A/N: this is sort of a preview of a part of the third book in the TTC series. I had to get this out of my head and on paper (keys?) before it ran off, and I thought, ‘what the hey? Why not post it here?’ Below are two scenes from the third book of TTC. They take place relatively close together, and they’re in order—the first one comes first in the book, and the second comes next. I hope I haven’t given too much of the outcome of the TTC series away…But I don’t think I have.

These two scenes deal with the Timekeepers. There’s positively no chosen in them. Sorry…But inspiration comes when it comes and takes what form it takes…I just write it down. :D

::Scene One::

Even through the thick fog she could recognize him. She had always been able to recognize him. He'd never been able to hide from her before, and he couldn’t hide from her now. Through the thick, obscuring fog, she saw the familiar shape of the youngest of the Timekeepers, the Timekeeper Sixteenth considered a little brother, the one she’d loved as such since the beginning of time, the one who had helped her keep her Chosen alive all this time, who had helped her try and win this game with Eleventh. Twentieth knew Sixteenth could see him. He stepped out of the fog and she knew she hadn’t been wrong. He had the look of one who has finally achieved what he’s been striving for since birth.

But Sixteenth was confused. The life force coming off Twentieth wasn’t his own. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Her mind was still stuck on the fact that Twentieth was standing before her, with all their lives in the palm of his hand, preparing to shatter the glass statue that was one of her Chosen and kill all the rest of them at the same time. Her thoughts were still snagged on that fact, trying to process that Twentieth, who she’d loved since his creation, was preparing to kill her.

And this was Twentieth.

Sixteenth’s mind moved forward a little but then got snagged again, this time on a mantra of “no, this isn’t right, no, this isn’t right…No, no, this isn’t right…” She wasn’t even focusing on Twentieth’s voice anymore, but on his image, hand raised, preparing his power…Far too much power, more than he should have had, Sixteenth noted to herself in a tiny part of her brain that wasn’t still repeating that this wasn’t right. Sixteenth felt tears well in her eyes. Everything was collapsing on her at once. There were so many things on New Earth she couldn’t handle. There had been so much killing. And now, Twentieth had turned against her… Sixteenth was unable to stop the first tears from running out of her eyes. Twentieth saw them, but he moved not a muscle. The old Twentieth would have wiped them away or tried to offer comfort. This wasn’t Twentieth. Oh, First – this wasn’t Twentieth! This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!

Sixteenth saw the power come at her, even distorted by her tears as it was. She barely got her barriers up in time. Her mind was still moving through molasses, but her body was going through the motions of battle, attacking (her mind shrieked at this, rejecting the very idea that she would attack Twentieth) and parrying, dodging and defending. Twentieth’s power was so strong. Too strong. This wasn’t Twentieth…

And then it hit her, like a blast of ninth-level power in the face. This wasn’t Twentieth. It was Eleventh… But if this was Eleventh, what had he done with Twentieth?

::Scene Two::

she knew the moment eleventh left Twentieth; She could spot the exact instant when he abandoned her lower-level friend. There weren’t any tears in her eyes anymore. An odd, detached feeling settled on her. Her mind was still replaying the instant Eleventh had abandoned Twentieth’s form, but her consciousness blocked the scene out, locking it away, letting her subconscious play and replay it but not letting Sixteenth register it as fact. She sat down in the short grass by Twentieth; She could feel traces of Eleventh’s power still lingering around him.

-He’s still alive,- Came a fading whisper from the power traces. Eleventh’s last words to her as he faded completely. Sixteenth’s mind didn’t let her register that she’d killed a Timekeeper; It saved that knowledge, too, for later.

‘He’s still alive…’ The words caught in Sixteenth’s brain, and these she did register, these she held to as if they were a rope and she a swimmer, drowning in one of New Earth’s oceans. His eyes were closed. As if he had just slipped into unconsciousness. That was what had happened, sixteenth’s mind told her, Eleventh’s last words repeating in her brain. She bent over Twentieth’s inert form, checking for a pulse. Even a Timekeeper had a pulse although it was easier to detect when the Timekeeper in question had taken a mortal form.

She couldn’t feel one. But that was because he was asleep. His heart rate was slow and even, soft, as a timekeeper’s resting heart rate should be. Still holding to Eleventh’s last words like a lifeline, Sixteenth curled up next to Twentieth, falling asleep in moments.

Her dreams showed her the truth, although she would not – could not – bring herself to believe them. But in some corner of her brain, she knew the truth. Eleventh had died playing mind games, and he knew exactly what they would do to her.