Journeys of Time 6: The Shadow of a Temporal Quilt
This story is copyrighted to SashaWS/ArtisticEastern, containing characters owned by various people used with permission.
Any usage or posting of this story under the claim of being your own is not approved and you will be requested to remove it or face charges.
Upon seeing the three Creators, the team fell to their knees in respect by instinct as the trio stood up and made their way closer, "You have finally arrived at the planet's very north. This is where everything you see is the south. And this is where time itself is unbound from its own flow. This is where no matter how long you stay, you never age again. This is the very place of aging immortality." Trinity explained before Faarg laughed, "That is why even after so many centuries, we are still as remarkable as when we were young." Tenchi smirked to play a bit with that, "Perhaps remarkable, but does that include your cocky personality?" Faarg was taken back by this, but Lòeón laughed, "Good one there. Either way, it is good that you came here finally. Because as time stands still here, so does words. Come on in, we got some information for you all."
Entering the very hall of the Creators, they took their time to marvel in everything they saw. Technology surpassing even that of Sasha's expansive mind, medical archives that make Azura all eager to read and weapons that made Janch drool like a dog seeing a juicy steak. A light cough came from the trio to get the attention of the visitors as Trinity snapped her talons to produce a massive map and looked at them.
"Listen, we have not much time so I will make it clear for you." Tapping to zoom in on the very island that Sasha recognized as the very same island she had buried Tenchi's mother at, they could see what looked like a dark aura slowly shrouding the island and making the once holy place into a corrupted area. Dragon cleric dressed in white garbs stood and attempted to cleanse the corruption, which soon grabbed and pulled them all in before their bodies were devoured by the dark shroud. Their eyes went wide before Trinity's talon smacked the console near the map, "Your burial were not properly done according to the rituals required, and this has allowed the very evil inside that grave to overtake the graveyard. I hope you are proud of yourself."
Sasha's hair fell over her face as her knees fell to hit the floor, tears streaming from her eyes, "I didn't know. I thought I honored her at least for being a mother this way. I didn't know this would happen." Trinity hit the console again, showing the spread overtaking the bridge more and more before it was stopped by a powerful field, "Good thing your old 'friends' the Elder Five are still alive, or else that corruption will overtake the planet. How could you be so irresponsible?" Sasha's tears kept falling as she whimpered, "But I didn't know, honestly. I didn't know that you needed to perform a ceremony too." Trinity walked over and with a powerful slap, Sasha went crashing into a wall, slowly sliding down as Trinity walked over, "I see now. We thought you were a good one. That you fought back against your own destiny. But it was all a lie to plant a seed of darkness that is never-ending. We should have had everyone dispose of you. You were not a failure, you were a success, but you hid it until now. Your every decision led to this."
Trinity lifted Sasha up by the throat, "Look at me when I speak to you." Sasha's head hung low while the tears fell as Trinity shook Sasha hard, "Look at me!" Lòeón was about to take action, but Faarg walked over and grabbed Trinity's arm gently, "Let her go, Trin. You see she is already in much turmoil from realizing this. She is not able to answer you in this state." Trinity was surprised to see the creator of chaos himself stand up for Sasha, slowly letting the dragoness' throat go so Sasha could hit the floor with a sounding whimper before walking away, leaving Sasha to curl up into a fetal position while her green blood came out of the maw and nose and her tears kept flowing.
With the attention returning back to the map, Trinity looked at the others, "There has to be a way to fight back against this corruption and we are looking into it. But we cannot promise much support as we have promised to not jump in until things are really looking dark." Tenchi growled loudly before looking at Trinity, "So what? You are going to wait until we are on the brink of death before you are leaving your seats to help us? Talk about supportive. Sure, let us clean up this and you get all the glory for yourselves." Everyone stood silent before Lòeón laughed, "We did the right thing of making you the goddess of justice. Fine, the corruption started because of the ceremony not being done. Maybe holding the ceremony could prevent the corruption from spreading."
He glanced over at Sasha who still kept herself curled up in the fetal position, a soft sigh escaping his maw, "Hey Tenchi, if you would not mind, could you make sure that you bring her up from the floor? I think she is not going to stop anytime soon." Tenchi looked over at Sasha and got closer before lifting Sasha up like the big baby she was, carrying her over to the others before Peridot noticed something on Tenchi's wings, "Ten-Ten. Do you think you could spread your wings for me?" Tenchi didn't understand the request, but did as she was asked for, making Peridot look even more confused, "What is this symbol here?"
Tenchi turned around to face the others, a symbol of the planet outlined in gold with a three pointed crown around its middle and right under it was the oath of creation in the crown's band, this made Lòeón laugh, "So it has finally surfaced. The mark of the Creators. The sign of a true Prime." Vana finally realized and pulled off her shirt to reveal a similar symbol on her chest, but unlike Tenchi, she had no crown at all, "So that is what those meant." Tenchi was looking confused before Lòeón spoke, "I would explain all this, but right now is not the time. You got a corruption to deal with. Head back home and find a way to cleanse this foulness." Tenchi was objecting at first about this, wanting to know what it meant, but before she had been able to ask about it, Peridot had stopped her and asked to have them all just follow their advice.
Giving the three Creators a final farewell for the time, they all were back out in the snowy landscape, the darkness not having let up a single bit and as the same wyvern from before were chucking a snowball at Janch, the warrior finally jumped off from Gane's back and proceeded to throw snowballs back at the wyvern, soon having awakened what it had waited for when nine more identical wyverns joined and everyone had a laugh as Janch got buried under a thick sheet of snow before the wyverns ran off and Janch got up and grunted, "I hate losing."
When they saw the entrance to Kilskara finally appearing, everyone were happy to know how soon they would be back in the warmth of the crater. Well, all except for Sasha who was still curled and crying. A sigh of relief coming from them as the guards didn't even bother with stopping them now, as Zinava stood near the opening and waited for them. Bowing politely to them, Zinava seemed a bit concerned as she spoke up, "Hello there, tribeskin." Tenchi was amazed how they had quickly gone from outsiders to tribeskin in their eyes, but she didn't question it and bowed to Zinava, "Hello there, miss Zinava." Zinava smiled at the politeness, but her face was quickly returning to the concern look, "Listen, I got no idea what to do. My daughter Solan seems to be excited over something, but when I ask, she says it is just that she thinks she found a suitable rider for one of our eggs. But since I am not an egg guardian anymore, I do not know which egg it is. What if she is taking one of the dangerous ones? They are not meant to be touched. A rider chosen by those eggs are meant to bring chaos and destruction. What should I do?"
Tenchi knew the answer to the question, but she wasn't so sure if the motherly dragoness would even listen to her words. Finally letting out a deep sigh, she attempted to say it in the most simple way she could, "Just let her heart tell her what to do. It is surely not going to be so bad." Zinava shivered a bit, "I don't know. She has never made a bad decision so far, but now when she behaves like this, I am afraid that she is going to do something wrong." Tenchi nodded, "A mother never wants to accept that their child can make a decision on their own. They rather have the child ask them first so they can stop anything bad that might happen. But she is not a child, she is an adult. Just let her make the mistake if it happens. She will learn from it."
Zinava just nodded as a response to the advice from Tenchi, "I will try. I just want her to be a good girl." Peridot giggled, "Just like my parents wanted me to be." Tenchi giggled and soon Zinava asked, "So, heading back home now? We would like to keep contact with you." Tenchi smiled, "Well, we got some cold places where you could live back at home." Zinava just smiled at the offer, "Thanks, but we are so used to living here now." Tenchi just giggled, "Okay, we will come and visit. We could even set up some kind of instant teleportation for you in the future." Zinava thought for a bit, "We could, as long as it does not require any external source of power." Tenchi looked at Avril, "I am sure that you can remember to tell some sisters of yours to fix that." Avril nodded, "Yes, I could."
Tenchi smiled and soon everyone took their farewells and began to walk towards the snowy landscape starting at the crater's edge. But once they were almost out, a sudden call of Tenchi's name stopped them in their tracks, "Hey! Wait!" Everyone stopped as the very familiar garb-dressed dragoness came levitating towards them and soon stopped in front of them while panting, "Please, can I come along?" Tenchi spun around and looked in confusion, "Wait. You are Solan, right?" The dragoness nodded before looking at Peridot, "Yes, and I have a feeling that I gonna do a good deed now." Reaching into the garb, she was retrieving an egg, shrouded in a very dark aura which made Zinava go pale, "Solan! That is one of the dark eggs! You cannot be serious!" Solan reached it out to Peridot, who took it carefully in her hands before the very aura of darkness was blown away and a healthy green aura shrouded it before the egg began to hatch in Peridot's hands and soon an almost transparent green wing stretched out from a crack and as the last pieces of the shell flew off, Peridot was holding a little green wyvern with the most lovely emerald eyes and with thin emerald colored wings, its body already beginning to emit a green mist that felt like it was healing her.
Jigo took a look at the wyvern and was confused, "Wait. That is a Spiritwind Wyvern. They are mythical like the Thunder Skyroyal Wyvern, just a little less popular on the pet market." Peridot was quick to hand it over to Jigo who quickly turned it and looked a bit before turning it back onto its front and handed back to Peridot, "It is a healthy male." Peridot blushed a bit as the wyvern growled and fell asleep, Tenchi quickly taking him gently in her right hand and stuffed him into Peridot's cleavage, making Peridot blush even redder as they all laughed.
A soft sigh was heard and soon the garb flew off the dragoness' body and landed near her mother to present a black dragoness with an ice blue colored chest, yellow eyes, light yellow horns, long ice colored hair and unlike her mother's thick tail, she was having a thin tail with an ice blue brush on the end of it, her body was covered up by white gloves, a short white top and long white pants, all of them seeming to be made out of cloth. Pulling out multiple ribbons, everyone watched as the wind itself tied up her hair into a long pony tail. When the final ribbon was done, she looked at the others with a warm smile. They could have sworn they had just witnessed a scene from a movie or something. Noticing their reaction, she crafted herself six long ice javelins and with the help of her powers, they began to float around her before merging into an ice serpent, "Ah yes, where are manners? I am Solan the Lunarfreezer, daughter of the Icebreaker as well as champion of the Shadowfrost and master ice manipulator and the only one as far as to be able to use the solid freeze ice."
Everyone were still amazed by her looks, but Tenchi was the one breaking the silent stares, "It is nice to see the face of the one who caused me so much pain." Solan's expression turned to the one of dread now, "I am sorry! I didn't mean to. I just wanted to win so..." Tenchi silenced her, "Calm down. Just remember to not ever do that in a duel and you will be forgiven. So why exactly did you want to come along?" Solan looked away, "I... wanna see the world out there." Zinava gasped out, "Solan, you cannot be serious." Solan spun around to look at her mother, "Zin... I mean mother. I am thankful for all you did for me and how you made me into who I am today. But I feel a greater call in life and seeing as how they are respectful towards those who are not a pure dragon, I feel that I wanna follow them back home and see what I can do. So, mother. I wanna become the ambassador for the Shadowfrost Tribe. I wanna teach the outside what we know. Please, let me do this."
Zinava just stared at Solan before she closed her eyes and turned around before speaking up, "Miss Tenchi, I entrust you with my daughter's safety. Do not waste it." Solan began to smile as Tenchi responded to Zinava, "I will make sure she is safe with us, miss Zinava." Zinava looked over her shoulder and smiled, "Please, just call me Zinava. We are both primes after all." Tenchi just nodded before Solan gave her mother a tight hug, Peridot soon sniffing as she gave Tenchi a look, "Ten-Ten, I miss my princesses!" Everyone began to laugh softly before they took farewell of Zinava again and with Solan getting a ride on Alexander's back, it wasn't long before the light of the sun was reaching them again and as Solan's eyes adjusted to the new sensation, Alexander was the first one to speak the words that was the new start on Solan's new chapter in life, "Welcome to realms of warm light."
The End.
