Cycles of Entropy

From Mars' Journal - Aethon's 24th Cycle - Year 386

Grandma and Cammie haven't been fighting anymore. I hated it when they fought. Now I miss it. It started with the engagement. Or maybe it started before that, I don't really know. Things have been tense for a while. Ever since Cammie grew up maybe. No one would tell me why, but it definitely got worse after the engagement. It will be good for the family, Grandma is certain, but Cammie doesn't want to get married.

I understand that at least but... well does anyone want to get married? It's just a thing people do. Grow their families and estates and influence. And this marriage will do all of those things. Still, she doesn't want to. I don't really blame her but Grandma is right. Everyone has to get married eventually and Cammie won't find anyone as good for the family anywhere else. Her refusal has been the source of many arguments I'm not supposed to listen in on. They haven't fought about that in a while, of course. When the famine hit, they were both too distracted. Grandma has been using her magic to keep people calm and Cammie has been working herself far too hard to produce extra food for everyone.

So, instead of fighting about the engagement, they fought about that for a long time. At least, until Cammie found a solution. A new spell. She called it 'Unyielding Embrace'. It looked like she created a harvest that would never die and never spoil. Fruits, vegetables, wheat. Food that replaced itself overnight and resisted every season. An impossibility, as Grandma always taught. A spell that could feed itself and didn't need constant aura from the casting mage. Everyone was so happy when Cammie started sharing it. So many people were so relieved to finally eat until they were full. At first.

Grandma was the first to realize the truth. I didn't understand, when Cammie brought the food home, why Grandma looked so angry. She looked angrier than I had ever seen. Not relieved in the slightest, just furious, and maybe a little ashamed. Cammie was so disappointed. So hurt. So they haven't been fighting anymore, not after that. They stopped talking at all. Every day in the house is winter. I tried to get them to talk for a while. I wanted my happy sister and my kind Grandma back. But I guess I only really lost one of them. It's hard to look at Cammie, ever since Grandma told me the truth. It was better when they were fighting about the engagement.

Day 1

Instead of 'Undone' I cast 'Slow' when the woman on the left died. In that calm moment after the Quiet took her, before she came back as... someone else. I cast 'Slow' so her partner would have the chance to see the change and respond to it before I stopped her. It was the first day again. It had been a long time since I had made it to the second, and I was all right with that. In the end, after my break, I had chosen to defend the neighborhood again. And again I had been killed when I was done. This was, in a strange way, a chance to be the person I needed. Not the person I needed to be but the person I needed standing next to my bed after each loop.

As usual, the woman's eyes widened as her loved one was suddenly... empty. As her expression shifted to a new type of horror and fixed on me, I realized my mistake. I wanted to give her time to process the change before she had to defend herself or watch her partner die twice. But I had been through the loop, over and over again. To me, the quiet was a fact of reality. One I didn't understand, but an undeniable one at the same time. I'd forgotten that, to many, it was still little more than a rumor. To her, it looked like her partner stopped just as she was hit with my spell. It wouldn't matter when she came back more violent. It would look like I had done it.

Even if she were herself a mage, time magic was rare, and even as a mage myself I don't understand the quiet. It would be almost impossible to discern the difference between my spell and the cause of the person's death. I could try to explain it but... people often failed to believe in my spells. They could believe I was a mage. A time mage, even. They would even carry expectations with that belief. But when I described a specific spell, more often than not, they dismissed me entirely. Unless they had seen it firsthand. In this case that was only going to work against me.

It was too late. I started to chant the spell for 'Still World' as her fists curled and her usual frozen panic was redirected into a clearly directed rage. She was as empty as every other loop, with only one difference. All of her confusion and anger had a target. It was a stupid mistake. I couldn't do anything for her after that mistake. She wasn't charging at me or trying to kill me. I was safe from the fate I'd met when I'd gone to the weary couple's home, although the mistake was similar. But she was beyond my help and that was just as bad.

But I had an idea, and I started to warp my spell as I cast it. I remembered all the desperation that had been pulled from me to make this loop. The desire to go back and fix my mistakes. That desperation had created the loop. That desperation and my magic. As just a taste of that desperation touched me again, and as I had stopped feeling so helpless, I realized that both should still be woven into the loop. The loop wasn't only my spell, but it was my spell nonetheless. A mage has control over their spells. So I tried something that would never work under normal circumstances.

I used the changed chant for 'Still World' and grabbed the spell around the city like it was fabric. I pulled. I poured my desire to change my mistakes, and once again, I created a new spell. A spell that would only work in this city, during these three days. I named it 'Second Chance'. A spell designed specifically to alter the one I was already trapped inside of. I couldn't escape and I couldn't end it, but I wasn't ready to do either yet anyway. But I could move it, a little. Without the trauma of death. Without the fear. And without finding myself back in that horrible bed at the inn.

Aura erupted from me, blue sparks meeting teal, and I felt the world comply. I couldn't see its response, the world swam past me like fish in murky water, but I could feel it. And before I knew it, I had gone back. Not back to the beginning of the first day, and not to the inn. Just, a few minutes before. It took a great deal of aura, and I didn't think I could do much more than a few minutes. But it was enough. Both women were alive again, and my mistake had been erased. I walked as I had before, and closed the distance between us.

Again one of the women was taken by the Quiet at the turn of the hour. This time, instead of casting a spell right away I put myself between the two. "Do you need help?" I asked. She looked at me in shocked confusion, then looked over my shoulder at her partner.

"What?" Is all she could muster, but her eyes widened again, first in heartbreaking hope, then in horror as the dead woman started to move again. I faced away from the quieted corpse and fixated on the living woman's eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry," I apologized as her world ended before her eyes. I felt a hand grip my hair and pull but I didn't turn to fight it, focusing entirely on the shocked woman in front of me instead. The dead woman was shorter than me, and less dangerous than Hadley. I had time to focus on someone else.

"I don't understand... why does she look so sad?" the living woman asked. I had only seen rage on their faces before so this question confused me, but I didn't let it distract me.

"I'm going to cast a spell to stop her," I explained. "I'm sorry but she is gone. What has happened to her now is wrong, and I am going to give her death back to her. I'm sorry." I felt hairs tearing from my scalp and a long-nailed hand wrap around my throat as I chanted 'Undone'. The living woman had water pooling in the corners of her eyes like morning dew, but something she saw in her partner's face convinced her. She gave me a simple nod. It was all I needed, and I continued my chant. Blue sparks and blood poured across the fingers on my throat as they tore at the skin. I had to close my eyes and chant through my teeth as the pain assaulted me, but I completed the spell.

Blue aura enveloped the enraged body and my hair was released alongside my throat. I turned and watched the body replay its actions over the previous minute in reverse and noted that, as usual, her eyes looked hateful and enraged rather than sorrowful. A moment later and she was as still as the grave again. I coughed and held one hand to my bleeding throat, then started the spell again to heal myself. As I did this, the remaining woman stumbled and steadied herself on the fountain before sitting and covering her face with her hands.

I wanted to help her right away but I needed to heal myself first. She had nowhere to go as I did. I'm not sure how long it took; it was strange to feel time on my body reversing while trying to measure the moments outside at the same time. But after a moment, the blood was gone and my hair was back in its usual messy topknot. I sat next to the woman and waited. Waited for her to have the heart to speak. When she could, she would know I was there. It was maybe twenty minutes before she did, but she did.

"Can you heal her, too?" she asked. It was a question I expected and I sighed.

"I'm sorry. I can't," is the only answer I had for her.

"Can anyone? I don't... I don't know much about magic but I know... in some bigger cities, they have all sorts of healing magic, right?" I had to shake my head as my heart ached at the hope in her tremoring voice.

"I'm sorry. It doesn't work like that. Healing magic cures the body, but Aethon gave us a soul as well. No matter how well you heal the body, it can't come back without a soul. Short of turning back the clock on both the body and soul, the dead can't come back," I answered. It was an unfortunate truth, but it was true nonetheless.

"Then... why did she..." she started but I didn't make her finish.

"I... don't know. But whatever was controlling her when she came back... whatever controls all of them... it wasn't them. It isn't their soul," I respond.

"Then... why did she look so sad?" she asked again, and I looked at her in confusion.

"I... don't know what you mean. I thought she was angry. She didn't look like the same woman anymore to me..." I responded a little helplessly. She sniffed and let out a deep breath.

"Yes, but... I've known her a long time and, well... sometimes they are the same thing, aren't they?" she asked. I knew exactly what she meant. And as her words slid into place, I was assaulted by a memory of my sister.