Chapter Text
It happened like clockwork.
Quahaug had always known the power of time. It slipped between his fingertips in ways others could never even begin to comprehend. The sands of the universe seemed to bend to his wishes and his wishes alone, and he allowed them to do so. He hadn't ever quite understood his power or why he had been granted such a thing, but he dared to not ask questions. He could use it to his advantage, to change the world.
And that was exactly what he did.
Quahaug had lived through the war of Norzelia fifty different times, but it always ended the same way. It didn't matter how the war concluded in the eyes of the rest of the world; it was the same for him, and that future would fade away like dust on the wind the instant he stepped away from it. First, the war had ended in an era of blood and tears when those fated to change the world ran from it instead, and Centralia became the last living torch of love in a world that had forgotten what camaraderie meant. After that, it had been the unification of Norzelia under the rule of Hyzante with every person losing their freedom and their autonomy in the name of what was cited as a greater peace but could hardly be considered anything but murder. Then, Glenbrook had stood at Aesfrost's side to defeat their common foe, becoming a great nation in the process only to stab their former ally in the back. It didn't matter which outcome the world saw. It all ended the same way.
The first time it had happened, Quahaug had been confused. It had been two years to the day since the end of the war--if it could even be called the end of the conflict--and he went to sleep like it was any other night. When he awoke, the sands of time had decided to flow in reverse. Quahaug opened his eyes on the first day after Glenbrook's fall, the first day of Aesfrost's rule over the majority of the continent of Norzelia. He had stared at his hand, wondering if he had dreamed it all. When he went into the village and asked what the townsfolk had heard, he received his answer. It had been real, but it had been erased all the same.
It took time as all things did, but Quahaug eventually came to understand the cycle. Two years to the day after the war ended each time, he would awaken on the first day of Aesfrosti rule over Glenbrook. He would open his eyes to the chirping of birds on Glenbrook's darkest day and hear the people around him whisper of Frani Glenbrook's death and King Regna's coming execution. They would wonder how their ruler could have possibly assassinated Dragan Aesfrost, but they lacked the information and power needed to push back against Gustadolph. And so, they remained silent.
Quahaug had seen the end of the war more times than he could count on his hands and feet. It always ended the same way no matter how the war was stated to have concluded. Centralia, Hyzante, Aesfrost, it was all the same. Two years later, he would awaken with that future erased and replaced with a chance to try again. And he had tried. When he came to grips with what happened each time, he set out for the Wolffort demesne, joining their forces as seemingly their youngest soldier and doing what he could to change the future. There was only so much he could accomplish as a child who appeared too late to reverse the inciting incident of the war though.
Quahaug had been able to control the hands of time ever since he was a child. It was the reason the world feared and despised him. The people meant to take care of him looked at him with disdain and terror, knowing he could hurt them but not seeing that he didn't want to. All things considered, it wasn't surprising that the world was offering him of all people a second chance through the power of the clock. His magic was something he hardly understood, and in some ways, it seemed to use him more than he used it. After all, what other explanation was there for the world reversing itself again and again for him to try and save the world once more?
By this point, the cycle was familiar to him, something he could count on in every way he wished he didn't have to. Each time the clock turned itself back, Quahaug's body began to age. He was much older than he appeared, and the villagers in his cozy town in Wolffort all knew it. He was meant to be fourteen, but he only looked to be about ten years old at a first glance. That was one of many side effects of his magic, and it was yet another reason for people to fear him.
Each time Quahaug returned to the start of the war, his body reverted to its default age of fourteen, but that wasn't entirely the case. Reversing the clock made his body age one month for the three or so years he spent in the new future that had just been erased. Everything about him was distorted, and the villagers could see it. He knew they saw him go to sleep looking like a child, and when he awoke, he looked as if years had gone by overnight. In a way, that was the truth. Nobody else was allowed to know that though.
It was always the same.
Fifty cycles had come and gone, and one would have expected Quahaug to have gotten used to it by now. He wished that were the case, but unfortunately, he never quite seemed to get accustomed to this new life of his. He knew there was a reason for it, but that didn't erase the sting of the ground being yanked out from under his feet when time reversed. Regardless of who won the war or who died along the way, the outcome would always be the same. Quahaug would go to sleep and then awaken years in the past but older in every way. He would be given another chance. It was proof that he hadn't done it right that time. He never seemed to get it right, and nobody else did either.
The three outcomes of the war danced together like comets. Triplet futures of emerald, amber, and scarlet wove through Quahaug's memory time and again, and he tracked them each time. On the fiftieth cycle of the war, liberty prevailed, and Glenbrook once again prepared to stab Aesfrost in the back to take control of the full continent. Gustadolph was not to be trusted after all that he had done, and eliminating him was the only option. The second war in the span of five years was set to begin soon, and Quahaug put it all to rest when he closed his eyes that night. He knew what was coming. Nobody else did though. While they reached for their swords and scales, time would betray them, and the world would begin anew.
Again and again, the world repeated. No ending was ever satisfactory, no peace ever quite stable enough. No matter what, Norzelia was doomed to war, and Quahaug was the only one who seemed to see it. And so, he went to sleep again each night two years after the war and waited to see where the reset took him next. Maybe this time, things would be different.
It happened like clockwork, but perhaps this time, things would change.
~~~~~
Quahaug's eyes opened slowly, and he was met with the ceiling of his small house on the outskirts of the village. It had happened just as he had known it would. It always went this way. He hadn't been here much since the world had started to fall apart, but he would recognize the sight from anywhere.
When he sat up, Quahaug instinctively reached for the nearby bedside table. He kept a notepad in the top drawer, and he was using it to track the number of times the world had ended. He didn't need it since he would know the number easily--this time made for fifty-one--but he kept it just for the sake of remembering no matter what happened. Each time he reset time, he would mark it down on the page, and time remembered it the same way it remembered his past life. He would mark down one extra tally, and everything would--
The page was blank.
Quahaug's eyes went wide, and his grip on the pen tightened. How in the world was that possible? This was how it always went. He woke up on the morning after Glenbrook's fall, he saw the familiar wooden ceiling of his Wolffort demesne home, and he reached for the notepad to add a tally to the number of times the war had ended incorrectly. This was different though. There was supposed to be writing all over the paper, ten different completed clusters of tallies waiting for him to start the next one.
No matter how many pages Quahaug looked at, he saw nothing of the tally. It was as if it had been completely erased from the memory of time, but how was that possible? He knew how it was supposed to go. Something must have been wrong, and it sent his heart into terrified screaming.
Quahaug placed the pen on the table before running toward the door, the clumsiness of his body surprising him. He would have expected to be used with the strange way in which his body aged, but he never quite adjusted to it. He was eighteen by all appearances, and no one would ever understand how wrong that was. How else was it meant to go?
As soon as Quahaug arrived outside, he tilted his face toward the sky. He knew the feeling of the morning after Glenbrook fell. He had experienced it four dozen times along with a few repetitions as change, after all.
This...
This was not the day after Glenbrook's collapse.
The pattern of the clouds overhead was entirely different. Quahaug was used to white clouds that were too puffy and cheerful for the dreadful circumstances. He had always thought that the world felt like it was mocking everyone for daring to have hope. The world should have been dark and gray to commemorate the deaths of Frani and Dragan and the end of peace as they knew it to go along with their funerals. Instead, there were white clouds.
Today though, the sky was patterned with small splotches of light gray clouds. Rain would be coming in the next few days, the complete opposite of the cruel smile of the sun and her kingdom overhead. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Quahaug could feel the eyes of the other villagers on him. They always seemed overly aware of when he stepped out of his home because of how much they feared him. They knew what his power was capable of, and they were terrified of it. If they kept an eye on him, then they could track his strange activity and stay away accordingly.
Today, everyone was watching Quahaug for the same reason they had for the last thirty-five revolutions of time. He was showing his age and that he was no longer fourteen, having gone to sleep with the appearance of someone barely twelve and woken up taller with gaunt eyes and horror on his lips. They didn't know how it happened, but they didn't want to ask either, too afraid of what the response would be.
Normally, Quahaug would have respected their wishes to keep their distance, but today was no normal day. Instead, he turned to look at a woman who was pulling her laundry off a clothesline while watching him out of the corner of her eye. "What's today?" Quahaug asked before he could hold himself back. His voice cracked with desperation and a need for an explanation. He didn't care who he scared today. He just wanted to understand why the cycle had broken.
"What in the world are you talking about?" the woman questioned in return. She seemed to want to continue with her probing, but she couldn't find the words when she realized just how worried Quahaug seemed. A worried Quahaug was a Quahaug to fear. After all, what if his emotions caused a flare up of his magic that destroyed them all? Everyone lived in fear of him, and the woman was no different.
"Today's the day House Wolffort is expectin' its newest member," a man explained from nearby. He was watching Quahaug with a silent sense of judgement that Quahaug had gotten used to but never grown to enjoy. "The second princess of Aesfrost is arrivin' in the harbor soon to meet with our lord."
Quahaug could have passed out then and there from shock. His hands shook violently, and he knew he was getting paler from terror as everyone stared at him. "But that's not... That's not supposed to..." he whispered under his breath.
"What are you talking about?" another man asked him again. "It's exactly the day it should be."
Quahaug darted back into his house before anyone else could say a word about the strangeness of his behavior. He reached for his staff and gripped it tightly as he moved toward his calendar. Keeping track of the days was important for someone like him who could manipulate time, and even when the world reset itself, he was always careful to keep in mind when he was. He wouldn't be able to help anyone if he got lost in the very thing he was meant to control.
Quahaug's fingers trembled with fear as he brushed his hand over the sheet of the calendar where it hung on the wall. They were right. Gods above, they were right. He wasn't on the day after Frani's death. He had arrived on the date of Frederica's arrival in Wolffort territory.
No. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Quahaug knew how it went. He had seen the war play out a thousand times, and this... This was too early. The war hadn't started yet. He had only lived this day once, and given the events of his eternally repeating life, that was a rarity, a terrifying one at that. He shouldn't have been here. Quahaug hadn't been here since before he first had his vision that sent him to the Wolffort castle in the first place. It felt like a lifetime ago now, and it had changed everything for better or worse. How in the world could it have happened this way? He was used to the way it was supposed to be, and this...
Before Quahaug could stop himself, he was throwing together a bag of supplies. He grabbed everything that had become habit for him to pack when he left to join the Wolffort army, propping his staff up against the wall no matter how much he wanted to grab it and find a way to make all of this right. If there was one thing Quahaug had come to understand after seeing the world crumble fifty times over in three times as many years, it was that everything happened for a reason. If he was there on the date of Frederica's arrival, then there had to be some logic behind it. His magic controlled him more than he controlled it when it came to his time travel, and he was confident it had done this for a reason. He just had to figure out what that reason was no matter how daunting the task felt.
While Quahaug was throwing his things together in the same rhythmic pattern he had gotten used to the last forty-nine times this had happened, he tried to rationalize why he would be taken back even further in time. The difference between today and the start of the war was only about two weeks, but apparently, it was sufficient enough a distinction that Quahaug was here now when he never had been before. A lot happened over the course of those two weeks, and Quahaug was all too aware of that given the fact that he knew the details of the war's history like the back of his hand at this point, but he still feared what it could mean for him. Why hadn't this ever happened before? What was so different about this one time that it would send him back more than he was used to?
As soon as Quahaug had finished packing his things, he dashed for the door, pulling it shut behind him and reaching for his key. He wasn't going to be back here ever again no matter how the war ended, not that he particularly minded. The villagers would be happier this way, and Quahaug was happier when people didn't look at him like he was going to end the world each time he stepped out into the sunlight. That was one thing he had always loved about the Wolffort army. Even if he hadn't been forced to join the army on account of the time loop, he would have wanted to accompany them anyway. They were the first people he had ever been able to call home or family, and he refused to let that go after a string of so many years as an outcast and nothing more.
For the time being, Quahaug felt as if he knew nothing, but he was confident that he would find the answers he sought if he just went to them. There was a reason he had been taken back farther than usual, and he was going to find it. If this truly was the date of Frederica's arrival in Wolffort, then that meant he would have time to unravel his answers too. He just had to get to the dock. He knew the details of this part well too even if he hadn't seen it multiple times. Frederica would arrive at the dock with Geela at her side. Serenoa and Benedict would arrive early to greet her. They would all be ambushed by bandits. Roland would appear to help them fend off the attackers. Blades and spells would be brandished at Travis and Trish as if they weren't as much a part of the family as everyone else. Nobody knew it yet, of course, but that was still the truth.
Each time the clock reversed, these events happened the same as always. Everyone else remembered them, and Quahaug had heard the stories whenever he went back. He had gotten tired of hearing it at one point, but he was fine with it now if it meant he would be able to do something to change all of this. He just had to get down the docks. If all went well, he would see Serenoa, Benedict, Frederica, Geela, and Roland there, and that would be his first step to finally making all of this better.
If Quahaug was here, then there had to be a reason for it. He had to find it, and it all started with that battle at the docks. He knew how this was supposed to go even if it wasn't right this time.
After all, who else understood time better than him?
~~~~~
By the time Quahaug arrived at the docks, the clouds overhead had rolled over to the banks of the Norzelia River. At a first glance, one would have expected it to rain, but Quahaug knew it would not rain today, not as long as the mistress of rain was still hiding in Glenbrook for her purpose to come when the war began. There would be no rain today, but there would be a battle.
And there certainly was a battle. The sounds of clashing weapons reached Quahaug's ears long before he arrived at the scene of the fight. It seemed that he had been too late to hear the opening stages of the battle and the words exchanged between Serenoa and the bandits he would one day call friends and family. That was fine with Quahaug. He didn't need to hear what they talked about to be reassured of what was happening.
Sure enough, the whispers from back at the village had been right. Frederica and Geela stood at the back of the docks behind Serenoa and Benedict. Roland had taken to fighting against Trish at the top of the stone stairway that led to the docks themselves, and Quahaug pulled himself into the shadow of a nearby building to ensure he wasn't spotted when Roland was pushed away by a few feet. Quahaug could have joined the fight then and there to win against Trish, but he didn't want to risk distracting anyone when there was so much on the line. They had all been given a chance, and Quahaug refused to be the one who messed it up. He couldn't do that. Not this time.
Travis let out a heavy wheeze of a breath after a blow from Frederica's fire magic hit him in the chest a little bit too hard. He staggered backward by a few paces, letting his club fall limp in his hand when his energy to grip it started to fade. He pressed his other hand against his injury, snarling under his breath. "This isn't over," he muttered before starting to retreat to the tail end of the battlefield alongside the rest of the brigands House Wolffort had already defeated.
With Travis out of the way, Serenoa's party was free to push forward to where Roland was fighting Trish. The prince of Glenbrook narrowly avoided taking an arrow to the shoulder, and Serenoa launched himself into the air before coming down hard with his blade at the ready. That was one thing Quahaug had noticed when all of this first started. Even as time reset itself, the fighters of House Wolffort seemed to maintain their strength from all the previous timelines. Serenoa shouldn't have understood how to do House Wolffort's signature Hawk Dive move before he received instructions for it from Symon later in the week in preparation for the tournament. And yet, there he was, pulling it off regardless with the practiced ease of someone who had done it millions of times before. In a way, that was exactly the truth. Nobody understood it yet though.
Quahaug had often wondered if perhaps the others felt traces of the past inside their bodies as well. He had only asked a few times and only a few people, but he never received anything conclusive. Frederica had danced around the question when Quahaug posed it to her. Medina had offered him a loose laugh and a nervous glance like she hadn't attempted to bring back Serenoa from the dead at least a dozen times when House Wolffort fled to Centralia. Piccoletta had looked more terrified than Quahaug had ever seen her, almost as if she feared the question he was asking. None of those answers were necessarily a no, but it was enough to stop Quahaug from asking over the course of the last ten times he had repeated history. He didn't want to push it if he could at all avoid it, and so, this was a secret he would take to the grave.
Regardless of how much the rest of the army remembered about their past lives, the fact remained that nobody questioned it when Serenoa launched himself into the air and came down with enough force to break Trish's bow if he wanted to. She managed to avoid the brunt of the damage at the last second, but it was clear from the smear of blood on her cheek and the rage in her eyes that she was out of the fight. She ran away surprisingly quickly for someone who had lost so much energy during the battle. Once she had reunited with Travis, the two crowed after their foes that they were going to meet again. Afterward, the bandits retreated from the area. None of the brigands noticed Quahaug as they passed the building he was hiding behind, instead setting their sights on the horizon and vanishing over the green fields of Wolffort soon afterward.
Quahaug pressed one hand to his chest, feeling for his heartbeat just to make sure that what he was seeing was real. No matter how impossible it seemed, he was back on the exact same date that the other villages had outlined. If this wasn't the day of Frederica and Geela's arrival--the day that started it all in the first place--then how could he have witnessed the fight against Travis and Trish? For some reason, something had changed, and Quahaug was seeing something he never had before. Given the fact that he had gone through the handful of years to come so many times, the idea that he was seeing something new was beyond outrageous, but he couldn't ignore the evidence, not when it was right in front of him.
He slowly peered his head around the corner to try and catch a glimpse of the conversation between the members of House Wolffort. It was strange to see them without Hughette, Anna, and Erador, and while Quahaug had expected it, the sight caught him off guard regardless. The group discussed the battle they had just won with bittersweet smiles on their faces, and Quahaug felt something in his chest start to swell with joy. This was before all of them had understood just how much they could hurt each other. This was before they had seen their world break over and over. This was before they had to carry the weight of the universe and then some on their fragile shoulders.
Quahaug hadn't ever seen this before. He was used to seeing his friends before they could understand in full what they were getting into, but this was different. Each other time he arrived at House Wolffort, it was too late to completely prevent their suffering and the start of the war. The cracks had already started to form by the time Quahaug got there, the aftermath of Frani and Dragan's deaths rearing its ugly head to destroy all those who got in its way. There was nothing Quahaug had been able to do to stop that before.
But this time... It was different. Quahaug couldn't put a finger why seeing everyone so happy, smiling and laughing to one another like nothing in the world mattered but that moment, made him want to cry, but his bottom lip trembled regardless. He blinked his tears away as they agreed to head back to House Wolffort. Roland passed by Quahaug on his way back to the castle, not seeing the dark-haired boy hiding in the shadows along the way. As soon as he was outside the boundaries of the docks, Roland mounted his horse again and took off in a gentle run toward the castle where he would receive the lecture of a lifetime from Hughette. Quahaug couldn't help but smile when he saw Roland's blue eyes so bright and full of confidence, a passion he didn't realize would be shattered yet.
Gods above, it was incredible how much could change in just a few weeks.
Quahaug rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands when he was finally able to snap himself out of his trance of watching Roland. The voices of the other members of House Wolffort faded away before he could register what was happening, and Quahaug finally allowed himself to breathe once they were gone. He hadn't realized he was holding the air in until it was pushing its way out of his lips. He wanted to break down and cry then and there with the beauty of all that he had just seen, but he knew he didn't have time for it, so he just took in a handful of slow, cautious breaths until he was calm once again.
Quahaug turned his attention to his hand. As was to be expected, his fingers were shaking. Quahaug grabbed at his knuckles with his other hand to still himself. As rattling as that had been to see, it was all the evidence he needed to understand where he was. He had been transported even farther into the past than he was used to, and this time... He was going to make sure everything was different.
A few weeks could change everything. All it had taken was two weeks for the world to crumble to pieces, and Quahaug could reverse it. He knew he could. There must have been a reason for him to end up on this date after fifty other times of awakening on the day a sun rose on a unified Glenbrook and Aesfrost. He may not have understood the precise logic, but Quahaug knew what he had to do with this chance.
The start of the war had been in the Grand Norzelian Mines when Dragan was assassinated. If Quahaug was able to get int he way of that, then he would be able to prevent all of this. He had no idea how he was meant to reverse something like that, but he was going to do his best. If all went well, that would be all he had to do in order to stem the war before it could spiral out of control. At the very least, he had to try.
And so, Quahaug set out in the direction of House Wolffort's main fortress after Serenoa's party. He didn't know how he was going to convince them to take him on when there was no war to recruit soldiers for yet, but Quahaug would find a way. Nobody knew it yet, but this was the only way to stop the world from ending. He had to find a solution. He needed it, and so did everyone else.
It happened like clockwork until it didn't.