A Timely Knight

A Coronation

"Emmu!" Tim was now beside him but Eldon still took a couple of seconds to react to his presence. "What' wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Eldon stumbled upon his own words. "We're in the wrong place."

Mouth wide with the weight of those words, his body tried its best to deal with this abrupt state of clear awareness. Perhaps the purity of the water cleared the path in front of him, perhaps the winds of the east blew the mist away, or perhaps Alma whispered secrets into his ear to help him see. Whatever the reason, brand new eyes now led his way.

Tim frowned and raised his voice to overcome the roar of the waterfall. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"We're in the wrong place," Eldon repeated, his head heavy with the loud stomps of the aggressive parade of thoughts. "Timmy, we're not supposed to be here. Think about it. This isn't supposed to happen. The attack on Ivoryport, we stopped it. We destroyed the bird. It was never supposed to happen, we were always meant to stop it."

"Emmu, they built another bird," Tim said, a permanent line now between his eyebrows, his words revealing everything his shaky expression tried to conceal.

But Eldon saw clearly now. "Exactly. Another bird, Timmy. Another. New bird, new attack. We haven't had another dream to warn us. We thought Indigo would just go ahead and do the same thing it planned to do before, but why would it? We stopped it from happening."

His ideas ran too fast for him to properly articulate them and he feared Tim wouldn't follow him. But his love's rapidly blinking eyes and his slightly accelerated breathing told otherwise.

"The Marquise's words," Tim whispered and Eldon felt a twinge of fear as he remembered.

The future is not a defined path, Master Eldon.

"But then what is the weapon for?" Tim asked, more to himself than to Eldon. "Indigo plans to attack, it's obvious. If not here, where?"

Eldon's mouth trembled. "How do you destroy an already broken kingdom?"

Tim understood at once. "You struck on its very heart."

Eldon had just been struck by lightning. A rush of energy coursed through his veins. Every part of him shivered, though he could not tell if it was just the fear, or if anticipation had also made a claim over him. He heard his heartbeat in his ears and his stomach laid on the ground, next to his feet. His body was ready for the battle of a lifetime.

"Where's the blimp?" Eldon asked as they walked back to the islands.

"Hidden under a canopy of trees, on the outskirts of the city."

"Go and get it. You know where to fly. Get there as soon as you can. Enter the city from the south side. I'll go north. If we hurry, we can get there in an hour, maybe less."

"How would you get there?"

A question Eldon had been struggling with in silence, but which now had a clear answer. He even managed to smile as he spoke. "You have some money?"

He pointed towards the Island of Innovations and Tim let out a sigh of incredulity.

"You're insane," he said, shaking his head.

"And yet you love me."

"With all my heart."

Eldon acted almost instinctively. He launched himself at Tim, his arms surrounding the man's neck. Their lips met and their kiss seemed to stop time itself. Eldon didn't want to think of endings, but as his grasp on the love in front of him loosened, he couldn't deny the sense of dread that surrounded them. As they parted and gave each other one last look, they silently made promises they really couldn't keep.