Golden dust drifted like a gentle churning foam across the endless horizon, moving with the steady rhythm of a sleeping sea. Aurela sat in her sphere of shimmering dust, in her little bubble of suspended time, as she watched the little bits swirl and dance to form pictures that she ran through like a photo reel until one caught her fancy. One the sands were eager to show her, they jumped into her hands, responding to her eagerly, bringing up the fragments of what had been and what was occurring presently at the same time, overlaid atop each other like a disjointed movie she had become all too familiar with. Watching both the start, the middle and the ending at the same time until she calmed the sands down, and forced them to focus. Fate became clearer. He was walking in the darkness. Total utter darkness, she couldn’t place where he was or what he was doing.

Beside her, Swan’s feathers caught the glint of her light. He stood tall, black wings folded neatly behind him, his expression unreadable in that way she had become so accustomed to. You could smile more. You are pretty when you smile. She sighed, though knowing he wouldn’t. His smile had grown so infrequent these days. And he already wasn’t one to smile.

Serious, as only those who had watched eternity could manage.

Below them, Earth unfolded. Its noise was muted by the barrier of divinity and distance, as if the sands were underwater. She wanted better than that. She sent a wave of gold power into the sands, they bristled, shook, and reformed, the sound came through clearer instantly.

Fate moved through the city, passing by one of those fancy pasta restaurants so many humans like to congregate at.

Aurela leaned forward, chin resting lightly against her knuckles. The golden glass rippled faintly at her movement, bending the image below. He was walking among the humans again, trying to be one of them. He wore their skin well. So much like his human self. Never one to let go, are we, Hmmm?

The curve of Fate’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and when he passed by someone, he subconsciously moved so the body never touched them. He was in god mode, completely undetectable by humans, and yet he still was acting so very humane.

He always tried so hard, but he couldn’t let go. He wasn’t aware he couldn’t. But I suppose that is what friends are for. He looks tired.

“My friend has grown haggard; look at those dark circles.” She joked.

“He always looks tired,” Swan murmured. His voice was deep and low, more vibration than sound, carrying through the gold light like a string being plucked. The little dust particles of glowing gold magic rushed around her agitated, and then to him, then back to her, swirling them both like a figure eight.

“Shhh, darlings, be still.” They listened, but some of the dust still shivered. They didn’t like it when Swan was agitated, though the older time particles were very used to his inability to control his emotions. He wasn’t like her. He was humanoid… well, close enough, something in between.

Below, Fate paused, and she turned back to the scene.

Two strangers brushed shoulders on the street corner, barely even a glance exchanged, a moment no one else would notice. But something seemed to have caught Fate’s eye, something only he could feel. Fate glowed with that little red and turquoise aura he always did when he was about to do magic. The hum beneath the sands changed pitch, a low resonance climbing into her ribs.

A small thread appeared faint, trembling, red and fragile, but very real, delicately pulsing in and out in his hands, hovering over his palm. He focused on it.

The thread blinked out, and a second later, it was tied around the girl’s ankle and the waiter’s ankle too.

Fate looked annoyed. A second later, the one on the man’s ankle disappeared, and a thread was hovering over his palm again. Fate grabbed it, shook it, then pulled on either end, rubbing the threads at the tips together before closing his palm on it. He turned to walk away, his face slightly furrowed in the middle of his brows. But he stopped, completely, and his eyes widened. A second later, her very slowly pivoted on his heel to stare at the two people. Aurela looked back and caught the tiny flash of red on the man’s ankle.

She sat forward, her arm leaving the folds of the black, fluffy tulle-like fabric, studded with stardust, to put a hand to her lips to cover her gaping mouth.

“Oh,” Aurela whispered. “It didn’t listen to him.”

Swan’s feathers rustled. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

“It isn’t.”

Fate’s eyes widened below. He reached out instinctively, not to touch the thread, but to test the air around the couple. The thread shivered, then solidified, bright as a living pulse, opening up a window much like the one she was watching him in, only his window showed the entire lifespan of this new couple’s relationship. Because that is what it would be. From the looks of it, a rather happy and bright one until the woman’s death at around sixty-seven. The connection severed, and the little red thread seemed entirely dormant, and like nothing at all magical before Fate could even end the view of their lifespan, and his hand could close. The thread is rebelling? Choosing its own destiny? Its own beloved?

The woman turned, laughed softly at something the man said. Two lives twisting together, as Fate’s face twisted into a bright shade of red. His expression shifted actively between confusion and then alarm, unable to settle on either one. His fingers flexed. He tried to unmake it one more time, to call the string back. The thread only shimmered once, barely bright enough to be called a glow, defiant, as if mocking his authority, and then went dead again.

Aurela’s chest ached. “Well, that is decidedly not a good sign.”

Oh, Byung…

Fate’s jaw tightened. The air around him rippled. Once, twice, and then he vanished.

Swan’s feathers drooped a little, but he opened his wings to half span for her. “We are not going to… Should I make some tea?”

Aurela sighed, letting out a breath that made the sands stir around her ankles. She reached over and ran her fingers through the smooth black feathers along his arm, the familiar silky feeling grounding her anxiety at what she had just witnessed. Any time she was anxious, his feathers were always within reach, her delicate, gentle Swan.

“No,” she murmured. “He won’t be here long enough. He’s angry.”

Swan folded his wings with a soft sound. “Then we wait.”

The sands beneath their feet pulsed gently, a heartbeat of the world itself.

Moments later, the air cracked. Fate appeared, his white shirt spilling open with the unseen wind, eyes glinting.

“Aurela,” he said sharply. “Is time destabilizing?”