Prologue
In a land where a power hungry queen of the hivewings ruled the continent of Crisam, terror reigned. In her lair, cleverly hidden somewhere there, she awaited the prophecy.
On the cliffs bordering the ocean, there was a cave, hidden by the crashing waves. A dragon swooped into the cave with a silent whoosh, barely a blur in the night sky. Inside, there was another dragon, her features hidden in the darkness of the shadowed cave, apart from her glittering black eyes. The dragon in the entrance of the cave paused his ascent into the cave to wipe the salty water from his eyes, and continued to the other dragon.
“I’m here,” the first dragon said.
“Finally. What took you so long?” the second one asked. There was a wing buzz of annoyance. “You were the one who called the meeting.”
“I know, I know,” the first responded.
“Get on with it. I’m soaked to the bone,” the second dragon replied harshly from the shadows.
The first dragon hesitated to continue, like he was ashamed of something. Finally he blurted out, “I lost my powers!” A deafening silence stilled the air. There was a movement in the dark, like the second dragon was tilting her head in thought.
“How did you lose them?” she finally asked.
“I have absolutely no idea! First, I was using them to ‘change my past’ and then they just stopped working,” the first dragon replied.
“Well, I have heard that if you use your powers too much and too frequently, you can be deemed not worthy of them and lose your powers.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” the first dragon howled, pacing to the other side of the cave and back nervously, clutching his head.
“Well, perhaps there is one thing you can do,” the second dragon said quietly, from her shadows, almost to herself.
“What?! Tell me, tell me, tell me!” the first dragon wailed.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Pleeeease tell me.”
“Fine. But you have to promise to never, ever, ever do it. It is extremely cruel,” the second dragon warned.
“I won’t.” The first dragon paused for a second, then added “Wait, did you say it was cruel?”
“Yes. It’s a machine. You strap a dragon onto it, and with the push of a button, the dragon strapped to it will have all the Time energy ripped from their very soul, making them crumble into a shriveled husk,” the second dragon finished her sentence with a barley visible grim, toothy smile.
The first dragon almost forgot to breathe for a second. When he finally responded, it was in a quivering voice, “ W-What was it called?”
“The TimeTaker.”
There was a silence that seemed to last for an eternity. The mood changed instantly, perhaps the temperature dropped a few degrees, and the darkness seemed to swirl hungrily around the two dragons, echoing the word.
“TimeTaker… TimeTaker…”
No one could see it, but a slight smile of satisfaction had arose on the second dragon’s face.
“You have to promise me to never use the TimeTaker ever,” she said, breaking the whispering silence.
“What? Oh yeah, sure, I won’t use it.” the first dragon said absently, his attention lost in his own mind.
“PROMISE!” the second dragon roared as she stepped forward menacingly in her little patch of dark.
The first dragon flinched, his thoughts coming back to the real world, into the sinister shadows of the dark, wet cave.
“Yes, I promise never to use that machine,” the first dragon said with talons crossed behind his back, where the other dragon couldn’t see them.
“Good, I have to go. Get back before they notice I’m gone,” the second dragon said hurriedly, looking away.
“Okay. Yeah, me too,” the first dragon replied.
The second dragon walked out of her shade and past him to the cave entrance, reveling for a fraction of a second shiny yellow-gold scales. She readied her four thin patterned wings.
“Bye, Aether,” the first dragon said to the second one.
“See you soon, Searer,” Aether farewelled him as she flew out of the cave and into the everlasting midnight rain, not looking back.
Searer stayed standing there for a little while longer, deep in thought. He started thinking some that weren’t his own.
“I’m going to use that device to gain all the time powers in Crisam,” said a strange voice that wasn’t his, but came from him.
Searer snapped out of it. He shook his head, trying to clear it, deciding that it was just a weird daydream. He leaped out of the cave, darkness swallowing him, and spread his wings, winging away north.
“TimeTaker… TimeTaker…” the cave, the mouth on the side of the cliff, still whispered.
