Time

Prologue 24

Sherll thought about the boy. She liked him, but... She had experimented on him and performed surgery on him. That kind of ruined the romanticism. She was actually very surprised that he had even hugged her. That was already surprising. She had a theory that the plate had... changed him. Having it gone had certainly changed her. Her face hadn't healed quite as fast as before, and a cut she had gotten that morning hadn't healed at all from the FORS factor. She felt different too. She had been met with a wave of guilt and sentiment as she looked around her home after the plate was removed. She felt like she should have been recording everything, but that had changed too. She didn't feel like recording anything. She had changed indeed... but so had many other things. That time travel had seriously messed up the timeline... or had it. Sherll remembered the thoughts she had right after the boy had left.

As her intelligence started to fade, she had thought of one ingenious realization. That boy had... either switched out the current world with a parallel one or had gone to a parallel one. Sherll stopped thinking hard and went back to thinking about that boy.

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Death felt uncomfortable. He hadn't been this close to Present in Universes. Present had been coming along with Death lately, as she wasn't taking care of Currence anymore, and couldn't take on another apprentice. Death wasn't sure if he liked it, but he certainly enjoyed it. Despite anything that he had told her the past Universes, he still had feelings for her, even if they had dwindled into tiny memories of those feelings. He remembered when he had been in love with her, going on those walks. He remembered how people were so surprised when they found out that they were a couple.

Death also remembered that he had to forget about those things, and dwell on the... present. Death frowned at his contradictory logic and focused on the job at hand: pounding a piece of metal with a hammer.

He had all the time that he wanted to complete the sword (literally) and it wasn't as if he had to do anything more important. The other forms of him would go out and do all his work for him. If a normal smith had been watching him, (well... one who wouldn't run off in terror) then they would have told Death that he could heat up the metal first, then bend it into shape in its soft state. To this, Death would reply that this wasn't metal; it was shadow. Frozen shadows. In the terms of those fellows in Centre, Death had taken shadows in their normal state, also called plasma, and had cooled it, making it a gas, then a liquid and finally a solid bar of shadows. Thus, heating it up would have caused the "metal" to become liquid shadow, a dangerous substance to handle and a plain nuisance to clean up.

Death continued to slam the hammer into the metal, and finally got another 1º bend. He decided to call it a day and snapped his fingers, transporting himself to the kitchen. Despite Hugo's warnings, he was going to cook.

Whether or not Hugo says that everything he cooks are like laxatives flavored with vomit.

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Madison was walking through the fields outside the underground city. She hadn't wanted to be disturbed by Travis or anybody else.

Madison was confused.

She was confused about a lot of things at once, too. Which was obviously worse. Right now, she had to deal with the maintained surprise from Present being her mother, while also wondering after the reason behind her never telling Madison that she was Madison's mother. She was also still coping with the nervousness of Warren coming, and that she was going to be in the army.

Those confusions paled in comparison to what currently occupied her mind, though. Travis had just kissed her. She was very... confused by that. Sure, she did like him, but... It was still surprising. She hadn't thought that he liked her too. She had very mixed feelings about that kiss. She was worried of what Past would think... or Death for the matter. She was angry at herself for leaving, instead of telling Travis that she liked him too. She was angry at Travis for not telling her sooner. She was confused as to the reasons behind the kiss, and that was the biggest problem. Why had Travis kissed her? Because he liked her, or because he was crazy? Madison didn't put it past Travis to go crazy all of a sudden, although that didn't make him any less attractive. Madison started thinking about why Travis liked her. He certainly didn't like her out of beauty, he hadn't shown any affection towards her when they first met, in fact, Travis had even lied to her about his name. But... now that she looked at the past, it had been blatantly obvious that he liked her, ever since the fire ghost.

Madison started listing all the instances that Travis had shown his love.

1.Risked his life saving her from the ghost, even though she didn't need it.

2. Saved her life in the Dream World.

3. Kept on holding her hand when he teleported; he could have just touched her lightly.

4. He had never risked her life ex. the dragon.

5. He kept on giving her things, like the necklace from the tower.

6. He never blamed anything on her.

7. He was genuinely embarrassed whenever he accidentally insulted her, although he had only insulted her once, when they were fighting the dragon. And besides, Madison was pretty sure that he was just trying to get her to take the less dangerous role.

8. Now that Madison thought about it, it had kind of seemed like Travis had let Madison win the race.

9. HE HAD KISSED HER!

Now that Madison reviewed the list, she mentally slapped herself for not realizing it. It wasn't a hard slap, though, because she wasn't completely sure if she should have realized it. She ultimately decided that she had to apologize to Travis later. She was about to turn around and go back to the city when she heard a voice call out to her.

"Hey, Madison!" The voice called, Madison looked up and saw Neter running towards her. She waved a little and Neter caught up. There was a phoenix on his shoulder, blue and white flames dancing on its wings and body.

"Who's that?" Madison asked, gesturing towards the firebird.

"Oh, I call him Whispers. Anyways, where's Travis?" Neter asked. Madison blushed slightly.

"In the city... I'm not sure where, though."

"Well, we need to get there quick, there's something I need to tell him." Neter said, starting to run towards the city. Madison stopped him.

"Wait, what do you need to tell him?" Madison asked, curious as to what could make him so hurried that he wasn't surprised by the unicorns or the strange city ahead.

"It's a secre-"

Madison was getting impatient. "JUST TELL M-"

"I'm Life's son!" Neter shouted, and then ran off towards the city. "Oh, and Warren's coming, I saw him!" Neter added as he ran off. Madison just stood there, staring. Great! she thought to herself, another thing to be confused about! Madison broke into a run after Neter.