"If this were my doing, I'd be able to at least protect myself from it," the woman snapped back at Luthene, and then she grimaced, putting a hand to her head. She stared dumbly at the approaching rider, and if she'd looked as though she'd seen a ghost before that was nothing to now, and she squeezed her forehead with her hand and -

The Nexus wrapped around them, and finally her head cleared. She straightened up, and even though Mendean was eyeing her like a fox might a rabbit, she turned first to the man who'd appeared at the very last moment.

"You," she accused. "It's actually you, isn't it?" She glared, then swung round to the being who'd brought them to temporary safety.

"I had better not be involved," she said, summoning calm back into her voice with an effort. "I come from another world. That world has parallels to this. And you will have to forgive me," she did not look at Luthene, "if I am wary about what I share, because already those parallels are causing damage, and if I - or anyone - decides to spill information without thought then it might draw things together or push them further apart, putting even more strain on a fabric that's already - well, I've seen worse." Her lips settled into a grim line; her gaze darted to the man. "But only once.

"For now - I have no power over Time. I have no special magic to fix this. But I have remembered experience and remembered knowledge, so perhaps I can guide your scholars and gods to a better solution than mere guesswork can. And then, before the last portal closes, I am going home."

The world started to shimmer and Mathuin cursed under his breath. More damned magic. Why did he think he had to be here? He could have stayed in a nice soft bed, drank himself silly, then headed south again. But no, here he was, with an elf, a human, and some man that could bend the world around him and it was enough to drive a man mad. He should have known that it was a bad idea. Likely, deep down, he had, and yet here he was. Some things, it seemed, never changed.

“Pleasure to meet you too,” he said with a wry smile, inclining his head toward the elf. “Mathuin’s my name, so aye, I am me. Unless this fella’s magic’s made me not me. In which case, no, I am not.” When he spoke, he deliberately thickened his accent so the Highland burr was unmistakable. “Now if you were to introduce yourself to the rest, maybe I could see if the you that you are knows that me that I am, eh?” With a cheeky wink, he turned back to the boy, nodding at his words. It was magic, and thus far over his head.

“Wish I could help, boss, but I am just passing through. But I ain’t about to let the ladies go off on their own, so I go wherever you lot do. If you can think of any use for me, of course, I am all ears, but I must warn you. I can’t cast anything more powerful than a shadow, so I don’t see myself being high in your plans.” Something was offputting about the boy but he could not place it, though in the moment, everything was off-putting. The whole world was a thousand instances of itself and he was already trapped in one he did not choose. He glanced over at the blonde woman, knowing her without a moment’s thought. He instinctively brushed his fingers over the stiches that mended his shirt and smiled. “And you, blondie, what’s your story? You’ve got Highland arms, by the look of you, but you ain’t from there. As lost as I am?”

The elf’s words struck a chord in him and Mathuin leaned on his saddle frame and looked at her with an unblinking gaze. “Well, I wager you most certainly have seen worse, but this is pretty bloody bad, so let’s get you moving and get this settled, yeah? We can’t lose this world as well.” He leaned closer to the elf, lowering his voice to a whisper meant for her ears alone. “And don’t be so sure about getting home when all’s said and done. I’ve been here these two years past and haven’t had even a whiff of a way out and back. So might as well settle in for the long haul, even without all your shoes to keep you company.”

The more time went on, the more Luthene regretted answering the stranger and going to find her. The woman had said she might be helpful, but if anything, she was obstructionist. "How do you know you can't protect yourself against it? You won't go anywhere near anything you think feels wrong!"

She was so angry and frustrated that Luthene didn't really see the rider at first, not until he was speaking to them and getting out of the saddle. Luthene stared at him in silence for a moment, trying to figure out what was so damn familiar about him. She'd been about to take his offer- maybe on a horse she could outrun whatever it was holding her back- when the boy spoke, and the landscape changed. For Luthene, the whole effect was jarring. She was dizzy, and stepped away from the group to empty her stomach on the sand. Even further away, though, she still heard the boy as if she was right beside him and silent. The Nexus, he said. His home. When he mentioned the threshold, Luthene almost took the offer then and there. Instead, however, she retched again, then returned to the group and gave the stranger a hard look.

The more she spoke, the more infuriated Luthene became. She had to bite down on her lip to keep from shouting at her again. Fortunately, the man, Mathuin- no that's wrong- spoke, and Luthene had a few spare moments to regain some composure. Then Mathuin addressed her directly, and it was safe enough to answer him.

"Alyson," Luthene replied, going back to her alias for now. "I'm with a Highland company. A man I fought with before the war, he vouched for me. He's back at the clock now, with a group of scholars the pair of us are supposed to be protecting, except I left him to help her," Luthene said, nodding at the elf, "and I can't get back. But I need to get back."

Luthene turned back to the woman, calmer now, but anger still present just below the surface. "You don't trust us, fine. But we've no reason to trust you. You're not from this world, and we cannot know if anything you say is in our interests. You say you have more knowledge about this than the scholars who have been studying the problem for years, but won't elaborate. You won't even tell us your name. You say that it's for our protection, that you don't want to reveal anything that will make the problem worse, but had no such reservations about asking me questions about this world. Questions which I answered honesty, I might add, and life as we know it did no come to a sudden hault. This is my world I'm trying to save, and I think the people living here should be the ones to decide if we're willing to risk it. And I, for one, am, because I'm certainly not about to trust your information without knowing how you know it. Trust needs to go both ways, and the more useless, evasive responses you give, the less I trust any information you claim to have, information you've yet to actually reveal. So we'll start with your name, I think, and the reason why you are so familiar with time."

Luthene paused, looked at the horse, an added, "And if you keep evading then I think I'll strap you to that horse and send you riding into the next wave and we can see what happens. It might be useful, and even if it's not, you won't be in the way anymore."

Waiting patiently, the god watched the exchanges between the three mortals with hands held behind his back. It was fascinating, as well as enlightening. In a way, all three were connected, even though in the female warrior's case it was not directly. Shared histories were evident. And other things besides.

While they paid plenty of attention to each other, a wave washed over the blister protruding from Mendean's realm. Standing there in a three-dimensional cross-section of his home, he could feel the strain of reality pushing against him, attempting to squeeze the hernia back inside. The added pressure of temporal forces tearing at his reality did not help. Their time here was limited, but there was no point in alarming them. He had no wish to demonstrate his limits to a group of strangers.

The god's figure strobed as he moved closer to the small group. Trace echoes of himself. A multi-faceted worm moving through higher echelons of space. When he spoke, it was easier to hear the multitude of voices. Listening to him was like honing in on a single voice in a crowd. “You have already shared. I know, for example that you are from another continuity. You say that for now you have no control over time, which by your tone implies that you once had precisely that facility.
'If your world is anything like ours, only a deity would have control over time, which leads me to conclude you are a fallen goddess of the hours. Perhaps the same as our own ill-fated goddess, whose death caused all of what is happening here.”

Mendean glared pointedly at the elf, as though to apportion blame with his gaze alone. He knew stories of the great war. How it was the arrogance and meddling of the goddess of the hours that had brought about the calamity. Hubris. That was the impression he had been given.

Drawing a sharp breath, the deity moved in a slow arc around the group, watching the shifting world outside. “If you are from the same world that my counterpart came from, then I know who you are. I also know that world has suffered greatly. I heard it was toppling backwards in time, diminishing in the process. There are many refugees from there who have had to make their home here.” Mendean stopped and looked sidelong at the elf. “You'd better saddle up. You have work to do and not much time to do it in. It's the end of the world, don't you know?”

The woman seemed surprised by the man's response to her, but let him into her space with no increase in the tension that strummed through her body. When Luthene started berating her, she turned and took it face-on, expression annoyingly bland.

Then Mendean spoke, and she turned to him with a small smile.

"Let's hope the world doesn't implode," she said, extending a hand. "You're right, of course. Aralli Úvelen, once, long ago, Goddess of Time in Dae Luin. I haven't been for many years, though, and it wasn't through our Godslayer War that I fell. I wouldn't be here at all if I could help it, but my best theory at present is that loose threads of time are trying to anchor themselves somehow by clearing up inconsistencies between worlds. As I have no desire not to exist …"

She turned to look at Luthene. "That is why I am wary. Outside of this bubble, enough minds admitting my kinship to your Goddess of the Hours could end me. I'm an abberation, a knot, but one that - unlike your Timedeath - it knows how to get rid of."

She folded her arms. "There. Are my credentials satisfactory? Or would you like more than just my word?"

"Let's save time and be honest then, yeah?"  Mathuin waited until Aralli had finally spoken, not wanting to have to carry through with the threats that flooded his head.  Flay her skin from her bones while she lived, cut her body a thousand times til she talked, any of that.  Luthene… Alyson he reminded himself, would know that, despite his aptitude for that sort of cruel torment, he hated it to his very core.  It went against the sort of man he was, against the sort of honor that he imposed on himself regardless of his station in society.  

"It weren't that long ago, Ara, and we both know it.  I soldiered for you, after a fashion, in the Valley, and I did what needed to be done.  I killed more folk than I'm proud of, one slippery, half-breed bugger of an elf among them, and I ain't weeping over the lot of them.  Now is time for you to stop your whinging and make something good of all this shite you created.  I ain't expecting a passage back to my corner of the world, but you'd best do your damned part to stop this one from falling into the Abyss, unlike the last damned time."

His voice was heavy with recrimination and he nearly spat in the sand at her feet.  He had not forgiven her for the burden of command in that war, for the souls that weighed his down whenever the campaign was mentioned.  However, now was not the time nor the place to have that conversation.  The world was coming apart at the seams and it was more important to stave off that destruction than to vent his frustration over all the pain she had caused.  "And yes," he said, lowering his voice again for her ear only, "I am him.  I loved your friend, led your army, and carried your blame.  So you owe me a debt.  Pay it and save this world like you refused to save your own."  He had not forgiven her for the carnage of a world torn apart to save her pride and he did not have the fortitude to hide it more than he had.  He looked at the young man and nodded.  "I trust you know me then, young one, and who I was, what I've done.  So you know, I have all the reason in the world to stop this madness and save this world.  Mine, I fear, is bloody well gone."

He took a menacing step toward Aralli and grinned, a feral grin that bared his teeth like an animal scenting his prey.  "Now Badger, you and I have some debts that need paying.  My lads died for you.  They died for your reputation, your pride, and your comfort.  Let's give them some damned peace and make it worth something after all.  Get on my damned horse and stop this madness.  For their sake, for mine, for… for the marriage your war ruined for me, you owe me this debt as a man.  Pay it now and I will forgive the hate I bear for your," he paused and spat in the sand, "man.  If you love him and you ever loved me, do your damned duty now like you never would then."

The boy had a theory that the stranger was once of Conclave, perhaps her world's version of the same goddess whose death caused Timedeath. Luthene thought it was a little absurd, his belief that only members of Conclave could control time. After all, weren't they trying to repair a clock that might solve the Timedeath problem? The clock wasn't divine by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't even sentient, so clearly power over time wasn't limited to Conclave.

And yet, the boy was right. The woman said her name was Aralli, once a goddess in her world, with power over time. She was worried that people might associate her with the dead goddess, and she might cease to exist as a result. "But you're not the same woman," Luthene said, looking at the elf. "Anyone who saw her would know that. She was darker than you, Abedi I think. I didn't see her ears, so she may have been an elf, but still nothing like you. She wasn't so afraid, either." As soon as the words were out, Luthene worried that she may have said too much. She spoke of the duel as one who was close enough to see it. There were many people there in Adeluna that day, but far fewer who could see that the goddess went to her death unafraid.

Then the man spoke, and it was clear that he knew Aralli, had fought in the war- or at least his world's version of it- and carried a lot of anger about the whole mess. Again, Luthene was worried she had said too much. Was there a woman like her in his world, who had fought against Conclave, against him? If there was, he didn't hate her the way he did Aralli. But if nothing else, his words confirmed what the stranger claimed.

"I think his word," Luthene said to Aralli, with a nod to the older man, "seems to give credence to your credentials. But he," she added, with a nod to the boy, "seems to think that the solution is at the clock, in agreement with our scholars. So we'll say you're a scholar yourself, from Endapano- that's the Elven kingdom here- and a follower of our Goddess of the Hours, and that is why you are familiar with time in a way others may not be." Luthene took the reigns of the horse, claimed onto its back, and then extended her hand to Aralli. "We'll ride to the clock together and speak to the scholars there. Tell them everything you know, and as soon as a portal back to your world appears, back you go. But that's why it's important you talk now, because one could open at any moment and we'll lose whatever expertise you may have. So, climb up, and we'll go." She paused. "Is there another name you'd rather use?"

[OOC: hope you don't mind me moving things forward a little.]

Mendean had been keeping track of the world beyond the blister of his own nexus. Waves of probability crashing against the shores of his own little pocket reality. Functions collapsing as the reality beyond his own stable little bubble began to burst its seams, allowing other times and even other histories to force themselves through. Reality itself was a gossamer-thin net, full of holes. “I hate to rush you all with your little family reunion and your discussions about who owes whom a debt and for what, but we must move. Now.”

He pointed toward the far end of his own intrusion into Revaliir. A wall of dark churning water, seemingly pressing against the bubble. Of course, that was an illusion. There was no actual physical pressure. His was a blister in the world. The only pressure was that of possibilities conflicting. But still, if the oceanic continuum outside managed to establish itself for any specific period of time, they would be unable to navigate their way back to the clock being assembled in another world. The greatest danger lay in becoming lost.

Tendrils burst forth from the earth, lifting the young god and carrying him aloft. “I require no horse” he called back to the others as other tentacles emerged ahead of him. The black forms carrying him passed him forward, sinking back into the ground as they released their burden. In this way, Mendean was able to proceed forwards with great speed. As he moved, so did the bubble. The wall of water followed them. He knew there were a great many other possibilities occurring out there in the broader continuity. And many were collapsing. Falling into each other like trees in a dense forest. The trick was to anticipate and stay ahead of the trees, or leave the woodland entirely.

It did not take long for him to reach the lake's edge. But what he found there, made him stop. The work of clock construction continued, the crowds gathered closest to where the activity was. Hundreds of people, lending a hand in whatever way they could. He looked back to see the ocean becoming transparent behind them. A good sign.

It was the couple of hundred corpses immediately in front of him that gave the deity pause.

Blood still trickled down the sandy slope, smoke trailed from a number of the bodies. But he sensed no life in the immediate vicinity. There was no pattern or structure to the way the bodies had fallen either. No clear delineation of sides. It was as though a mass brawl had occurred, with wave after wave of attacks being repelled…but by whom? It made little sense to the chaos lord as he approached the piles of fresh corpses, fighting back a growing sensation of panic and nausea. He stopped and found he could go no further. Stepping down gingerly from his 'chariot' of black tentacles, it was obvious to the god that a battle had occurred here, very recently.

There were men, women, horses. A number of different races represented. Various forms of riding animal, but the pattern was always the same. Two women, two men, three riding beasts. Over and over again. Variations on the theme, but mostly an elf and three humans. Mendean backed away, not wanting to go any closer. Instead he turned, stony-faced to the first of the group to arrive.

“They're us. All of them. Every last corpse here…you, me, the other two. All dead. We…we didn't make it back.”

Mathuin knew little of magic, a fact of which he was inordinately proud in his own stubborn way, but even he knew enough that when a magical child who rode tendrils of the darkness said it was time to leave, it was time to leave. It seemed as though a wave of nearly black water was rushing toward them, pressing against the magical enclosure the young man had created, threatening to flood over them all. And while he did not know what exactly it was that threated the bubble, Mathuin could piece together that a pressing wave of darkness was likely not the best of things. “Ain’t sure what’s going on out there but I’m with the boy. It doesn’t look good, so let’s shift ourselves, alright?”

Trusting the elf was smart enough to move along with them, Mathuin jogged alongside the horse, relishing the exercise as it helped ease the cramps in his limbs. His sword’s scabbard banged against his thigh as he ran and his eyes kept scanning the edges of the bubble, wary of the encroaching darkness. The boy on his tendrils of darkness was leading the group and as the horse outpaced him, Mathuin found himself as the rearguard, a position he did not care for in the face of the threatening waves behind them. His ignorance of magic was borne of two things, an innate inability to channel even the slightest modicum of magical energy and his mistrust of mages as duplicitous and power-hungry after his own experiences in the War. He did not want anything to do with the sort of people that were capable of thrusting the entire world into a war, believing they knew best how to organize all the peoples. Megalomaniacs to a man, he thought, but he still had a healthy fear for their craft and at that moment, he feared the waves more than near anything he had faced. They were a silent, unstoppable menace and he touched the hilt of his sword for luck as he ran.

The group ahead pulled up short as they reached the edge of the maze and it took him a few seconds to catch up, his breath pounding in his lungs. As he leaned over, hands on his thighs, he noticed the red rivulets running through the sand and snapped back upright, his sword hissing out of its fleece-lined sheath. In front of the boy and the women were a mass of corpses, looking like the sort of carnage that would remain after a particularly vicious battle, but his experienced eye could easily see it was no battle. Instead, it was a macabre parody of their group, two men, two women, beasts of burden in various iterations, all dead in the sand. He cursed quietly and spat to his side as a protection against the evil he saw ahead of him. Mathuin walked alongside the young mage, surveying the bodies with a certain calm, turning some over to see them better, recognizing faces like his own and those of his companions. “Aye, they’re us, after a fashion. But we ain’t dead yet so let’s not start to panic quite yet. Yon elf and I have come through this once already and I can’t imagine I won’t again. So how about the wise among us figure out just what exactly is happening here, yeah?” He scratching his beard with his left hand, his right still holding tight to his sword’s handle.

“If there’s other worlds, which I figure we can accept, there’s other folk like us. So me, I think it’s a good bloody sign for us. We’re alive and they, well, ain’t. Which means we’ve for a better than evens chance of making it through this madness. That clock gets itself righted and we stay alive and we’re living good and proper, I figure.” He shrugged. To him, a survivor of one of the great rifts in time, it made perfect sense. He survived already, coming through to another time and it may serve as a protection from the magic of the clock, as he was already an anomaly in the present world. The same went for Aralli, but Alyson might be in danger. Mathuin sighed and let the tip of his sword rest in the sand. “But I ain’t a scholar or a mage, so the Maker only knows if I am near the mark. Either way, we’ve got to do something, anything. Anything’s better than standing here looking at ourselves dead, waiting to join ‘em.”

Aralli turned as the man advanced on her, and she crystalised, a hard veneer settling onto her face. For a moment, beyond the exhausted, sweat-stained woman, there was a glimpse of regality. For an instant, there was strength - and then it dissolved into bitterness, a deliberate flatness as her friend spoke, a refusal to rise to any of the emotions he was trying to provoke. The sourness was holding her strong, but she didn't look happy.

"I thought you knew me better than that," she murmured, just for him, as she reached out for the horse.

She heaved herself into the saddle as Mendean dragged them on. The horse skittered under her, confused and halfway to panicking, and all her attention was forced onto staying in the saddle until they found themselves amongst the dead.

She watched the others make their examination, and slithered off her mount. On steady ground again, she could close her eyes and concentrate.

Her hands lifted as if riding some current, fingers twitching as if between the strings of an instrument. She moved between the groups of bodies, frowning faintly as she felt for something around them.

"They're dead ends," she said. "Attempts to find a solution that works, abandoned. Normally, they'd slide beneath the rest, be folded in - but they don't know where to go. There's no one here to smooth it out."

She turned to Mendean. "Time breaks in tiny ways almost constantly. Most of the time, they either heal, or they are … guided back into the weave. At least, that's how it was when I could do these things. There might be some inconsistencies but the overall current is preserved. People notice far less than you think they would.

"Sometimes … sometimes something breaks more than a few strands and they can't go back together right. It would be like holding a hank of your hair, cutting it, and trying to align every hair with the one it was cut from. Only much worse, of course. That solution is impossible, or at least far too difficult to be plausible."

She looked down at another group of the dead. "It's forcing itself into different paths, trying to find one that works enough to heal. A clever god might try to guide that down a particular path. A clever god might screw that up in ways she regrets. Maybe it's a blessing that you don't have anyone trying to do that right now." She kept her eyes on Mendean, avoiding the man who knew her.

"Either it's going to find a path that works and it can heal from, or things are going to splinter until they're irreparable. The clock may act as a guide into more plausible, less strained realities - narratives that more minds can accept. Where we are now … this feels like a dumping ground. I made one myself once, on a much smaller scale. Just a single person, to extend his lifespan. So I suggest …" She pressed her lips together and went hmm, casting a glance back over her shoulder. "Let us go backwards. It's hardly the same as reversing our passage through time, but the mental parallels might be enough to slip us through into a stream where we were able to get where we wanted to go, and put in place Luthene's plan about calling me a scholar."