Among the Stars

Chapter Sixteen

By Roofles

The first thing Isaac felt was the blistering heat of the suns above burning down on him.

Even before he opened his eyes, Isaac felt the beads of sweat prickling his flesh. The air was hot and humid. Making it difficult for him to take a single breath as he shielded his eyes from the scorching light above.

Sitting up slowly, Isaac felt the softness of sand underneath him. It was scorching hot to the touch, but didn’t burn his hands. He felt it, but didn’t experience anything here. The wind was harsh, the suns unbearable, yet here he sat with the sand slipping through his fingers.

“Again?” Isaac asked, rubbing at his throat. Wishing he had some water to drink. “Another dream sequence or what? Is this real? Fiction? Something else entirely…?”

“Something like that,” a voice laughed nearby. Isaac, squinting, looking around until he saw the jackal siting nearby, waiting for him to wake up. With sleek, jet black fur and golden marking on his body, Zarvarsh sat there on an old piece of stone jutting up form the golden sands that continued to slip away around them as if being drained.

No matter how much sand drained away, it was seemingly endless.

“I see…” Isaac was on a sand planet. Or at least within a desert biome of a foreign planet. The sand had a golden sheen to it and the three suns above weren’t familiar as he looked around, trying to orientate himself with the area he was in.

“Relax,” Zarvarsh chuckled, flashing his fangs at the Terran. “You’ve never been here before. No one can be… This is my home planet. Was, my home planet. Vash. It’s unmarked nowadays in the cosmic chart. It once held an ancient, powerful civilization.” He offered a shrug as Isaac looked at him questioningly. “Such a great empire brought to ruin out of greed and envy and, well, whatever else you’d like to believe. It’s all true, to some part. Their arrogance, their power struggles, greed from within and coveted by those outside this system. One thing that led to another that brought it all… to this.”

The harsh winds continued to blow, swiping at Isaac’s face. He winced from the feel, reaching up to touch the spot. He expected to feel a cut at least. There was nothing there. Just a feeling of what once was.

“You’re a void creature as well, huh?” Isaac pushed himself up from the sand. It was hard to get his footing as the shifting sands continued to drain away like quick sand. A sea of sand draining away endlessly. It was the wind blowing in his face that made Isaac hate the place. He spat out the sand that got in his eyes and mouth.

What he could, anyways, and turned away from the wind. Letting it lash at his back like whips.

“This entire place, this planet, it’s all gone? Your using the memories of it.” Isaac knew for though he had never been here before, he was getting that uncomfortable sense of overwhelming déjà vu.

“Something like that,” Zarvarsh admitted, watching Isaac curiously. “Just because I’m gone doesn’t mean-,”

“You stole that jackal-man’s appearance, right. Right… I got that much.” Isaac looked around. “Where are we?” He asked, squinting to block the sand blowing in his face. “Not just the planet. I mean when and where. This isn’t… real? It’s based off the memories of the jackal you stole.”

“Borrowing,” Zarvarsh corrected with a chuckle. “It is and isn’t real.” Zarvarsh shrugged. “You used my hourglass.” He left that open ended, letting the gears in Isaac’s head turn and watching as the realization of that dawned on the Terran.

It was always so amusing to watch a new host use the hourglass for the first time.

“I’m within the hourglass?” Isaac looked down at the sand draining away. “This entire place exists within the hourglass, doesn’t it?” Isaac looked up. Peering past the bright suns in the sky, he could almost make out a glass dome that encircled the entire desert. He might’ve missed it if it were for the golden wooden structures holding the glass in place. “Within the hourglass…”

“Ding, ding, ding! Well done,” Zarvash clapped happily for him, making several whistle and bell noises before breaking into laughter. “You might be the quickest person ever to realize that! This is indeed within the hourglass.”

“Compressed space,” Isaac nodded.

“Correct…” Zarvarsh eyes gleamed as he tried to contain his gleeful delight. “This hourglass was created to hold the secrets of Vash within it. All their history and knowledge and the studied into the void…? It all resides here?” He motioned around them.

All Isaac saw were rolling hills of sand.

“Buried underneath.” Zarvarsh lifted up a finger, then pointed down. “Though, I don’t recommend trying to dig for them. One previous user tried. It did not end well for him.”

“The sand is and isn’t sand.” Isaac knelt down to scoop up a handful, looking at the golden grains of sand. With his mechanical eye, he scanned the substance. “Each individual grain of sand is… compressed space?”

“Correct. Or, basically correct. It might be a bit more complicated for you to understand right now. Not that you need to understand the how.” Zarvarsh chuckled with wicked delight as he kicked his legs out. “Ah, it’s been so long since I had someone to talk with! Someone who isn’t demanding things of me instantly or ignoring me altogether. Someone with some brains, for once.”

Zarvarsh bit his finger and, if he had blood, it would’ve bled from where his sharp, pearly white fangs bit into it. Instead, sand fell from the wound. Falling back to rejoin the desert.

“Compressed space to trap a void creature inside it.” Isaac mulled that over, thinking of all the implications behind it. “They use you to turn back time? No, theoretically you can’t turn it back. You must do some void shit to manage that,” Isaac continued to mumble as he thought it over.

Zarvarsh watched him, eyes smiling at Isaac putting the pieces together almost instantly. “They trapped me in here after summoning me, or, bringing me into this existence. I can’t exist outside of this,” he motioned to the walls of glass containing them. “Trapped in here to watch and wait for someone to pick me up…”

Zarvarsh left out the part where the jackal race of Vash had sealed him away inside a sacred temple. Deep within to contain what he was from the rest of the universe, until the Tigeron’s had come knocking.

“Right…” Isaac rubbed a hand over his mouth as he thought about it. Being in a dreamlike state, then waking up from it, left him disorientated. It was a jarring experience for his mind to handle. It wasn’t something a mortal mind was meant to handle or ever experience. Thankfully, the mechanical part of his brain kept him somewhat sane during all this. “I used the hourglass before that Creepy Crawler was able to get us.”

“This time, correct.” Zarvarsh nodded and Isaac frowned at him. “What? Some times it DID get you! Other times, Cyclone heroically jumped in the way to save you.” He said dreamily, as if recalling his favorite TV show. Recounting it as if it were a recording the two could possibly watch together, gushing about his favorite characters within it. “Other times you both escape… this time? It was just you.” Zarvarsh winked, snapping a finger at Isaac.

“There were options for both us to escape?” Isaac could already feel the regret building inside. He grabbed hold of it and pulled with all his might. From his chest, he ripped off a piece of black ooze and tossed it onto the ground.

The black ooze looked like a squid without a head. It squirmed and violently thrashed as the suns above scorched it into ash. It disappeared even before it fully took hold within Isaac.

“Interesting,” Zarvarsh noted, watching the display. “You felt the touch of the void taking hold of you and banished it before it could. Fascinating…”

“The void can only grab onto what we allow it to do so.” Isaac huffed and panted, still sweating profusely from the heat. “I’m getting the hang of this. Somewhat.” He wiped his forehead off.

“It took that Saberwolf dozens of tries before he even realized what was happening…” Zarvarsh picked at his teeth, looking particularly hungry while watching Isaac. “I’ve had a taste of his time countless times. He wasn’t particularly flavorful; I’m hoping yours will be. A full course meal compared to his dollar store one,” Zarvarsh chuckled.

Isaac noted how… humanoid Zarvarsh was. He was a very solid void being that talked about things in their reality as if having experienced them first hand. An interesting note Isaac kept to himself.

“Time? Whose time?” Isaac asked before shaking his head. “Oh, you mean Cyclone. He had the hourglass before me, thus, you would’ve been connected to him as you are now to me…” Isaac quickly summarized, not letting Zarvarsh have the upper hand in this conversation. Isaac thought that over. “You describe it as a taste? You eat time then…?” Isaac continued to think along that. “You consume time to reverse it… Well, not so much reverse. More like… erase what had happened. By devouring it. Savoring our experiences, tasting our memories of that time in return for letting us use you?” He asked, glancing up at the jackal for confirmation.

Zarvarsh grinned with one too many mouths pulling up one side of his face. Three mouths all gleefully smiling at Isaac.

“You are smart. Or rather, quick witted. You don’t appear to have all that much intelligence, but you can grasp things quickly. Roll with the punches and use what you can to your advantage. This’ll be much easier than dealing with that oaf,” Zarvarsh sighed, thankful for a change. “That Saberwolf asked endlessly about you and nothing else. It was painful,” Zarvarsh rubbed one temple.

“I thought you said we need to ask you?” Isaac brought around, bringing it up for Zarvarsh to confirm it for him. The jackal didn’t seem to catch onto what Isaac was doing. Just glad, seemingly, to have a conversation with someone.

Isaac assumed that was some lingering part of the jackal that Zarvarsh had borrowed the form of. Some remnant or echo of the jackal still existed within Zarvarsh. Isaac understood that, because he’d been there before.  

“Think of me like genie in a lamp if that’ll make things easier. Able to grant whatever you wish, with limitations. Or rules, as I like to put it.” Zarvarsh wagged a finger back and forth. “Strict restrictions I like to call rules. Time can be a fickle mistress to work with. It is very determined, obstinate in its ways and opposed to change. It is the universes way of keeping things in balance after all.”

“More like a Djinn or a monkey’s paw than a genie I’d imagine. You might grant my metaphorical wish, but at a cost it seems.” Isaac said looking down at his right hand. His ring finger was missing. “Cruel.” He muttered.

His finger was just gone. There was no lingering pain. It felt familiar and Isaac looked at Zarvarsh, then around the desert. His finger had seemingly dissolved away like the rolling, sinking sands around him. Becoming part of this time. Compressed memories into grains of sand for Zarvarsh to feast on.

“I’ve been here before.” Isaac said as he looked at the sands. He’d never seen them before. He’d never felt the heat beating down from above, yet, somehow, he knew that he had been here. He’d done this. “Or…”

“Or you were going to.” Zarvarsh smiled, glad Isaac finally understood. “Far too quick witted. You are aware of things yet to come. Knowing they will, you feel things before they happen. A side effect possibly of using the hourglass? Maybe being touched by the void? Some extra sensory I’m not aware of? I never heard of a Terran being able to feel these things beforehand.”

“Exposure.” Isaac said without looking at the jackal. “I’ve done this all before. I’ve been here or… I will be here…? I will be here, I will do this, so I know of what to do in advanced to progress. There have been countless lectures and theories behind time travel.” Isaac thought over everything he knew about it, about the theory of it and his own experience dealing with it. “Before? With Cyclone? I was a passenger. Someone on the sidelines, looking in… now? Now I’m in the driver’s seat.” Isaac muttered.

“Says the starship captain,” Zarvarsh snorted, chuckling about it. “Always think about flying, huh? Whatever way you want to describe it to help your feeble, weak mind understand the cosmic power at your fingertips.”

“It was my passion for the longest of times. Flying…” Isaac offered in turn as he looked around the desert. “I finally understand why that was. I always thought it was because I wanted to run away. Fly away from it all… no, it was to find someone. And I couldn’t do that sitting in one place. How does this work?” He asked, talking to Zarvarsh as if he were some kind of AI of the hourglass, a co-pilot to control this thing.

Just like Sphinx had been for The Stellar Drift. The jackals of Vash had not only trapped Zarvarsh in this hourglass. They had made him their puppet, unknowingly being used by the very thing they attempted to control before fearing its power and locking it away.

“Heh, well,” Zarvarsh lifted a hand.

The desert around them shifted and the sand fell away as massive black structures rose from within. Hidden underneath the sands surfaces were glossy black stone arc ways. Each were the size of a doorway. A doorway that Isaac could easily walk into and use. There was no door. Just a black shimmering void that Isaac could peer into.

It had no reflection, yet Isaac felt like he could see something. Something on the other side. He was the one now looking in.  

“There are certain rules that must be applied to this, or you’ll end up risking destroying the universe. Causing a paradox, for example.” Zarvarsh hopped down from where he’d been sitting and walked over to the first doorway. He pet the side of it almost lovingly, looking at the structure that Isaac was sure, somehow, was also a part of Zarvarsh’s body.

“Doors?” Isaac asked at the simplicity of it.

“Correct. Over the countless eons I’ve been here, I’ve learned from those who have used me. I’ve adapted to make things easier for the user,” Zarvarsh winked at him. “You. This time.”

“Cyclone was last? I basically hijacked his ship,” Isaac let out a soft laugh at that. “I stole from the space pirate.”

“If it’s easier for you to think that way, sure. We are, after all, technically within the hourglass. It’s not located anywhere specifically in time or space. Yet, it could be seen or viewed as an extremely… strange spacecraft to travel not only the universe in but also through time itself.” Zarvarsh explained as he walked around Isaac, watching him with one too many eyes that opened from his black fleshy body.

His body should’ve been made of flesh and fur. Isaac thought of that fur more like flesh. It was black like the rest of the jackal, void of any light. When those eyes opened on his arms and legs, they twinkled like stars.

Isaac shivered, turning away. That was not the kind of light he was looking for.

“This is a vessel that contains you. Whatever you are.” Isaac didn’t need to know the specifics behind that. “You must’ve copied or duplicated the jackal’s form and this place,” Isaac gestured to the desert around them. “During your… adaption to our reality. Making things clearer for the user.”

Isaac didn’t mention how it was to trick them. To lull them into a false sense of security. Ever since Isaac opened his eyes in this place, he’d felt uncomfortable as if something were crawling over his skin. Something licking at his flesh. Tasting him.

“Exactly! Thank you, sheesh.” Zarvarsh let out a loud laugh as he leaned backwards as if to pop his back. “I put so much damned work into this place! You are the only one to appreciate all I’ve done.”

“Who else has used you?” Isaac asked, wording things in such a way to keep up the appearance of trust. Isaac knew that it was Zarvarsh that used whoever took hold of the hourglass. He believed that, somehow, Zarvarsh had trickled the jackals that had trapped him into leading him to his next host. The Tigerons.

Just like Zarvarsh, now, was trying to use Isaac.

Since the beginning, Isaac felt an uncomfortable tug towards the artifact. Towards a spot within Cyclone’s coat that the Saberwolf kept hidden away from prying eyes. The coat itself shielded Isaac’s artificial eye from scanning within, a common attire for a space pirate to have. Still, Isaac knew even before he reached for it.

That the hourglass was there.

As if it had been calling to him.

Zarvarsh must’ve chosen him as his next host long ago after being finished with Cyclone. Isaac had just pushed up the date of that transfer, taking hold of this cursed object for himself instead of letting Cyclone suffer any longer than he had from it.

Cyclone had suffered enough on his behalf. It was Isaac’s turn to carry that burden.  

“Previous owners? Dozens? At least.” Zarvarsh had to think about it. “It’s hard to recall them all. Time means nothing to me. Your lifetime can be a blink of an eye to me. I, we, have no concept of time or space. Not really.”

Isaac doubted that after Zarvarsh’s reactions to finally talking with someone. He kept that as well to himself.

“Void. Right… Endlessness, nothingness, blah, blah, blah…” Isaac wanted to point out if that was truly the case, then why did every single void creature Isaac had ever run into or, run away from, had desperately tried to grasp hold that. What he had and that they didn’t.

Existence. Being real. The good, the bad and the ugly parts of it. They were so desperate to exist in their reality they were willing to hitch a ride on a random Terran pilot in the universe.

Isaac walked over to the first doorway. It was curved at the top like an archway. It was made of some dark material Isaac had never seen before. Vantablack, that’s what Isaac knew it to be called. That color anyways. It absorbed all light, devouring all color that touched it. Leaving nothing but a dark void behind.

So dark that not even your reflection could be seen within it.

If the sands were a rolling golden brown, Isaac might’ve not even noticed the structures jutting up from the desert around him it was so hard to see or look at. They were foreboding objects that didn’t belong in this or in any time.

Just like the Monolith that Raphael had found. Objects that were never meant to exist.

“The Immortal Emperor? The Tigeron King… did he use you?” Isaac asked, glancing towards the jackal. When Isaac made direct eye contact with the jackal’s body, all those eyes blinked out of existence. Hiding away. Isaac could only see them, see Zarvarsh for what he really was from his peripheral vision.

When he didn’t directly look at Zarvarsh.

“Some Tigeron had tried to use me, yes.” Zarvarsh mulled it over, thinking about it. “It’s hard to recall what isn’t or is, any longer. He didn’t want to change the past. If I recall correctly, he realized that THAT was a foolish decision and then went and made an equally foolish one! To stop his clock of time. To stop his future time from ever happening.”

“Stop it?” Isaac was confused by that. “Just him? As an individual.”

“Correct. See, you’d think if you erased your future? Then you’d just die? That isn’t how time works,” Zarvarsh laughed. “For instance. If you edit things in the past. That will have a butterfly effect, a ripple, through the rest of the timestream. Changing things. You can’t do that to the future, as it hasn’t happened yet. The past effects the present that then becomes the future. You never exist in the future, however. The future both does and doesn’t exist at the same time. Every moment you exist is the present that becomes the past, never reaches the future that is the present. You never, technically, exist in the future because that would be your present that would become your past. Understand?”

“Because it hasn’t happened yet…” Isaac was getting a headache from it all. “How do I use these?” He said, talking about the doors. Isaac already knew exactly what it was he wanted to accomplish.

Because, in a way, he already had done it.

“It’s a door, Isaac Mayhew.” Zarvarsh chuckled. “You walk through it.”

“Yes, but where does it lead?” Isaac asked and Zarvarsh smiled.

“You mean when. When does it lead.” The Jackal clearly enjoyed this far more than Isaac was. Being trapped inside the hourglass must’ve been it’s own form of hell. Isaac reasoned out that, since Zarvarsh didn’t experience time as he did, the jackal somehow remained somewhat… sane during it all.

The longer Isaac was here? The greater the risk of losing himself became. Just like what happened to Cyclone. Isaac could only begin to fathom what depths Cyclone had ventured into. What he had seen, what he had done, how many times he had to get Zarvarsh to ‘reset’ everything.

Failing, over and over again.

“Can you put these in order? Time wise. Uh, what would you call it? Chronological order.” Isaac said and with a simple snap of his fingers, Zarvarsh did. The jackal had been waiting for Isaac to foolish take the first step into a doorway without ever asking about it or checking it first.

Something, Isaac assumed, Zarvarsh had done numerous times to his prior owners.

The doorways shifted in the sand, forcing Isaac to take several steps back as they moved around in front of him. Shuffling like a deck of cards before stopping. Each doorway became numbered at the top. Golden numbers appearing in a language that Isaac didn’t understand before they translated themselves for the Terran to read.

“They are dated chronologically from earliest to latest. Each doorway has limitations. Otherwise, there would be countless doors before you!” The jackal laughed. “The rules still apply. These are just the ones you are able to safely take and use.” Zarvarsh stepped next to the first one. “I’m looking forward to seeing how you do things. You are far smarter than that Saberwolf was. I have high hopes for you.” Zarvarsh was practically drooling, looking at Isaac.

“Right…” Isaac shuddered, wiping off that uncomfortable sensation of being licked again from his arms. In a way, Isaac was inside Zarvarsh’s body. Being within the hourglass. Even if it was compressed space, it was still the space that Zarvarsh inhabited. Like slowly being digested. “Is that why you do this? You want us to have the best experiences for you to… savor and enjoy?”

Isaac wanted to tell the void jackal to go to a steakhouse instead.  

“The best meats have to marinate, Isaac. They have to rest before and after being cooked. It is not simply tossing the raw steak,” Zarvash said knowingly looking at Isaac. “Onto a grill. It needs to be prepped, seasoned properly, salted just enough, marinated and then, and only then, put onto the grill to cook. Time is the key to building up those flavors,” Zarvarsh picked at his teeth with a sharp nail, drool trickling down his chin. “Even I, as infinite as I am, need some kind of… sustenance to sustain myself in this infinite boredom. Your lives are so finite that I need the most I can get from each of you.”

“Like a ship needs a power source… did you devour the sun?” Isaac asked, stopping to look at the jackal then up at one of the three suns above. Two of the suns looked ready to burn out, much smaller in size than the last one. “The star inside the ship. You ate it, didn’t you? Cyclone fed it to you in order to do what it was he was trying to do… whatever that was.” Isaac had a theory behind it but didn’t divulge it to someone like Zarvarsh.

Keeping up appearance was hard enough when you felt like the other person was devouring you with their eyes. That sensation of being licked, again, nearly made Isaac jump. The hot breath panting behind his right ear. Drool trickling over his shoulder as it waited. It waited to take the first bite of him. A hungry beast without a name or true form. A creature that fed endlessly without ever knowing the sensation of being full.

A void monster with too many mouths to feed and a blackhole for a stomach.

“Something like that.” Zarvarsh smiled. “I make it a habit of keeping my prior clients information secret, see. No specifics. It’s just good for business.” The void beast shrugged casually. Isaac assumed he’d stolen that idea from one of the prior hosts. Stealing, not only their time, but also their knowledge and memories.

With every person Zarvarsh devoured, the more mortal he became. Isaac feared what something like him would one day become. It might’ve only been thanks to his timelessness that he hadn’t been able to breach into their dimension, yet.

“I hope you’ll do the same for me, then.” Isaac said turning towards the first doorway.

“I plan to do so…” Zarvarsh paused for a second. He blinked, holding the side of his head. “Isaac…” The Terran glanced over at him. The shifting form of the jackals body solidified again. “Be safe…” It said, yet it’s mouth didn’t move. “Do not underestimate The Time Devourer.”

“Shut it,” Zarvarsh warned suddenly slapping a hand down on his side, covering the mouth that had opened up there to speak. “Sorry. Sometimes it takes longer to digest than it does others.” It chuckled. It laughed at such a wicked, cruel thing to say and do.

Isaac pretended not to notice the warning. Already suspecting to hear it. As he already had, long ago.  

Isaac had suspected that might happen as he stepped through the first doorway, already knowing exactly what he needed to do here. In a way, he had already done it after all. This was just placing the first domino down, waiting to be pushed.

To start countless minor changes that Isaac would go to make throughout his timeline. All in order to keep things exactly the way they are, and how they went. For a single chain would also mean risking losing the one thing Isaac needed most.

Zarvarsh was a creature that didn’t exist in this reality. It needed a host, or many hosts, devouring their time to create a persona for it to take on. Unlike the void that had dwelled inside Isaac or the crystallized alien that needed t control a host with their light, Zarvarsh was trying to do the next step.

To create a body for himself to walk in this reality without needing a host. By devouring the previous users of the hourglass, he was planning to steal their time and piece the bits left of it together to form a body.

A body that could cross over.

The Monolith had tried something similar. Creating doppelgangers of those in reality to inhabit. To cross over to their reality with, using those artificial reflections. They weren’t real, false images, distorted reflections and because of that it had failed. Zarvarsh and the Monolith might’ve been different void heralds, they were still nothing more than mindless beasts in the end.

Ruled by one thing.

“Instinct,” Isaac opened his eyes as the numbing feel of the doorway slipped past him. It was like stepping through a wall of water. It resisted him at first. Trying to prevent him from stepping through time itself, the nature of the cosmos fighting against the aberration that entered it. Be it gravity, or something else, Isaac had to force his way through.

It was far easier than it should’ve been. To slip through time like this.

Zarvarsh had grown in power. He was clearly a force that could threaten the entire universe. Isaac might’ve been the last host he needed to devour to achieve that goal. Thankfully, Isaac didn’t plan to give him any more than what he needed to do to accomplish his goals.

Yet, even knowing this, Isaac didn’t care. For he could use Zarvarsh and the hourglass to fulfill the thing that did matter. What mattered to him.

For years Isaac regretted not being able to say goodbye to Kaira. Choosing to run away instead of standing his ground. For what had happened at the Academy to as early as losing his mother… It all started after losing his mother. That regret inside building and festering, allowing a place for the void to take hold of. A place for the void to slip inside of him.

Isaac should’ve gone back then. To the point of his mother’s passing, to be at her side before she passed away. Or maybe to Kaira, before he was stolen away by Typhon and the ship that had been orchestrated to find him. Isaac could go almost anywhere or to any time.

Isaac had even thought about going back in time to stop himself. To kill himself, so that none of these events would occur. He didn’t… even though he knew he should’ve.

He chose only a select few places that needed some… interference to make sure, when those dominos fell, they’d did exactly how he wanted them to.

“Sorry.” Isaac said to no one in particular as he looked around the dry, arid red planet he was on. The air scratched at his throat and there was an uncomfortable heat to the place, even being in the middle of the night. “I don’t plan to fix any of that… or to stop this from happening.”

Isaac was no hero.

Isaac chuckled softly. “Fixing the past? No…” He took a step forward. “I only have one goal in mind.” Isaac took another. “You know exactly what I mean, don’t you?” Isaac was running now. Running over the dry ground that cracked and broke underneath his boots. This dry wasteland of a planet. A dead planet with a dying star.

Isaac had and hadn’t ever been here before, but he knew exactly where and when he was. And where he needed to go.

“Saber.” The planet of the Saberwolves. “Also known as Hoal, or Howl, depending on how you pronounce the word. Terrans can’t, but a Saberwolf could.” Isaac turned around a rocky bend with jagged pieces of the ground sticking out of it like spikes.

Turning the bend to see the one lying there. His heart jumped into his throat and Isaac couldn’t speak. Not at first. He wanted to as his eyes welded up with tears, threatening to burst. The very sight of the Saberwolf made him choke up.

It hadn’t been that long… but Isaac knew, right there and then, exactly how Cyclone felt. Returning in time, to see him again.

There, around the bend, was a small cliffside. Overlooked a craggy cliffside was a place a person, or two, could lay down at with a perfect view of the night. A place away from the Fanged Citadel that the Saberwolves elders called home. It was like a metal saber fang jutting up out of the ground, like the very rocks around Isaac. A metal structure where they could hold their war council at the very top of.

A fang pointed towards their enemies beyond the stars.  

Fighting against a force that was endless and infinite. The Endless War. For pride? For honor? It didn’t really matter. It was a futile effort that would one day end in their defeat. Even knowing this, they refused to back down.

Isaac stopped then to look up at the night sky. Stars and constellations he didn’t recognize met his eyes. This truly was another world. Another place. Distance and foreign, and yet… so very familiar. So very, very familiar.

As if he’d been here a hundred, a thousand times before.

“We’d come here, to look at the stars.” The Saberwolf laying there said, staring up at the night sky above. Past the silver moons where they harvested the sacred silver metal that had been used to craft Isaac’s bangle. Past the light and towards the distance twinkling object so far out of reach.

Cyclone had never seen the appeal of stars before. Not then or there. Yet, it was strange, when Isaac had been there next to him. Talking about these things he loved, Cyclone began to care. To give a shit about something so very, very far away…

“When you said you loved the stars… I… I wanted to love them too. Love them right beside you,” the Saberwolf said, unable to look away from those bright twinkling lights above. “I never did, though. I never understood the appeal. Chasing dreams. That’s all it was… then you came along. I love them. I hate them. I wish they never existed in the first place…

“Giving me hopes and dreams, just out of reach.”

That didn’t stop Cyclone from trying to reach up to grab one of those lights. Desperately reaching out to take it in his hand. As if it were a firefly, just out of reach. Grasping at the empty air. To anyone else, it might’ve looked like he came up with nothing, but when Cyclone opened his hand. There, between his fingers, was the twinkling light of a stars as if it were in the palm of his hand.

“So many stars. Yet, the only one I ever wanted to grab. Was one…”

Isaac didn’t feel the need to point out the massive chunk of space that was void of any of these stars, these lights.

It was like there was a hole in the night sky. A place that nothing lived or ever had existed in. The place the void was breaching into this dimension, threatening to consume everything and everyone in a dark sea that’d wash it all away.

In a way, it was doomed to happen. Be it heat death of the universe, or some other natural occurrence. It was inevitable. Even if it took trillions of years, they all were doomed to return to that black void waiting to wash them away and snuff out their light.

Still, even though the two knew this more than anyone else… Cyclone refused to let go of that soft light between his fingers. Holding it, staring at it, focusing everything on it.

“It makes it all worth it.” The Saberwolf almost laughed. “If we had just stayed in one place? If we had never grown our wings to fly? We’d have never known… never known the beauty of finity has.”

Isaac didn’t care about any of that. Not any longer. He realized then, or already had known, that wasn’t why he did this. Why he became void touched to begin with. Why Isaac had gone down this path. From the very start, just like Cyclone, Isaac had only saw one star in the night sky.

That he wanted to take hold of and keep close as everything else was washed away.

“How did you know I would be here?” The Saberwolf finally asked, opening up his hand as if to let the firefly he’d grabbed go. There were no more insects or plants left on their planet. Maybe that was why he hated the stars so much.

They were something Cyclone knew he’d never be able to truly have.

“It was your safe place.” Isaac walked over and the ground crunched underneath his steps. The Saberwolf didn’t look at him. He continued to stare up at the patch of stars in the night sky. Stars that, too, would one day twinkle out.

Leaving only the cold, endless dark behind.

“It’s rather obvious, if you think about it for half a second… A place you would escape to get away from it all. The responsibilities. The obligations that your people, the war council and elders, would put on you and the other young recruits. Forcing you to join in a war that you all knew was doomed to fail… no matter how many battles you won, the war was already lost before it began.” Isaac stood there, looking up.

Trying to see what Typhoon, Cyclone, Typhon had tried to see.

It was funny. Ever since Isaac took hold of the hourglass, it felt like all those lives and memories began to blend together and seep into his body. Dripping. Dripping all around him. Each drop containing another lifetime. Another chance. Another effort that they had tried to do.

And, in knowing that, Isaac could see to his side an image of Typhon, an image of Cyclone that was trying to do the very same thing Isaac was now. Putting the pieces in place, to make sure, no matter what, at least they’d be able to meet.

And be together, to watch The End.

“It really is futile, huh?” Isaac slowly took a seat slightly behind and to the right of the Saberwolf’s head. “This war?” He rested his head on his folded arms after pulling his knees close. The sound of the dirt scraping against the dry ground was deafening.

There was no sound here outside the howling winds through the jagged canyons and carved mountains stretching endlessly around them. No birds. No life. Nothing but the howls of the dead.

“No matter how hard you fight against it?”

“You’re destined to be washed away still.”

“The void sea claiming all.”

“No matter how hard you struggle against the current.”

“It’ll still pull you under.”

“Even if we get a thousand chances?”

“The end never changes.”

“There is no changing something that is inevitable.”

“Should we just give in, then?”

“No…” Isaac said then, looking not at the stars in the sky, but at the man at his side.

“Why are you here, Isaac?” Cyclone asked, still refusing to look at him. One of his hands tightened into a balled fist, holding it so tight his arm shook. Trying to hold back. Trying to fight against it.

“You know why.” Isaac chuckled softly, turning his head to look at the Saberwolf. He looked so much younger than before. Than he ever did or had. He supposed this person before him must’ve been Typhoon, the young Saberwolf that had lost his family to raiders and dreamt of leaving this forsaken planet.

A young Saberwolf who had no one. Forced to join the military like everyone else. They didn’t help him hunt down the raiders that had killed his parents, no. They trained him, prepared him to fight their war for them. Throwing the lives of their young to delay their own inevitable deaths.

Cyclone had no one. Typhoon had no one. Typhon had no one.

Then, one day, as if he were a star that fell to the planet… there was someone there, waiting for him, at his special spot. Someone he couldn’t fully see. Yet someone that was there, going through similar things that he was. That understood him, listened to him, and, above everything else, loved him more than anyone ever had before.

“I wanted… I needed to see you.” Isaac said truthfully.

“That means I failed, huh?” Cyclone sighed, closing his eyes. He rested an arm over his eyes. “You are only able to come here because you weren’t ever here before. It is a place, a time, that doesn’t hold a you in it. Thus… you are able to be here now. When I’m at my lowest,” Cyclone said, yet the arm he held up was Typhoon.

The younger him. The Saberwolf who had been beat up again at school for being one of the outcast, from being from the outskirts of the citadels control.

“It does now.” Isaac smiled and, finally, Cyclone looked over at him. “You look so… young and cute.” Isaac teased. “I want to, like, I don’t know… adopt you. Give you a bath and take you home to feed you a nice warm meal.”

“I’m not a pet,” Cyclone snarled, and Isaac chuckled.

“I don’t know,” Isaac smile reached his eyes. “You are my everything… why can’t you be that as well?”

Cyclone snorted, looking over at him. Then the Saberwolf blinked, looking Isaac over. He looked so much older than he was.

“You look… off.” Cyclone frowned as he sat up, pushing himself up with an arm. “Why are you blurry?” Isaac wasn’t able to see what Cyclone saw.

“I most likely don’t exist, yet.” Isaac shrugged, resting back on his arms now and opened his legs slightly. Relaxing in this moment, despite the rocks digging into his ass. “Your time and mine are different. We might exist in the same universe? Even if it’s the same ‘time’ for us. It isn’t the same cosmic time… Our planets are light years apart. And I mean light years!” Isaac chuckled. “Hundreds? Thousands of light years? Possibly more. Millions…? Yet, here I am.” Isaac looked at him. “I came all this way to see you. To check up on you.”

Cyclone felt that. Felt that in his chest.

Of the man, the voice, that was there for him when he was younger. Being a comfort where no one else was. A voice that connected them through space and time. Being there as Cyclone would, eventually, do the exact same thing for Isaac.

It was crazy. But love was crazy. And the two of them knew that.

“That’s why I’m here now.”

“For what?” Cyclone shoulders sagged, trying to hold back the overwhelming storm of emotions inside. His fur was blue. A flickering light sparked inside his chest but no more. It wasn’t time yet for Typhoon to awaken. “Because I failed? Because I couldn’t save you. Because I failed to change anything!” He shouted at.

Howling at the end and let the sound carry with it his sorrow and pain. Knowing that, in a way, Cyclone had doomed Isaac to the very fate he would suffer.

“No,” Isaac shook his head gently. He reached out a hand, placing it on Cyclone’s. He saw it there, but he couldn’t physically touch the Saberwolf. It wasn’t time yet, for that. “I came here to tell you something.” Isaac leaned forward and Cyclone met him halfway, the Saberwolf’s muzzle brushed against his cheek.

“What?” Cyclone waited with bated breath. So young, Typhoon was beginning to be filled with something his people made sure to stomp out of them.

Hopes. Dreams. Possibilities of anything other than this.

“You need to leave,” Isaac whispered the words. “You need to grow your wings and fly away from this place. You need to find me,” Cyclone shuddered, and it wasn’t Cyclone that heard the words, but the young Saberwolf Typhoon that would then have a real reason to leave this place. A reason. Something waiting for him. “Beyond those stars? I’ll be waiting for you.” Isaac rested his cheek against the Saberwolf’s. “Look for me…”

“How will I know it’s you…?”

“You’ll know.” Isaac needed to keep this vague on purpose, despite wanting to be direct about it. “You’ll know it’s me. Be strong, my… my starlight.”

Typhoon placed his forehead against Isaac’s in a Saberwolf’s gesture of farewell.

“You’ll be waiting for me?” The young Saberwolf asked.

“I promise.” And Isaac meant every word he said.  

Isaac didn’t know how to fix things. He didn’t know how to stop something that countless other generations couldn’t. The Endless War? The Void? None of that mattered, not really. It was inevitable. That didn’t mean they had to just give into it. To succumb to the despair and give up what made them real.

If these Saberwolves chose to fight and die until the very last of their kind? Isaac would as well. Just, in his own way.

“W-wait!” The young Saberwolf shouted out as Isaac closed his eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”

Isaac smiled at that. “Look for the silver banded one.” Isaac left it at that.

Any more could risk damaging things.

Everything began to fade away as if it all were turning to golden grains of sand, being blown away in the wind. The heat intensified and, as Isaac opened his eyes again, he was back in that golden place of endless, rolling sands.

Looking down, he noticed another finger missing. That was something he expected. Small bits of himself being taken at first. Encouraging him to go further, push harder. To risk more. It was a gamble. Every time he did this was a gamble, but there was a difference between Isaac and the others.

He knew that. He also knew that in a way, he had already set things in motion by tricking Zarvarsh into letting him go chronologically. Only, technically, needing to go back in time once. As he was already there, in the past, that then could go to the present that would become the future.

A him that would travel through time like anyone else alive could. By waiting. By sitting there waiting for the next moment to do something in. No matter how many years it took, Isaac would manipulate this twisted system to make sure that he and Cyclone would be together in the end.

Isaac had already cheated at this game of cards and Zarvarsh was utterly unaware he had.

“You convinced him to go into space?” Zarvarsh rubbed his chin, trying to figure out what Isaac’s goals were in all this. So many people had tried to change their fate. Tried to change the past with their future knowledge.

None had succeeded and Zarvarsh had savored every bite of them.

Most would go back in time to stop an assassination attempt. To prevent your loved one from being killed in an accident. To cheat at the lottery. Big things, small things, all things that most people would’ve tried to accomplish. To better their futures or loved ones futures.

Things Isaac had no interest in.

“That’s just the start.” Isaac told him, tossing Zarvarsh a crumb of what was to come. Isaac had no desire to tell this void beast anything more than the bare minimum. He didn’t want Zarvarsh to suspect anything. Isaac wasn’t going to play his game.

And Isaac knew this would work. Because, in a way, he already had done exactly this already. He and Cyclone together had.

Door by door, Isaac stepped through them in order. Going from the very first, towards the last. Each time he set a single piece, a single domino down. He didn’t try to change things. He didn’t try to fix what had been broken.

All his regrets and pain and suffering? Isaac would need them. He need things to be exactly the same as they had gone.

“Without them?” Isaac looked towards the side, half expecting to see his partner there. “Without those mistakes I made? Without those accidents and failed test scores I got?”

“I’d have never met you.” Typhon held Isaac close, tears burning in his eyes.

“If I tried to change the past?”

“I risked losing you.” Cyclone coughed black blood as Isaac stayed by his side until the light faded from his eye. Petting his arm until The End.

“No matter what I do or try,” Isaac pet a sleeping Typhoon’s face. Calming the restless young Saberwolf’s fitful nightmares down after losing his parents. Staying by his side despite the risk of it all. “If I try to change a single thing?”

“I risk never have met you.” Cyclone repeated countless years into the future. Staying by Isaac’s bedside as the blue crystallization drained Isaac of his life, his light, and would be the death of him.

“A single flap of a butterflies wings.”

“Could change everything.”

“Like never having met you.”

“Or never being born…”

“No matter how much suffering we go through.” Isaac was the one to cough blood, holding the gaping wound in his chest. It hurt. It hurt so damn much that his arms and legs went numb. “I-I’d do it all over again. Just to meet you.”

“Every painful thing, every painful memory we make. Every nail we need to step on?”

“Is one step closer to you.” Cyclone cried by Isaac’s grave.

“I’ll live with a thousand more regrets.” Isaac strangled Bai’Tai in the academy, holding the Tigeron down as he watched the light fade from his eyes. A Bai’Tai that needed to die after activating the Monolith in the academy that started this horrific chain of events.

An act the current future Isaac had long since forgiven. It needed to be done. To kill his friend at the academy. Placing another domino down so it would fall with everything else.

“No matter how dirty I need to get my hands.” Cyclone shot down the planetary patrol, allowing them to escape.

“It’s worth it.” Isaac pulled the trigger.

“Just to have another chance to see you again.” Cyclone typed away onto the hibernation chamber containing his past self after drugging and knocking Typhoon out. He’d awake to find Isaac, to become the Saberwolf known as Typhon. To venture through the stars with the Terran, only to learn in the future that it was never the end that matter.

“But the journey.” Isaac watched as he himself fell to the ground with a gaping hole in his chest. Laying there in a pool of his own blood within the academy. Isaac holding the gun this time that shot through him after strangling Bai’Tai. “That is the Truth of it all.”

“No matter how many lives I ruin. Or lives I take.” Cyclone snapped a Tigeron guard’s neck as he broke into the vault of the Immortal Emperor-King, going after the hourglass hidden within. It was the place he also found The Stellar Drift.

A perfect vessel for Cyclone to take with him through time.

“As long as I see you again. Nothing else matters.” Isaac opened his eyes again. “As long as I can see you again.”

There was no blistering heat. There was no rolling dunes of endless sands around him. There were only small rocks underneath him on a dark shore. Darkened by the black waves crashing against the shoreline of the coast. The water touched his feet and Isaac instantly felt numb… until they receded, pulling back and off him. Isaac half expected to see his feet missing or gone.  

Sitting up on The Beach, Isaac looked out over the vast ocean. It was black. A dark void sea that rolled back and forth against the small island he found himself waking up on. Instinctively, he knew there were things lurking underneath it’s surface. Just out of sight.

Carefully, Isaac rose to his feet. He was naked. Giving himself a quick once over, Isaac realized that he had his arm again. In fact, he was whole again. Everything. Even his left eye that he blinked several times, waiting for things to change.

For him to wake up from this…

“What is this place?” Isaac took a step back as the sea crashed against the coast side. Against the rocky shore. It washed away the color. Washed away the ground underneath, before receding back to reveal what had been hidden underneath its dark surface.

“My end.” A voice said behind him, and, with a start, Isaac turned around to see Cyclone standing there. The Saberwolf was as naked as Isaac was. His fur was an ugly dull gray. Withered and aged by time. It wasn’t the vibrant blue of Typhon or the muddy black of what Cyclone would become.

It was Cyclone’s true fur color. A dull gray that changed slightly with the seasons. It wasn’t luxurious or otherworldly. He didn’t look sickly, or on the verge of death. Cyclone was whole as Isaac was. No mechanical parts, just a Saberwolf by the sea side waiting for him.

“How long?” Isaac asked.

“How long have you been lying there? Or how long I’ve waited for you to show up?” Cyclone asked with a sneering smirk on his face. With a small hop down, Cyclone closed the distance between them. Paw pads crunched over the rocky shore line as Cyclone went from a walk to a brisk jog, to a run.

“Cyclone?” Before Isaac could even start to ask, he was lifted up into the air. Spun around, Isaac was held tightly after. Held so close to Cyclone, the Terran feared he’d be crushed against the solid form that met him.

It was softer than he expected. His chest yielding in a bit as if spongey instead of the solid rock he’d known from Typhon.

“I waited so long for this…” Cyclone let out a shuddering breath, holding back the tears threatening to spill from his eyes as he pulled back. With a hand, he gently pet the side of Isaac’s face. “Is this real? D-did it work? Did everything work and you are finally here, in my arms, again?”

“As real as it can be?” Isaac offered back, unsure if it was or not.

“If this is a dream? I don’t want to wake up.” Cyclone wagged and the two shared a comfortable laugh. A laugh that felt as if they’d done it together countless times before. “I missed you.”

“I missed you.” Isaac could finally say in turn before the two shared a kiss.

From there, life seemed to have begun again as if waking from hibernation.

Cyclone led Isaac up to their cottage by the shore. Past the wildflowers that grew and the spot that would eventually become Isaac’s eternal resting place, his gravesite. There was even a slab of stone waiting there to be carved into a tombstone for him.

Neither of the two talked about that as Cyclone opened the door for Isaac, inviting him inside the seashore cottage. It was open, that was Isaac first impression of the place. There were no walls to divide the building into section. It was open. Able to see from the front door all the way to the other side of the room.

Just an open room that had a bed, a kitchen, a living room and even a place for them to do arts and crafts at.  

“Really?” Isaac had to tease as he picked up a canvas from an easel. It was a painting of the sea, but the waters weren’t black but blue. A soft vibrant blue that Isaac instantly recognized.

“It was before I realized that it was the Guardian’s Shard that did you in.” Cyclone apologized.

“Why didn’t you throw it away?” Isaac set it back down, turning to look at the Saberwolf. Cyclone hadn’t taken his eyes off Isaac since he’d woken up on the beach. As if afraid that, if he were to blink, Isaac would disappear again.

“I will, I just… wanted to show you first.” Cyclone chuckled, scratching the side of his face with a filed nail as his tail wagged lazily back and forth. “I’ve had a lot of time to kill before you finally decided to show up.”

“You knew I would show up here?” Isaac didn’t ask where here was. For he knew, that wasn’t important. That stuff? It didn’t really matter. As much as Isaac liked to know, to learn things and to expand his knowledge… such things didn’t always matter. Weren’t always needed.

Isaac didn’t need to know the answers to things. Not any longer.

“Of course,” Cyclone shrugged. “After all. You’re the one who told me to find you…” Cyclone smiled softly, tail wagging still. “I knew,” he grinned, smiling at Isaac. “That if I built this place? That you would, eventually, find it.”

“I did.” Isaac smiled back and the two shared that moment, each hoping and wishing that it would never come to an end.

“You hungry?” Cyclone finally said as he walked over to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he pulled out a carton of eggs. Isaac wanted to ask how that was possible. Where he had gotten the eggs from. What species the eggs were and…

None of that matter.

“Sure.” Isaac said, walking over to take a seat at the counter. To keep Cyclone company. “I’d love some eggs, Cyclone.” Isaac was afraid that if he were to point out all these inconcinnity that things would break, the cracks would form, and the holes would begin to appear in this perfect day…

“Relax.” Cyclone said as he cracked the eggs skillfully into the pan one by one. The sound of sizzling butter and egg whites filled the room along with their delicious smell. “This is real.” Cyclone shuffled the eggs around with a spatula. “Or at least as real as it gets.”

“When did you learn to cook?” Isaac watched as the Saberwolf skillfully flipped the eggs over without breaking the yoke. Isaac didn’t recall ever seeing Typhon do that before.

“I’ve had a lot of time.” Cyclone chuckled. “I wanted things to be perfect,” Cyclone held up a hand to stop Isaac. “I know. I know that there is no such thing as perfection and all that bullshit. Just… let me have this. Let me have today. Let me be the pilot for once. Just… just this once.”

“…Sure.” Isaac reluctantly agreed.

“I promise, I won’t ever steer you wrong Isaac.” Cyclone smiled as his tail perked up, the tip of it still wagging.

“Your tail is so full,” Isaac noted watching the flag of a tail wag back and forth. “It’s mesmerizing.”

“Wait until I shake my ass back and forth in front of your face. Now that will be memorizable.” Cyclone stuck the tip of his tongue out as Isaac giggled, blushing faintly. “You are so cute…”

“Cyclone.” Isaac looked at him.

“The sound of your voice. The look on your face. The small little things that I never noticed before? Things you only notice after their gone,” Cyclone continued to cook the eggs. It had to have been over five minutes, yet he was still standing there cooking the eggs that never seemed to finish.

“Cyclone…?” Isaac asked, growing worried now. Concerned.

“It’s alright… This place? Time doesn’t pass here. Not like elsewhere.” Cyclone shrugged, setting the food aside and turning the burner off. “Time can be frozen in one place, or slower than others. It doesn’t mean all time is affected the same or equally. The hourglass? Isn’t capable of altering all time…”

“But… the burner worked.” Isaac took a second, afraid to look away from the Saberwolf.

“I know… it doesn’t need to make sense.” Cyclone set the spatula down and walked around the counter. “May I?” He offered a hand, and Isaac took it without hesitation. “Thank you…” And Cyclone led him through the cottage. “Not everything needs to be explained, Isaac. Not everything can be... Not every little detail needs to be told or described,” Cyclone showed Isaac the fireplace.

Yet there was no chimney on the cottage.

Cyclone showed him the windows, that didn’t face the correct direction as they did outside. The Saberwolf showed him one inconsistency after another.

“I don’t… understand. Why? Why are you showing me this?” Isaac stopped next to the king size bed. It was laid out on a wooden platform with drawers underneath. Silky black sheets adorned the bedding, matching the pillow cases and blanket on top of it.  

“Because none of that matters.” Cyclone stopped in front of him. Holding him with both hands, Cyclone leaned down to kiss Isaac. Isaac didn’t fight it. He didn’t turn away, he kissed this Saberwolf fully, tasting him on his lips as his tongue slid into his mouth.

It was slimy, the texture of it. It dripped and a cool warmth ran down the back of Isaac’s throat. Familiar to drool but felt far thicker than it should’ve been. He just couldn’t place a finger on what it was.

“Not today.” Cyclone pulled back, placing his forehead against Isaac’s and held him close. “Let me have one perfect day, again, with you…”

“None of that matters today, huh?” Isaac chuckle, blushing lightly as he wiped the drool from his chin. It was far darker in tint than it should’ve been. Almost black… “None of that matters today.”

“No. Not today…” Cyclone smiled back. “May I?” He asked, looking towards the bed. “It’s been so long,” his hands tightened on Isaac arms before easing up. The nails should’ve dug into his skin, but they bent and folded as if made of some sort of soft material. “Sorry… it’s just been so long since I felt you.” Cyclone apologized, wagging sheepishly.

“Cyclone,” Isaac started.

“Every night I hug the pillow, thinking of you. Every morning, I reach for you, but your not there… you are now. You are… now.” Cyclone bowed his head. With a shuddering breath, he crouched down on one knee. Looking at Isaac, the Terran didn’t even need to look down to meet Cyclone’s eyes. “Isaac…?”

“Yes.” Isaac said. “Yes, to whatever you are going to ask. You know that.” Isaac chuckled softly. He could do one day.

“…I do.” A smile pulled at the tired Saberwolf’s lips. “I know, even if you were to forget me, I would never be able to forget you.” Dull nails trailed up Isaac’s sides. Nails that had been trimmed for this very moment. Waiting endlessly for a chance again to feel him. Without risk of accidentally hurting him. “I never forget how you felt,” Cyclone leaned closer. His muzzle brushed the side of Isaac’s face, his nose moving down to sniff at the smaller males neck. “Your scent.” His jaws opened and drool trickled out.

Cool and wet, it landed on Isaac’s shoulder. Cool like a summer storm. That was how Isaac would describe him then. Cyclone was cool warmth and welcoming, arms that wrapped around him and teeth that carefully brushed his flesh as jaws clamped shut over the side of his neck and shoulder.

Cyclone’s tongue was so hot Isaac couldn’t help but shiver as it licked over him. Tasted him. A muscle that lapped over the side of his neck and the crook of his shoulder, tasting the man he coveted so.

Where there was a controlled patience, there was now a lustful need as Cyclone easily lifted Isaac up off his feet. In the next second Isaac was tossed onto his back, onto the bed. With Cyclone jumping in it with him. Isaac squirmed and giggled as Cyclone nuzzled against him, hugged him close, letting their bodies form side by side together.

Melding and molding together as if Cyclone didn’t have any bones. A body that perfectly formed along Isaac’s own.

“I love when you’re the big spoon,” Cyclone crooned into his ear, nuzzling and nipping at the bottom of it. “I love how you hold me. How much smaller you are than me, yet you take control. Letting me give into your commands and desires.” The Saberwolf shuddered, letting it all out. All the years of waiting for this moment, this blink of time, to hold and be with the man he loved and coveted again.

“I hope you learned a few more tricks,” Isaac teased, booping Cyclone’s nose with a finger. The Saberwolf sneered at that.

“Nope.” Cyclone grinned, wagging so fast his tail thudded against the bed loudly. “I haven’t, because I waited for you.”

“Oh, Cyclone.” Isaac kissed him. Tracing his jawline with his fingers before stroking and petting over his whiskers, down his cheeks to wrap his arms around Cyclone’s thick, fur covered neck. He didn’t feel flesh underneath it. Only the fur. “You didn’t have to…” Isaac would be lying if he finished that.

“No one can compare to you. Not when it comes to me. To us. Our relationship was the only good thing that ever happened to me,” Cyclone chuckled as he rolled onto his back. He easily pulled Isaac up onto his lap, holding him there as he smiled up at the smaller male that sunk in on top of him. “Trust me, I know. I searched through all of my time, my possible futures… none were as bright as the ones with you in them.”

“What about my futures?” Isaac’s dared to ask, never wanting to know what a future held for him outside of Cyclone. Nor wanting to risk it. It was already risky enough toying with time as Isaac was.

“Not one,” Cyclone choked on the words, needing to cover his eyes with an arm as Isaac pet over his chest. “Not one of your futures existed outside of me… You were fated to die in every timeline that we didn’t meet…”

“I see…” Isaac swallowed at that, fear welding up inside his chest. “D-did you only choose to be with me because of that?” He had to ask, had to know that. For outside of them, nothing else matter. But with them? Everything mattered. Every thought, every opinion, every day of every second of their lives together.

Every breath, every heartbeat… every breath? Isaac could hear breathing around him. Feel a heartbeat thumping someone far too close. It wasn’t coming from Cyclone, yet was…?

“I have done some of the worse things you could imagine…” Cyclone pulled his arm down, staring up at the ceiling. “I’d do them all over again, just to save you. I regret none of them… only the times I failed to save you.” Cyclone let out a cold laugh. “No matter how many other lives or futures I had to destroy, I’d do it all over again. To be with you. To have this chance together.” Cyclone looked down at the man on his lap.

“Heh, Cyclone.” Isaac wanted to say how sweet that was but as he placed a hand on his chest, Isaac felt it. Felt a dampness underneath the warmth of Cyclone’s body. It clung to his palm, coated his fingers like tar. Isaac chose to ignore it, closing his eyes instead. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Cyclone tilted his head to the side, confused by that. “Okay to what?”

“I,” Isaac didn’t say it. Even if he couldn’t have done such horrible things for Cyclone, the fact Cyclone had done these because Isaac had started the chain of events that would lead them here? “I accept it,” Isaac did. He accepted the sin of knowing what he had caused. “I accept everything you are, everything you’ve done and what… you became in the process.”

“Isaac,” Cyclone sat up at that, pushing himself up with both arms. The action forced Isaac to slide down his front and between his legs. “It’s not what you think… I’m still me…”

“Show me, Cyclone.” Isaac said, looking at the Saberwolf in front of him. “Show me who you really… are. What you are.”

“Isaac…” Cyclone let out a soft whine.

“Your nails,” Isaac glanced down at one of Cyclone’s hand-paws. “You trimmed them. You spent who knows how long making sure they look the way they do… it wasn’t only your nails that you did, was it? How much did you change for the next time we met? To create the perfect picture for me to see?”

“Heh, even now… I can’t hide anything from you.” Cyclone let out a wet cough, turning to the side. “I thought it was a perfect disguise. Even I was impressed.”

“I’m getting used to spotting it, is all.” Isaac offered back, watching Cyclone. “I know it’s you… even under this,” Isaac grabbed hold of the fur on Cyclone’s thigh and gave it a tug. “You… you became a void creature, didn’t you?”

“After losing everything? What else was I to do…?” Cyclone gritted his teeth. A touch of a hand stopped him from grinding his teeth. His eyes widened, looking back at Isaac who still sat there, between his open legs.

Cyclone blinked several times, as if only now seeing Isaac. As if half expecting the Terran to just disappear.

“Cyclone,” Isaac made sure to use that name. For that was who this man, this Saberwolf had become. He wasn’t the young, naïve and hopeful Typhoon. He wasn’t the soldier Typhon. He was something more. “Do you trust me?”

“I… do.” Cyclone gave a single nod of his head.

“The void is endless, but empty. It doesn’t hunger. It doesn’t grow or try to consume… No, not the void itself. It just… is. Like an empty sea. An indescribable force of nature. The End of all things. It’s what dwells within the void that we refer to and fear… The things inside the void are nothing more than reflections, remnants of what was. What had been. What could be… They are the things that refuse to accept their fate and pass on… that is what begins the birth of a void creature.” Isaac said, yet it didn’t feel as if he were the one saying it despite his mouth moving. “You became void touched after losing your core,” Isaac touched the spot on Cyclone’s chest. The fur hid it well but with his probing fingers, Isaac found the wet spot there again. Where the hole was. “You ripped it out of yourself after what you had done… and became filled with the void. You refused to accept your fate, and you slowly became warped by it and became… what?” Isaac asked, looking at him.

“Will you leave me if I tell you? If I show you?” Cyclone’s ears folded back. Isaac just smiled in turn.

“I’ll be here until The End, Cyclone. My beloved man. My starlight. Saberwolf? Terran? It… it doesn’t matter. For I love you,” Isaac said, and Cyclone laughed at that. A wet sound that made him cover the side of his face with a hand. “No matter what you are… I love you, Cyclone.”

“Would it have been any different if I showed up looking like someone else?” Cyclone asked. Isaac simply waited. “Fine. Fine! If that is what… what you want from me. What you need of me.”

Isaac reached out a hand and placed it on top of Cyclone’s. The Saberwolf looked down at it.

“I want you.” Isaac said truthfully, tears making his eyes sparkle like stars in the night sky. “I want the real you, Cyclone. The man who risked everything for a nobody like me.”

“Don’t say that! Don’t… don’t say you’re a nobody. You are my everything,” Cyclone closed his eyes. “The void has no form. No true form. That is something every… void being wants. Most are unable to have such a thing and need to… possess or hitch a ride along someone else who already does have a form in reality. Like you,” Cyclone opened his eyes, and they were inverted. The whites of his eyes had turned dark, and the irises glowed with an unnatural yellow glow. “Don’t be afraid, for I would never hurt you.”

“I love you,” Cyclone’s voice grew deeper and there was a rumble from his chest. A beat. A pulse that Isaac instantly recognized as it beat all around him. In the walls, in the wooden floor, in the very bed he was sitting in.

“You…” Isaac opened his mouth, but no further words came out.

“No matter what.” Cyclone didn’t need to reach up to touch Isaac, for Isaac was already touching him.

The bed sheets under them melded together and formed into one with the bed, that was one with the floor that was one with the walls and ceiling. The cottage connected to the grass that connected to the ground, that connected to the beach. The island itself was connected. All strands of the same thread moved outwards to form and shape into something recognizable for Isaac to see and understand.

Just as Zarvarsh and other void beings had done in the past. Taking familiar forms to be recognized by.  

Memories of the void taking shape, playing tricks as a shape shifter might do from an old fairy tale. Forming endlessly until the illusion was dropped and Isaac came face to face with what Cyclone had always been.

Put together with mechanical parts, it had taken a shape and form of a Saberwolf. Hobbled together like a Frankenstein monster. Memories stitched or welded together by mechanical parts. From the very first moment Isaac met Cyclone, he knew he was… wrong. Off. That something about him wasn’t right, wasn’t real. Unnatural.

Now Isaac knew what that was.

“Oh, wow.” Isaac wasn’t sure what else to say as he sat on the furred covers of the bed. The strands of fur moved as if flowing in an unseen underwater sea. It was cool to the touch, yet there was warmth underneath it’s surface as Isaac placed a hand down on it. A thick ooze met his hand. “Are you… this entire place…?”

An eye opened on the ceiling, staring down at him making Isaac jump. A blanket of fur wrapped around him from behind like a tail protectively as another eye opened from the dripping black walls. Two eyes staring at him, watching him as a mouth opened somewhere behind Isaac.

“Formless.” Cyclone spoke as the tail of fur held Isaac, comforting him. “It is not a good look.”

“No, no. I, uh, love what you did with the walls…” Isaac said, looking around the dripping room. Or rather, looking around Cyclone. “You have always been this… big?”

“Isaac,” Cyclone chuckled, and the very walls and floor rumbled with the sound. As the eyes closed and another set open on the other wall, slightly tilted and off center from one another a snout pushed out to talk from. “I am much more than this. You are nothing more than in… the palm of my hand,” Cyclone chuckled, and Isaac grabbed hold of the tail as a mouth formed in front of him.

Lips parted; sharp teeth shined as a tongue rolled as Cyclone spoke. It made Isaac’s ears hurt. The sound came from every direction. Then there was that familiar beat. A beat of a heart. Cyclone’s heart beating all around him for Isaac, somehow, was inside Cyclone.

“Your hand or…?” Isaac feared to ask further.

“I am more and less than what you think.” The mouth closed and another must’ve opened up somewhere up above and behind Isaac where he couldn’t see. “I did warn you.”

“Right…” Isaac reached a hand down to touch the spot the threatening mouth had been a second before. It felt spongey, but solid. The thick ooze appeared to be solid enough on the outside, even if it moved underneath like a living waterbed. The fur covered bed sunk in where he pushed down. It didn’t give any further than that and Isaac let out a startled laugh. “W-wow. This is really trippy. It’s like being inside a very… furry bounce house.”

Isaac turned around carefully before falling on his back. Laying there on top of, within, and all-around Cyclone whose eyes opened above. Much smaller this time, they formed together with a snout and then a head. From a head came a neck, a body with arms and legs that dripped down from above on tendrils of black ooze that carried the visage that Isaac had seen when he first got on the island.

Cyclone touched down on the bed next to him and, only then, did the form take shape. Reforming back into the Saberwolf that Isaac recognized previously. Taking a familiar, compatible form for Isaac to view and be with. Even knowing the truth.

“Oh, you can just do that?” Isaac blushed lightly and Cyclone smirked.

“If you desire,” Cyclone motioned to the side where several other Saberwolf bodies formed from the floor. Rising up to take shape as Cyclone had again. “I can create a hundred more me for you to… indulge in.”

“Cyclone!” Isaac covered his face and the Saberwolf laughed. The sound rumbled all around Isaac and he wasn’t sure what to make of that as the walls began to take shape, the floor returning to wood and everything in the building and island returned to how it was before. All the other Cyclone’s slipped back underneath the rippling surface before it became still and solid. Returning from where they had come from. “Wait,” Isaac said.

Cyclone paused at that, looking over at him. 

“I-I meant what I said,” Isaac swallowed nervously, touching his chest. “You’ve already been… uh, inside me?” Isaac wasn’t sure how to describe the sensation of having void fill you. “You filled the hole in my chest, didn’t you? When I died, uh, the first time… You saved me. When I was shot,” Isaac couldn’t recall if he shot himself or someone else had. “You filled my… emptiness with you?”  

“Of course,” Cyclone gave a single nod, sitting back down on the bed with him. “You’d be rather surprised how surprised I was! Finding you lying dead on the floor,” Cyclone let out a dark laugh, covering his mouth with a hand. “Oh, that was a day…” He groaned, turning his head to the side. “I don’t ever want to see that way again. Ever again. Now? Now I won’t ever have to worry about that,” Cyclone motioned at Isaac. “You are finally here! With me. In me?” Cyclone chuckle and the bed rumbled. “I’m a part of you. You are a part of me. Inside me,” he touched his chest. “But not. This?” He motioned around them. “I can make it, me, become anything you want or need. Promise. I promise to give you every and anything you could possibly desire… for choosing to be here with me.”

Cyclone smiled and it tugged at Isaac’s heartstrings. The gooified Saberwolf was trying so hard to be what Isaac needed.

With a start, Isaac felt the sheets wrap around his legs and waist, covering him with the black silk. There was a cool warmth to it, like living flesh. The surface felt more like latex, though. Isaac could feel how cool they were to the touch. It was the odd sensation of feeling a heartbeat within, throughout the sheets that made Isaac blush again.

“Am I really, uh, inside you? Not sure how void shit works.” Isaac said with an anxious laugh.

“You are in me. Or I’m in you?” Cyclone shrugged. “I’m not sure how it all works. I just kind of… blew myself all over you and let things take its course. Well, more like vomited myself over you.”

“Ew,” Isaac gagged at the imagery of that.

“Frankly my dear? I don’t give a damn,” he smirked, giving Isaac a wink. “You know,” Cyclone motioned to the side and the TV set pulled closer to the bed. Flowing over the floor as the ground itself moved it closer to them. “I recall so many TV shows and movies and songs that you shared with me. They’re all in here,” Cyclone tapped the side of his head. Isaac figured he just meant in his memories. “I can recreate anything I know here, in this place.”

“That makes sense… I think?” Isaac let out a nervous laugh. “Cyclone?” The Saberwolf looked at him. “It might take me a little time to, uh, adjust to this…” Isaac touched the bed. Petting over the sheet, he saw Cyclone shiver. Knowing, in some twisted way, he was also petting Cyclone by doing so. “To being here with you… the true you,” Isaac took another second… “Is it okay if I do?”

“You do what?” Cyclone asked, waiting for Isaac. He was in no rush. All these things he had made and created for the time when Isaac could become one with him, forever, could wait. They could finally take their time together. No need to rush. They had all eternity now together.  

“Stay here with you. Uh, in you? Around you?” Isaac had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Or in me? Whatever. Just… can I stay with you? I don’t want to ever leave you again… it’s too painful.”

Cyclone’s eyes widened for a second. Blinking several times, his ears splayed out. “Are you… sure? Sure, you know what your asking for? This…” Cyclone hesitated, unsure how to say it. The sheets softened and the ooze touched Isaac’s bare flesh.

It made him shiver involuntarily.

Isaac pet the bed again. Running a hand over the sheet. Cyclone shuddered again, shivering slightly at the feel of being pet. “Cyclone?” The Saberwolf looked at him. “Can you return the bed to, uh, you? I mean the fuzzy part of you, heh…”

And Cyclone did.

The silken black sheets turned furry again. Connected at the edges to the bed, Isaac could easily slip underneath them. The bed rose to meet him, feeling it form around his bare ass as the sheets hugged down over his legs and waist. Holding him tightly as Cyclone sat there before him, watching Isaac tuck himself into his body.

“Isaac…” Cyclone opened his mouth, but the words seemed to rumble around them.

“What? Aren’t we going to watch the movie?” Isaac asked, resting back against the pillows. “Well, I mean, you already are with me, sort of… right?” Isaac asked, still trying to figure out how this worked. He pet one of the pillows and watched as Cyclone’s ears folded back. The Saberwolf tilted his head as if pushing into Isaac’s pets. “You know you don’t have to keep that form if you don’t want to…” Isaac swallowed nervously. “After all,” he snuggled down into the bed. “Your already showed me.”

“I am… I always will be.” Cyclone nodded. He turned to the TV. Without moving, the TV turned on. Already playing the old movie from his memories, allowing them to watch it together. “Will you stay…?” Cyclone asked without looking at him.

“Cyclone,” Isaac said and felt the bed shift under him. “Where else would I be if not here with you?”

The Saberwolf smiled at that.

“Okay, if it’s all the same though. I rather keep this form,” he motioned down at the Saberwolf body. “It helps keep me… together. To keep me rational. I don’t know what might happen if I… I forget what I once was.”

“I think I follow that,” Isaac nodded. He scooted over to the side and patted the spot beside him. “What are you waiting for, popcorn? The movie is starting!”

With a laugh, a wag of his tail… Cyclone joined Isaac by his side. Slipping his legs under the covers, he reached down to feel Isaac’s hand take his. Their fingers interlacing as the very walls let out a relieved breath of air around them.

“Hey, Isaac?” Cyclone asked.

“Yeah?”

“…Welcome back,” Cyclone said, nuzzling closer to the Terran. Holding him in every way imaginable. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, you big lug.” Isaac rolled his eyes before turning to his side. He felt Cyclone scoot closer behind him, hugging him tightly. The bed might’ve felt soft and spongey, but Cyclone was rock solid again. “Now stop talking! Let’s watch the movie already!”

“Of course. Anything you want.” Cyclone pressed his lips to Isaac’s cheek before snuggling in. “I’ll give you everything you could ever hope for here… This is my world after all.”

“I don’t need everything.” Isaac held Cyclone’s hand tighter. “All I need is you.”

As the two snuggled close together, as close as two people could possibly be, the hourglass sat on a nearby table. Waiting…