#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 85: 2025 Arkham 2 of 2 parts

#Wss366 Slip #MastoPrompt Brunt #TimeTravelAuthors 03/27. Alternate timelines?

[Continued from previous post.]

“The second is that I would like you to take notes on what happens. Deposit them regularly and secretly. You will want to review them later.”

“Where do you want me to leave them?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I manifested a phone and searched for a mailbox rental place. “Rent a box in the name of Sarah Lock…”

That was a #slip. I could feel Emily’s eyes boring into me. What is it with her and that name?

“Lockhorn. Sarah Lockhorn,” I improvised. “At Arkham Mailstop.”

“That’s too obvious. They’ll spot her depositing mail,” Emily said, and took the full #brunt of another of her glares.

“Who?” Ms. Dubois looked between us, mystified.

“I’ll explain in a minute. That’s item three,” I said.

“I could leave them in my office?”

“No,” Emily and I said together, and I continued, “It’s going to be ransacked.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to explain that,” the professor said, her tone petulant.

“No, I’m sorry I mentioned it,” I said.

Dubois sighed. “You know the hole in the big oak in Franklin Square Park? I could slip them in there.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

"Behind that awful modern art statue. You know, the one that looks like a rock gnome giving the heavens the finger.”

I didn’t know where that was, either, but I figured I could find it. There couldn't be many statues like that.

"That will do," I said. "The third thing is to watch out for anthropomorphic rabbits wearing ICE Nine vests. Try to stay away from them. But note anything you see. It's important."

“What? Rabbits?”

Emily and I both shrugged and smiled.

Faust:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial #Slowburn #Yuri #Faust

#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 85: 2025 Arkham 1 of 2 parts

#Wss366 Slip #MastoPrompt Brunt #TimeTravelAuthors 03/27. Alternate timelines?

Even with the abridged version, Emily’s eyes had glazed over by the time Professor Dubois finished. For my part, I only understood the high-level stuff. The salient details were twofold: first, that Faust knew more about time travel than I ever had and might have information on the Rabbits; and second, that while every time-particle had minor differences, alternate timelines were almost impossible. Time-pressure quickly erased significant deviations.

Emily had a question about that. “So you’re saying that saving Archduke Ferdinand or killing Hitler wouldn’t change history?”

"Exactly. There would be a short-term disturbance, but things would ultimately settle back into place. Faust tried to save Margarete several times, but she was always executed or died violently."

“But something like a meteor that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct would be enough?”

I saw what Emily was getting at, but I wasn't sure how she had arrived at the conclusion that there was a deeper reason for us to have witnessed that event. Besides, how do you influence a meteor?

“Possibly… I suppose. At least locally, but not on a universal scale.” Then, Ms. Dubois turned to me, said, “There were three reasons for your coming. What is the second?”

Goethe's Faust:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial #Slowburn #Yuri #Faust

#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch

Dōken-shin (Airisu POV) Post 21
#Wss366 Concert #TimeTravelAuthors Whatever #Edo

“Is the beckoning-cat now the weasel’s master?” Arakawa-sama’s aura had calmed, but his eyes remained fierce.

I took exception to being called a cat and to my mistress being compared to a weasel. However, with the kami’s stew pot metaphor still fresh in my mind, I watched my tongue when I responded, “Neither cat nor vermin. I attend a spotted huntress. Your cord is not for her.”

Sumika watched our debate and remained silent. I dreaded what might happen if she entered the conversation. I doubted she’d mastered the complexities of Edo-era metaphorical sophistication, unlike an educated corvid I knew.

He responded with his fan pointed at me, cobalt sparks snapping along its edge. "I hear an owl in the forest, but does it know the kite has tasted my lure?"

Again with the insults, calling me an owl this time. Thankfully, he hadn’t escalated to physical violence, which would have been impossible for us to respond to. He wanted something from us, so I gave it to him.

“Kindness repaid, but we nest in the wild.”

He tapped his fan; the energy along it began flowing smoothly, mellowing to a soft sapphire, and then replied, “I have been answered.”

Reaching forward, he touched a finger to a trickle of blood from the wound on my mistress’s neck. “A token,” he said.

Sumika flinched, and I whispered, “Silence.”

She nodded assent.

"You may use my gift, little majo. Pay me my daily due until I require you."

The ginkgo spirits sounded their gongs, and the shrine faded away in a fog. When it lifted, we were back at the empty grove. After what we had been through, the lonely forest with its #concert of autumn cicadas was welcome.

“What just happened?” Sumika asked.

“I’ll explain at the car. And you, ‘little witch,’ have much to explain.”

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #Serial #SlowBurn #Yuri

#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 84: 2025 Arkham

#Wss366 Shower #TimeTravelAuthors 03/25. brief/short

Professor Dubois looked confused and, perhaps to buy herself time to think, stroked the rat, and said, “Patroclus deserves a treat for his hard work,” and opened the bottom drawer, extracting both the bottle of brandy and a container of rat food.

“Patroclus, that's the first recorded individual… ghost to transcend time. You were quite clever naming him,” I said.

Emily snickered. “Show-off.”

There was a #short pause while Patroclus enjoyed his meal, and the professor and I sipped the inexpensive brandy she had offered me. I guessed it was what a professor could afford.

“So, why today’s visit?” Ms. Dubois asked, looking over the rim of her tumbler.

“Three reasons. First, tell us about time-travel. Why can we do it?” I answered.

The professor looked perplexed, so I added, “For reasons I can’t explain, I don’t remember anything. Professor Skully has explained to us about time-streams, particles, and pressure. But he didn’t know the details.”

“Good old Dana. I didn’t know he listened to me. Okay, so you want details. Time-travel has been my life's work. After I realized that my mother’s spirit had visited me and given me a time-travel book, I became convinced that magic was the key.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Your ‘mother’ visited you and gave you a book?”

“Yeah,” Ms. Dubois said, as she opened the top drawer and took out a dog-eared copy of “The Time Machine.”

I glanced at Emily; we both recognized it. Not too long ago, by our time, I had given that book to a young girl waiting for her mother to recover from surgery.

The professor continued, “My mother used to #shower me with gifts, but this one was special.”

She sighed and put it back in the drawer. “Of course, it took a long time to pick up the trail. It wasn’t until I obtained a copy of ‘Faustus Pakt’ that I made any headway. He talked about what he’d seen, but the key was that the formulas had come from ‘Pompilius’ Spiegel.’”

“Who?” Emily interrupted.

“Faust, of course. He relied heavily on Pompilius’s book, which is also rare. That’s where I learned that you have to tear the soul from its moorings in the present to project yourself into the past. Let me show you the pentagram.”

“Be #brief,” Emily said. “The two of you can be so pedantic. We can already time-travel, so we don’t need any complicated rituals.”

Patroclus:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial