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English
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Part 10 of Phic Phight 2025
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Phic Phight!
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Published:
2025-04-17
Words:
479
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1/1
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Waiting in the Abyss

Summary:

Long ago Clockwork had and lost a child, the young Ancient of Space. Even with his Sight of time, he could never see what became of them, only that they disappeared. Now another being that evades his Sight has crashed into his existence. Another child, and this one a boy with the stars in his eyes and the cold of space in his veins.

Prompt by Marvel

Notes:

Work Text:

Time continues without care for who is left behind or lost.

It matters not how much one wishes otherwise.

Time waits for no one.

Not even for the Master of Time.

Nothing could stop the pendulum from swinging.

Rushing continuously through the tapestry of interwoven lines and connections.

Clockwork, for all the power that they hold, was as upholden to the rules as any other.

The physical manifestation of the fourth dimension, they were once a pair.

Time cannot exist without Space.

Perhaps the most well known, the third dimension has always existed entwined with the fourth.

Manifested as a child, curious and energetic.

Exploration came as instinctual as breathing for the living.

So when the Child became lost.

Well and truly Lost.

Clockwork found they could no longer See.

Not truly.

Not like before.

Bereft and alone.

They allowed the so-called shackles from the authoritarian judging buffoons.

Not from bent knee or force.

But due to uncaring apathy.

What little control those so called masters had claimed was little more than a granule of sand in the ocean compared to the Loss of their Child.

It was of so little concern that the belief that they were above Time itself was laughable.

Clockwork allowed them to believe in an attempt to distract from the grief.

Distract from the sweeping aching emptiness that took root next to them.

Distract from the Loss.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise.

That not only that it wouldn’t work.

Not really.

But that, like the Child who took their Sight and disappeared into the unknown…

There could be others.

Others lost to their Sight.

Immune to time in the way that Space only could.

Clockwork dared not hope.

Dared not believe.

As this child - a true child with but a single breath of life in age - grows stronger.

Staring into Space Beyond.

Chasing the starlight beyond.

The desire to Explore just as innate as Their Child.

Clockwork cannot help but test this child.

Because they could not dare to Hope.

Stolen as it is by Pandora, the light of the forgotten wish flickering into life once more.

And yet this child exceeds their expectations.

Over and over again.

Yet so differently.

So much unlike their Child.

And still so similar.

Like a reflection on frosted glass or a darkened lake.

The more they search, the more different the children are.

But still.

So much the same.

The eyes full of stars of curiosity.

And stardust in his veins.

The breadth of the third dimension in his lungs.

And the insatiable desire to explore.

To See.

Not the same Sight that Clockwork lost.

But to see the way Space expands into infinity.

They cannot help but be drawn to this child.

To draw this child to them.

Their Sight does not return.

But the emptiness feels less barren with just a single word.

“Grandfather.”

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