You stared at the runes before you, wishing beyond all hope that you weren’t reading them right. There was a pretty good chance of that, after all. They were hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, in a language no one spoke anymore. You were probably pronouncing them all wrong, too.

This was the first time you’d encountered one of these asexual individuals yourself. You’d heard all about them from those Fey beneath you, though you’d always treated them as nothing more than myths or folktales. You knew that they could fall for the same romantic traps as anyone else, but it was the child-making that filled them with no interest.

“Look, even damage control in a situation such as this is extremely finicky.”

She paced back and forth in her office, contemplating the suggestion. As much as she was grateful for the opportunity, heading up an entire branch of the Time Bureau had its stressful points. This was one of them.

“There’s an elegant simple-mindedness to your logic, respectfully. I am fully aware of the magic I can wield, and I understand entirely that the person I’ve chosen pales in comparison to countless others in that same regard. But that isn’t what love is.

“One too many?”

The Investor stared at the testing field, where, sure enough, he counted at least ten duplicate faces in the crowd.

“What do you mean by ‘one too many’?”

At first, you couldn’t comprehend what you were looking at. It was a mass of tentacles—some squid-like and others far more alien—that much you could tell. They writhed around a central mass, keeping you from witnessing the truth that lay within. Not that you were sure your mind could handle it.

You weren’t sure when you received the title or how. You didn’t know where your power came from or why. You only understood what your role was, and nothing more.

You stared down at the crisp twenty-dollar bill. It was the nicest one you’d ever seen, and you’d seen plenty of them in your time on this earth. Why, just looking at this one, you could remember them all.

“What the fuck is a ‘temporal paradox’?”
You remembered asking that question of your friend at a garage sale years ago. Now, you had nothing. Nothing, in a time when you didn’t even exist. You had no parents, no way to get back home. You had lost your friend somewhere in the jump, and now you were all alone.

This storm is the worst you’ve seen in quite a while. The rain is hammering against windows and shingles alike, pelting an uncertain rhythm out. Thunder crashes every few moments, echoing across the land like the bestial roars of some distant animal. Wind howls, rattling your doors and causing your house to tremble somewhat.

You stared at your partner, unsure of how to feel. Your entire life, you’d built yourself up into the perfect human being. At the behest of your mother, you’d strived for excellence in everything. You never settled for anything less than perfection, and you didn’t know how to.

It was a normal day in the forge. Cold weather was kept at bay by the fires that enabled your work, the constant working of your muscles held off the shivers, and the handling of enchantments kept your mind working through the fog.

There’s that saying about a city needing one hero but deserving another. He’d always thought it was a load of garbage put in a superhero movie just because it sounded cool.

No one knew when it had started, only that the pattern recurred every eight years. Long ago, the obsidian obelisk had been a godsend. The magic it granted allowed entire empires to rise and fall. It allowed slaves to free themselves, allowed cultures to spread across the globe. Without magic, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

It was all fun and games, always. You would have your silly little monologues, they would chase you around your little town—their slice of happiness, as you called it—you would push back, they would catch you … the usual routine for a Monday morning.

It was another day like any other. Work at a fox sanctuary wasn’t glamorous, with its moments of both unbounded joy and stifling disgust, though it all averaged out to be pretty fun, regardless.

The knight glanced past the dragon. Sure enough, there was a princess there in the cave. She wore the typical princess outfit, with the long, stiff dress and the poofy shoulders. Even the tiara on her head was as usual as they got, a silver accessory decorated with tiny rubies and emeralds.

It was that time of year again. You could smell it on the wind. The leaves were falling, and the air was cooling; some animals were preparing to hibernate, and others were preparing to procreate.

The council of elders had all gathered around their newest inductee to the academy. Some had ventured from distant lands with intrigue in their hearts, while others were there to bring back news that would dispel rumors in their homelands. Most of the elders, however, were there for safety.

You had centuries worth of experience, literal decades alone spent terrorizing a distant countryside that had long since been taken over, renamed, taken over again, and ultimately burned down. You knew how to disarm a knight with a flick of your tail, disrobe them from their armor with a gnash of your teeth, and disembowel them with a slash of your claws. But never in your life had you had to deal with such an odd situation.