Dust and Eternity

The clocktower loomed over the Timeless Kingdom like a needle stitching sky to earth. Its gears groaned with the weight of centuries, and its walls shimmered with time-lenses—glass orbs filled with swirling silver mist, each capturing a fragment of history. Tucan called them "windows to what was," but to Hafa, they looked like overgrown snow globes for a god with too much free time.

She arrived at dawn, armed with a bucket of soapy water and a bristle brush longer than her arm. Tucan leaned against the tower's entrance, arms crossed, looking irritatingly pristine in his black-and-silver robes.

"Late," he said.

"Fashionably," she shot back. "Unlike your wardrobe. Does 'Your Eternity' mean 'Your Tedium'?"

He ignored her, pushing the tower door open. Cold air rushed out, smelling of ozone and old parchment. "The lenses must be cleaned clockwise. Touch them counterclockwise, and you'll unmake the day they captured."

"Unmake?"

"Erase it from existence. A minor Tuesday, perhaps. Or your birth."

"Joke's on you. My birth was a national tragedy."

Tucan paused, his mask of indifference slipping for a heartbeat. Then he strode ahead. "Follow. And try not to break anything."

The tower's interior was a cathedral of time. Staircases spiraled into oblivion, and the lenses glowed on pedestals, each showing frozen moments: a battle here, a coronation there, a lone figure (Tucan?) standing atop a mountain, screaming into a storm. Hafa lingered by one showing a woman with calloused hands weaving cloth by firelight.

"Your mother?" she asked quietly.

Tucan froze. "Clean the lenses, Hafa."

"You keep her here? In a snow globe?"

"I keep time here," he snapped, snatching the lens from her hands. The image dissolved. "Memories are… burdensome."

Hafa watched him retreat, his shoulders rigid. So the Timeless King isn't immune to pain, she noted. Just allergic to admitting it.

They worked in tense silence, Hafa scrubbing lenses while Tucan adjusted the tower's colossal central gear. She glanced at him occasionally—the way his sleeves rolled up to reveal scars older than her kingdom, the way his fingers trembled ever so slightly when a lens showed a face he recognized.

"Why do this yourself?" she finally asked. "Can't you just… freeze time and cheat?"

"Time isn't a servant. It's a collaborator," he said, not turning around. "And it hates me."

"Join the club."

A corner of his mouth twitched. "The lenses stabilize the kingdom. If they tarnish, time unravels. Crops wither in an hour. Children age to corpses in minutes."

"Cheerful." Hafa scrubbed harder. "Why not train someone else?"

"They die." The words hung in the air like smoke. "Too quickly."

Hafa paused, the brush dripping soap onto her boots. "So you're stuck here? Forever playing janitor to your own curse?"

Tucan turned, his eyes sharp. "You speak as if you understand."

"I understand stupid. And this?" She gestured to the tower. "This is the crown jewel of stupid."

He moved suddenly, closing the space between them. Hafa held her ground, tilting her chin up.

"You think immortality a choice?" he hissed. "I've tried to end it. Knives, poison, leaping from this very tower. Time just… resets. Like a stubborn child refusing to lose a game."

Hafa's pulse raced, but she smirked. "Ever tried asking nicely?"

For a moment, she thought he might throttle her. Then he laughed—a raw, broken sound. "You're unbearable."

"You're welcome."

Their faces were inches apart. Hafa noticed a scar under his left ear, thin as a thread. A wound that never aged.

A lens above them flickered.

Tucan jerked back. "Enough chatter. Clean."

By midday, Hafa's arms ached, and her dress was soaked in soapy water. Tucan, meanwhile, looked annoyingly untouched.

"Done," she announced, tossing the brush into the bucket. "Pay me in gold or silence. Your pick."

He inspected a lens, wiping away a speck she'd missed. "You missed one."

"I missed nothing."

"Here." He pointed to a tiny smudge. "The Battle of Crimson Sands. A pivotal moment."

Hafa squinted. The lens showed Tucan standing over the fallen Fire King, his face streaked with ash and tears. "Pivotal? Looks like a tantrum."

Tucan's hand tightened on the lens. "You see a tantrum. I see the day I became a monster."

The air prickled. Hafa hesitated, then nudged his arm. "Monsters don't clean their own towers."

He stared at her, unreadable. Then, softly: "Go."

"What?"

"Before I decide to keep you here forever."

Hafa fled, but not before catching a glimpse of Tucan in the central lens—alone, always alone, frozen in a moment he could never escape.