Tymne scowled, it was raining, and the tracks he'd been following were washing away to mud. Looking about himself, he sighed, spread his arms a shoulder's width apart, and formed a glowing ball of blue-tinged light. He yelled out a word as he clapped his hands together. "PAUSE!"
Now the tracks were easier to follow, as the rain was no longer in danger of obliterating them. Tymne smiled, and trotted onwards, hand resting on his swordhilt, the other loosely holding his nightsteed's reins. A day and a night passed, and Tymne traveled fast enough to make up the two days he'd missed on those he chased.
Everything was going perfectly all right, until he ran into a sheer cliff before himself, and no way up, and no more tracks to follow.
"Tanar'ri's Tits! They certainly are making this hard on me!" He resumed time again, since it had begun to drain on him, and started to search for a way up the cliff.
The stones were loose or too sharp or smooth to allow a handhold long enough to ascend. With a snarl, he turned and leaned on the rock-face. Stones shifted, and one smashed hard into his left hand. Things besides skin gave way, and he hissed, turning about to see the rock-face sunken in a few inches.
Tymne hissed, and looked at the blood dripping off his hand, and the yellowish bits of cartilage that showed through the cuts. He looked at the rock wall where it had moved as he tore a bit of shirt off, and wrapped up his damaged hand. There was indeed, a door there. He reached out, braced his shoulder to it, and shoved. The wall moved again, a few inches at a time, until it slid back, and to the side leaving a passage big enough that he might ride through on horseback. The tracks, unmarred by rain, continued on within this cavernous passage.
In a flurry, he was atop his steed again, and trotting after the kidnappers of his tiny lover. He hoped she was still all right.
* * * * *
Gunnar scowled at Tyde as she made faces at him from within the glow-fae lamp he held her captive in. The glow fae lighting it kept trying to get her to eat bits of marshmallow and cookie. Tyde made faces at them, chirped angrily, and shoved them away. They had the brains of fireflies anyway.
Gunnar, the shadowdancer sighed, and gave the lamp a little shake. "You behave there missie, or we'll have to separate you from the lamp faeries." She stuck out her tongue at him, and wished Tymne were there to clean Gunnar's clock.
* * * * *
Tymne hissed, and wiped rain from his eyes as he rode. His injured hand was a burning counterpoint to his sore back and legs from the ride. The wound was likely infected already. The cave had led him out into the woods some time ago, and now, he had to move fast before these fresher tracks were turned to mud and mire.
So it was he was just as shocked and surprised when he rode right into the middle of Tyde's kidnappers' campsite.
He reached for his weapon as they went for theirs. Tymne may have been fast, but he couldn't stop time anymore today. He was too tired, too wet, and too hurt to do anything else. Gunnar was the last to become armed, but the first three rouges had gained weapons almost as quickly at Tymne had.
While he had the advantage of being on horseback, Tymne took it, and it scattered them, and he was able to take one down, before they ganged up and yanked him from his steed. Dazed by the fall, and the fever that had begun to consume him, Tymne fought like a madman. But to no avail, the world spun and went dark as Gunnar's gauntleted fist smashed into his face.
* * * * *
When he awoke, his back was pressed up to a tree, and he was soaked to the skin by the cold rain that continued to fall. The 'dancer with the scarred face grabbed a hank of his hair, and looked him in the eyes. With a nod, Scarface let him go, and returned to get Gunnar. Gunnar seemed amused.
"A clockmaker, after a simple little sprite? What is she to you, that you want such a trinket so badly?"
Tymne hissed. "She's more to me than you can know, and Tyde is NOT a thing." Gunnar smirked, and slapped his across the face. Tymne snarled, and tried to draw on his innate powers. Nothing, not even so much as a twitch in the timeline happened. He was just too drained and weak to do anything.
Gunnar laughed, and walked away.
"Get him ready to ride, we're moving out to meet the boss. Maybe he'll like this smart-mouthed hero wanna-be as well as the pixie."
Dizzily, Tymne was rebound, his hands before him, and he was hoisted up into the saddle of his own horse. The others packed up camp as he watched, unable to think clearly, or move until the others were mounted up, and they gave the reins of his horse a tug.
Tymne drifted in and out of hazy fever dreams until they stopped the group at nightfall. Hazily, he looked at Gunnar, and Scarface, who held the lamp Tyde was in to a shadowy figure. A figure who did not get wet in this rain. Then Gunnar motioned to Tymne, and the two moved over to him. The shadowy figure, an Adenan sorcerer, looked up at him with bright blue eyes.
"So this is the
pixie's owner, the clockmaker from N'rah?" He laughed.
" How amusing. He will make good slave stock for me... I'll take
him as well as the pixie and the glowsprites. At HALF price, since he's
damaged goods."
Tymne hissed, and kicked the mage in the face with a booted foot. The blond toppled like a tree at the last axe-blow. Gunnar yelped, and dragged Tymne off the horse. Tymne hissed, and brought up both hands, with a tiny glowing dot of light between them. He clapped, and time stood still. He had moments before his powers failed him, and things got bad for him and Tyde.
Very bad for Tyde. Adenans knew little of fae anatomy, and were more than likely going to cut Tyde up and bottle her as some sort of library specimen... while he'd be cleaning and carrying goods for the rest of his days, a slave collar that would inhibit his gifts forever welded about his neck.
He would rather die first.
Thank the gods and goddesses that he might not have to. He brought his wrists to his mouth, and started to gnaw at the ropes binding them. His spell held for the time it took him to free himself, and slash his now dirty nails across Gunnar's throat.
Then, with a popping sound, time resumed, and he stood over a dead man, and a downed mage.
The other three men blinked in shock, and went for weaponry. Not really surprised as he'd had a bit of warning, Tymne snatched up Gunnar's sword, and charged the trio that was left.
The clang of Soulsteel on Soulsteel echoed through the clearing, as well as grunts, cries of pain, and the occasional death cry.
When it was over, Tymne was still standing, his foes were not. Tymne was not fully unscathed, as he sported a few nicks and cuts on both arms, and a wicked-looking gash over his ribcage. He would live though, so long as he and Tyde got back home.
He found the lamp Tyde was captive in, and removed the lid. The glowfae lingered long enough to collect their bits of cookie and marshmallow before scattering into the finally clear night. Tyde leapt up into Tymne's hand, and hugged his fingers. He smiled weakly, and moved her to his hair, her perch of choice.
"Come on, my love... let's go home." With a happy chirp, she agreed.
Tymne turned about with a sigh. Right into the face of a very upset mage.
The Adenan had a spell ready, and used it. Tymne was frozen in place, and Tyde simply hid better in his hair. The mage hissed, thinking that Tymne had simply freed Tyde and she had scattered with the rest of the faeries.
"You bloody rotten do-gooder faerie-kisser! You've ruined my research as well as robbed me of a valued specimen! I'm just going to have to settle for your death then, since what with this rebellious of a spirit, you'd make a lousy slave."
Tymne hissed, and drew on power. Blue-tinged light filled hands unable to complete the spell until it filled the clearing about them. Hummingbirds, thousands and thousands of them, flitted within the light. A woman with green hair, though she was similar in looks at build to Tymne, stepped out of the light. She reached out her hands, smiled at Tymne as the Adenan freaked.
"Who...who the hellfires is THAT?"
Tymne smiled wickedly.
"That, is Lady Hummingbird. My mother... dead these last four hundred years."
Hummingbird reached out, and pushed Tymne's hands together in a clap the same time they both yelled "Pause!"
Time stopped, then warped. The mage shrieked at this warping tore him in half, but left Hummingbird, who was dead, Tymne, who controlled such things, and Tyde, who was within Tymne's barrier, whole and well.
Tymne sighed as his mother and her namesake birds faded. He looked at Tyde and smiled sleepily.
"Now, now let's go home." Tyde smiled, chirped at him, and snuggled into his hair as he leapt up onto his steed.
The trip was long, and Tymne was sickly for his injuries as well as all the magic he'd used. Once back in the city, they stopped to rest a little before he traveled onwards to the local healer's guild... where he spent the better part of a week recovering.
Once he was home, he and Tyde resumed life as if it had never been disrupted... as if the events of a week ago were merely dreams in a sea of time.
