories. Used as a statement—an example—in their Ceasing.
They both remembered it well.
“And what exactly to you expect me to do about it?” Pariah asked. “We’re collared just the same. Neither of us have the freedom to do anything. I couldn’t help that boy even if I desired it.”
“No.” Clockwork moved to his work desk. “No, you were never ordered not to intervene.” He picked up a medallion. Not one with an immunity to time’s changes, but to eyes’ sight. “I was, but you—you can still do something.”
“Perhaps, but why should I?”
A swell of anger bubbled up in Clockwork’s core, shifting their form younger. They turned to get into Pariah’s face. “You have Ended so many. Harmed so many. And while you may not regret all of them, I. Know. You.” They punctuated their point by jabbing a finger to his chest. “You have felt regret. And you have felt guilt. You kept going, but I know. I know.”
Pariah held his gaze a moment before looking away. “That does not change anything.”
Clockwork narrowed their eyes. “You do not want to try to make up for it? There is a child ghost who you could aid, with no danger to yourself. Someone that is still within your reach and would certainly cause problems for the people who hold your leash.” Clockwork pulled on his collar, bringing Pariah nose to nose with them. “You and I may have parted, but I still remember how you feel. How you ache over the suffering of young ones. Especially, the innocent.”
Pariah slapped Clockwork’s hand away, taking a step to the side. “A thousand years is a long time to change perspective—”
“It is,” Clockwork said. “But you haven’t.”
A scoff. “How would you know?” His voice lowered. “Since they woke me, you have hidden like a struck dog hiding from its owner.” He closed the gap between them, nose to nose once more. “Why do you not speak the truth? What benefit does the boy bring you? A kind of jester for your entertainment? A distraction for those moronic ‘scholars’ to focus on besides you? Or is he simply a loyal slave you have cultivated through your manipulations—?”
“He is my son!” Clockwork shouted. “He is my son,” they repeated, quieter. Shaky. “He cannot go on like this. Please.”
Pariah went quiet. He stared into Clockwork’s eyes searching for something, though they didn’t know what. After a few moments, he asked, “Truly?”
Clockwork held his gaze, unblinking.
Pariah sighed, muttering, “Ancients around, of course. Why else?” He glared again, weaker this time. “This does not change my answer.”
Clockwork could see him wavering. See the doubt in his eyes. The concern.
Once upon a time, they would’ve said ‘our son’, and despite a thousand years that hurt was still there. As if fresh.
“He needs help,” they pleaded. “He needs…” Me, Clockwork wanted to say. “Someone to help carry his burden. To give him the aid he needs.” To give him the love he needs. “Not unlike…”
“Don’t.” Pariah’s eyes glowed. “Do not compare that whelp and I.” His hands glowed with ecto-energy as he grabbed Clockwork’s collar. “He can retreat to the Realms whenever he wishes. He is harmed by puny humans that could never measure up to ghostly power. He is a damn fool.
“I had none of that. And you very well know it.”
They did. They remembered the Pariah they had met eons ago. A young ghost scorned by their own people for his ideas and thrust out—his name taken from him and forced to accept something new befitting his banishment.
They also remembered their vows when they were crowned: to prevent others from experiencing the same fate.
And yet.
“Do you blame a child for the faults of their territory? Do you blame them for not wanting to leave the only place they know?” Clockwork curled their lip. “Do you blame a child for acting the same way you once did?”
“I could not have—”
“You could, and you know it. You could have left long before you lost your name. Before you were beaten.”
“Oh of course,” Pariah said. “Please do speak of it like you were there. As if you did not sit back and watch on your spying glasses. As if you could not have intervened.”
“The flow of time is precious and fragile. And to forego a peaceful path for the sake of one being is not wise.” Clockwork rubbed their nose, shifting into child form. “How many times must I explain this to you?”
“If the flow of time is so important, then why risk it for that.” Pariah gestured to the mirror, Danny having fallen into a fitful sleep. “Regardless of your fondness, if he poses any risk then you have a responsibility to deal with it,” he spat, throwing Clockwork’s words back at them. “If I was not above the timestream during our time together, then why should he?”
“He has no one—”
Pariah raised a brow. His eyes travelled back to the mirror. “Then I suppose that one is ‘no one’?”
Clockwork followed his gaze and watched Jazz wipe Danny down with a wet cloth. A first aid box was set on the nightstand, clicked open with plenty of gauze, suture needles, and thread. Clockwork changed to his younger adult form. “She is not enough.”
“Were there not other pests that scurried around him?” he drawled. “He has more than I ever did—”
“This is not about you!” Clockwork boomed. They pushed Pariah away, floating before the screen and changing to his bearded form. “You are constantly thinking about yourself with no regard for others. You used to be better than this; you used to care! And now you cannot put your ego aside for one moment to just look at the suffering child before you? A child you can so easily reach out a hand to?”
“I am not that ghost anymore.” Pariah raised his chin, arms crossed behind his back. “I will not give you nor that brat any kind of aid no matter how much you beg—”
“I will grant you one request.”
Pariah’s eyes widened. “What?”
“One request. Any request.” Clockwork gripped Pariah’s arms. “Anything you wish, I will make it happen. Just, please. Save my son.”
A smile crossed Pariah’s face and he laughed, startled. “Anything? You would risk the scorn of the fickle eyeballs and their monstrous torture for this brat?”
“I would,” they said. “I will.”
They expected Pariah to call it a bluff—say it was a lie to reel him in and make him take the fall in Clockwork’s stead. Yet he simply stared, his smile slowly disappearing. Watching them.
“You care for this one,” Pariah said, stunned.
“As I have said.”
“No, this,”—Pariah gestured between them—“has always been about us. Everything you have tried to convince me of, even while we were partners, was for ‘the good of the timestream’. There were even times you would use me for your own entertainment, but…” Pariah trailed off, a pained look in his eyes. “You truly love this boy.”
Clockwork looked away. They could make a thousand excuses. Explain the difference between partners and children. Go over how much they did do for Pariah, for their former lover. How much they sacrificed and pains they hid from him.
How much Pariah failed to do for them in return.
There were countless timelines where they had, did, will. In this time, this moment, they do not make any. “Yes.”
Pariah rubbed his beard. “I assume it must be within reason.”
Clockwork did not need to check the possible timelines to know Pariah would take far too long. And time was of the essence.
They quickly looped the medallion around Pariah’s neck, its power making his glow dim, and shoved him through the mirror with Danny and Jazz.
“You can choose later,” They yelled. “Just go!”