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Does time flow?
As his hold is gentle as if he would break like an old vase after clattering against the floor. Both of them are old, both are tired and exhausted but at least one can stop. One can lay and rest whilst the other is left with their lonesome self, alone once more.
Karl can die at any given moment, the only reason he can still see his unofficial lover is that he is un-mortal. Undying yet killable. The man who smiles gently while they dance in the ruined castle as rain clatters against the ground creating dozens of mirroring starts.
Moss grows in the cracks and rubble is beneath their feet, hiding away ancient marble images. They stare into each others' eyes and sway to the old music disks from Karl's old life. One of them, at least.
The one where he met his first lover, the first of many who he watched die in Grandmother Time's hands. He always slipped her wrinkled and veiny fingers, going in between the loophole and ending in a different timeline and sometimes even place.
He met [Name] soon after he watched Dream, an un-mortal like himself, die. Dream and he had stayed friends and grown together. They became lovers soon after everyone they knew died. Then Dream died too.
Over five thousand years later, when the other had fallen to the Egg's illness and begged Karl to kill him as they had to everyone on the Escm'peea. Karl mourned. He mourned long and hard and then met [Name].
The man found him in his library, broken alone and crying for death to come. His hands clutching an old, porcelain mask with cracks and scratched paint that screams of history. Scratches and cracks run in its edges and brand new porcelain lay trying desperately to fill it from Karl's attempts of mending.
His tears running down his cheeks and burning, and gross from the tears. Books scattered everywhere and some on a neat pile, his most recent. Dream was his second lover, but he never made him left out or yearning. Karl was his everything and the feeling was mutual. They loved one another for over four thousand years and Karl cried for more of those thousands he lived, now alone.
The strange man clutched his shoulder and told him that it is hard to heal alone. He let him hug and scream in his chest and then told Karl he knew what it was like.
Losing lovers over and over and he has seen it. He lived it, watched it- He watched empires build themselves and claim eternal and then die like plants during winter. He has watched tyrants rule and villains die. Watched society change so many times he has come to title everything as temporary.
He let Karl know of the legends he met and the blond man with a murder of crows always nearby. How the man wished him luck; he only told him he needs none for he is eternal. That the other deserved and needed it more, and left him with but an apple as ripe as love. So sweet it was too much.
So Karl learned to love again, letting these labyrinth walls down and letting himself be warm. Discovered like an old book in an ancient library of knowledge.
He listened to the other's tales, names of dead Gods he met, and kingdoms who spoke of forever. They didn't know forever, and [Name] watched them fall with sad eyes.
He speaks to him of his old title as a king, when he was still trying to find ways to help as a god-statused being. Back when he wanted to play hero and help. He says of a kingdom he lead with the knowledge of five hundred years.
He looks back with sad eyes and shakes his head, chuckling half-heartedly at the dazed memory.
How he tried his best to help, lead with farity and love and kindness but oh so was the way of humans and beings alike that everything crumbles to dust the moment he dared to blink. After he passed his three thousandth year, he realized he can't help on such a large scale alone.
So now he will often simply watch over, whisper words of comfort in a dying family's ear, and give life advice to those whose eyes still held life and adventure. Karl learns that the man still dares to love, to care, and give.
Because he can't run out of time, it is and always will be his.
His eyes hold so many years and layers Karl questions just how old he is. How many wars he lived past and how many now legends he knows.
[Name] smiles and shakes his head, "Too much, too many." He says every time. "You can count the stars but not seconds. Not lives or breaths you take. Counting every star will take so long your bones will be yellow and flowers will bloom from your skull.
Moss will reclaim your skin and bird's nest in your rib cage. You will be dust before you can count even one percent of the stars. You will become stardust before you reach twenty thousand more and then you will be reborn anew."
Karl takes everything the other says to heart. He has no use for lying. Rain hummus and drums them a tune as the old jukebox dies, its gears falling into their weight, rust powder at its feet.
So no, time does not flow. It is no river filled with rich spring water and it is no waterfall falling down. It is not rain and not a tideway.
It is dozens of sticks twined together into a tree with a string, it is a grandmother crocheting. Crocheting what she pleases and leaving small holes for travelers of her Work, such as Karl, to weave past and say they did the impossible.
It is perfect with no mistakes, everything that is meant to be there is in place and arriving.
Grandmother makes no mistakes for she is always there and always watching; she is everything.
