A Matter of Time

[selenias]

A Matter of Time



 “Hey. Dad. How are you?”

It was the same routine.

Every year.

Matthew would come visit. Bring the grandkids. Bring Her Royal Highness. Bring the Djinn. It should have excited me to the point of smiles being painful and cheeks aching from laughter, but I had other things on my mind, and just between me and Garet, Matthew was far more of a painful reminder than a pleasant guest nowadays, anyway. I smiled nonetheless though; he didn't need to know—and he was my son, not a criminal to be tried for treason.

“I'm great Matthew. It's good to see you. And... Man, the kids sure have gotten big fast, haven't they...”

“Yeah... Time seems to slip by these days, doesn't it?”

“It sure does...”

I tried not to think of it most days, but inevitably, it always came up one way or another. Creeping in at dinner, tearing through a book, snaking in between a lover's embrace, knocking on my door in the summers—it stalked me like the beasts of the Grave Eclipse, only, my scenario was not one that could be reversed, and my time was infinite, not circumscribed, and my enemy couldn't be destroyed with a blade or a bow or a lighthouse.

If only things were that easy, the the world wouldn't have undergone hell in multitudes. I wouldn't be alive when I shouldn't, and neither would anyone else, but for my sanity and wife's sake, I like to pretend it would just be me that would suffer, just me who would have died the day the Golden Sun took my life out of my hands, took my ability to grow old out of my dreams—but I know reality doesn't work that way. It's never as fair or as simple as dirt, and pretending is the same as denying the truth. Procrastinating. Stalling.

It doesn't work for everyone. And it doesn't work for me anymore.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, son?”

“Do me a favor...”

“Mm... Maybe? Is it simple?”

“Yeah... Keep Sveta and the kids happy when I die.”

It was simple. So simple. I felt like the biggest fool for even asking him.

I wondered the origin of his request, how cruel was it to him to be surrounded by people he loved with whom he could never grow old with; to see Sveta still young and beautiful while his hands wrinkle and his strength diminishes; to bear witness to his father and mother still fighting an endless battle of idiocy in their prime. Did these thoughts cross his mind? They certainly cross mine. All the time.


And they are as unwelcome as they are true.

Our positions are too different things, too, and I'd like to think of him as the better off between the two of us, knowing that he won't live forever, but now, seeing him so adamant, so firm in his beliefs unlike the shy boy he used to be, calm and controlled and thriving on the breath of life as if it really his last because it may be... He's in his prime. The same age as I.

(We could be brothers, Sveta once told me long ago.)

I hate it. What type of father will I be if I have to attend my own son's funeral in only years to come? If I have to stand above his coffin, wife's fingers taut around my own because I know she seeks comfort in shared understandings that we both knew were true and could do nothing about?

“...No.”

“What?”

“No. You can do it yourself, Matthew.”

“...Dad. Don't even.”

“You've got years left to spend. Don't have me making promises that you can keep yourself. I doubt Sveta would be appreciative. The kids. Or your mother.”

“Years... We all know I won't live that long. Something will happen. And I won't be around.”

“...We'll see.”

“Are you really going to pretend that this isn't happening to me? That I'm not growing older each day? That I won't be your elder in a matter of—of months?”

“...Who said anything about pretending?”

I wouldn't be a father anymore.

He won't die before me. I won't allow it. If I can thrive from the Golden Sun, than so can he. And I have every intention of finding the means for him to do so.

Garet and Ivan have already began their own search. A new quest. It's unlike any we've taken up before. Because it's our children's lives that are on the line if we fail. And to us, that is the weight of the world. We revolve around them, and if they disappear, so will we. I would be lying if I said I didn't worry for myself, for Jenna, for what would happen if we didn't succeed in this dangerous gamble—It's not an option. It never was.

Immortality. I will find it.

“...And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, I know what's coming.”

“...And...?”

“I won't allow it.”

“...Not even a Warrior of Vale can stop time. You're fighting an already lost battle.”

“Don't be so negative; I am not. And you want to know why?”

Because, I will lose everything that I hold dear, and Jenna will shrivel away much like I, only graceful in her death while I will wallow in self-pity, head bowed and pressed between my knees to the Earth until some heavy gust blows me away into crystalline dust. It will be my fault, because I should have looked for a solution sooner rather than later. I will not accept failure, and we both know it.

A husband does not show weakness. An adept is strong. And I wouldn't be able to call myself either after that.

“...Dad.”

“You won't die before me. And neither will anyone else.”

“You really believe that?”

“Matthew, I know so.”

“Thanks...”


Immortality is the key. I will find it. I will turn over every rock, every mountain, every glacier, every forest, every city, every damned god out there—until I find it, to keep Matthew alive. And when I do, this will all seem like a bad dream, and fade away and no one will ever have to look back on this moment in our history again.


Because it's only a matter of time. And time has never been on our side.