Paradox

Garnet checked her slip of paper for probably the tenth time since she had arrived at the marked spot. It was indeed the right time and place, but there was this horrible, nagging feeling that she was not supposed to be here. She couldn't understand it, but there was a strange sense of déjà vu, like half a memory was trying to surface through the fog in her brain but couldn't quite make it.

Sighing, she stuffed the slip of paper back in her pocket. This was the last one. The one that should make her, well, something resembling normal again. Not that she had any delusions of being fully normal. They had put her through too much for that. It was utter madness, and lately she often found herself wondering why she'd gone along with it in the first place.

I was young, she told herself. Too young to stop and think that they might be wrong.

And it was true. Her father had dropped her off on the Wisen when she was a mere child. They had become her mentors, the only people around to look up to. She couldn't even remember her mother. For all she knew, she'd come from some test tube or something. It's not like her father ever cared for anything but himself. Or at least… he didn't seem to care for Garnet.

She sighed again, pulling the paper back out as an excuse to shift her focus. It didn't normally bother her—her father was an asshole anyway. Even the Wisen thought so. But sometimes she just really wondered what it would be like to have real parents. If any of her incarnations across the Spiral had a normal childhood, she couldn't remember it at all.

A flash of color stole her attention away and she hastily stuffed the list back in her pocket. Her own red hair was hard to miss (though she had been thrown off on the last kill owing to the fact that her hair had been blonde in that world). She took aim as this other incarnation also checked a list—something in Garnet's stomach twinged again as if warning her to stop—and then a portal opened, the other Garnet disappearing through it.

"Shit!" Garnet ran after herself, now ignoring the need for silence, and dived through just as the gateway was closing. The noise, thankfully, went unnoticed as the other Garnet seemed to be focused elsewhere. Garnet followed her other self's gaze curiously and saw that she was watching… a third Garnet.

"The hell?" She ripped the list out of her pocket again. This one wasn't on the list. Was she supposed to get both at once, was that why it was missing? Not having created the portal herself, she wasn't certain where she was—or when. "Bastards better not've made a mistake again."

Whatever. She'd just off them both and have done with it. Ignoring the lurch in her stomach again, she took aim at the extra. That one was farther away, and so had a better chance of running. The second Garnet turned at the noise just as the third vanished into Oblivion.

"Hey, that was mi—" Her mouth hung open, staring. Both now had weapons drawn. The second Garnet seemed to compose herself. "I wouldn't if I were you."

"Why, taking bets on which of us is faster? Come off it, you're the last on my list. Let's make this quick so I can go home, alright?"

"Last on your… oh no, that means—" But Garnet didn't get to hear what it meant, as her other self rolled out of the way, barely missed by the shot aimed at her.

"Nicely done. But you can't dodge forever. Hold still, would you?"

"No, wait!" The other Garnet had put away her weapon for some reason, eyes wary though her hands were raised as though trying to reason with… herself.

"Why should I? So you've got a list too. Afraid I'll beat you to it? Shoulda known there'd be another universe where the Wisen are still meddlesome little—"

"No, there isn't! You don't understand. Just listen for a—" She dodged again, just in time. "Dammit can you cut that shit out for a minute? The hell is wrong with you?"

For a moment, Garnet's stomach clenched again, and there was an echo in her head of her own self yelling those very words. Transference didn't usually happen until the other self was dead, but then, she's never stopped long enough to chat with herself before now. Usually she managed to catch the others unprepared. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do so can we just—"

A strange feeling marked a new presence in the area. It was as though the air had turned to molasses, then crystallized so that the grasses and trees all stopped swaying. An empty swing set Garnet had only dimly noticed before stopped mid-swing and froze there, sticking awkwardly out as though someone had just left it before the world went still.

"Okay, Faceless, what do you want now?"

"I beg your pardon," said a soft voice behind her, "but I think you will find I do have a face."

Garnet spun around to face one of the more bizarre creatures she had ever heard speak. He was definitely humanoid, and very old, but several of his facial features were decidedly feline. Where whiskers should have been on the catlike face, a long white mustache sprouted instead, matching the equally long hair and beard.

"Who the hell are—"

"Oh, good, maybe you can fucking stop me from—"

The other Garnet had to dodge again. As Garnet went to aim for another shot, a surprisingly strong hand clamped around her forearm.

"I think," he said gently, "you'll find that is not a good idea."

"And why the hell not," she snarled, trying to wrench her arm away. "Done it a million times before. What makes this any different?"

The fact that the cat-man was smiling was really starting to piss her off. What the hell made him so calm?

"Forgive me, but this time is different. Your prior actions have been… regrettable… but they are not what we would call catastrophic." He removed the gun from her hand with ease, and finally released her arm as her favorite little toy vanished.

"I'll need that back yanno," she said with a snarl. Just who did this guy think he was?

"Only when we are finished here. Now, if we could for a moment talk like civilized—"

Garnet didn't much care what this freaky cat-man had to say. If he was going to take her easy way of killing her other self, she still had other tools. Already she was running at the other Garnet with a blade in her hand. About the time she had half-closed the distance, however, she ran into a solid wall of what at first seemed like plate armor.

"Oh no you don't, lass," said a booming voice from somewhere above her. Garnet felt a set of talons clamp around her body, lifting her into the air. "You need to listen to what K'toba has to say." The dragon turned for a moment to the second Garnet who was still on the ground. "Go now. You don't need to hear this twice." Garnet watched her other self disappear and ground her teeth. She wasn't accustomed to not having the upper hand, and it bothered her. Soon she was put back down in front of the cat again, the dragon's tail looping around them both like a massive, scaly fence.

"Taan here is my Twinsoul," he said, as if this somehow explained the presence of yet another creature that shouldn't exist. "He is my Brother in mind and spirit. I say mind, of course, as we do not have Names."

Garnet lunged forward to stab him, her patience worn thin. He made no move to stop her—instead the knife bent as it neared him. This unnerved her a bit. K'toba, however, appeared as calm as ever. "Now," he continued as though they had not just been interrupted by attempted murder, "if you would like to understand why we have interfered, you must understand what happens when you create a paradox within the same universe and timeline."

"Oh please," Garnet grumbled, rolling her eyes, "I was raised by the Wisen. That's basic shit. Fabric of space-time ripping apart, leaves room for the shadow-beings to get in, pain and chaos, certain doom, blah blah…"

"Ah, good, then you are familiar with the concept. But perhaps it would do better to see it?"

Before Garnet could protest, the world dissolved around them until they were surrounded by nothingness. Somewhere in the distance there was starlight, but it was more like looking at a map than being in outer space. Somewhere at the edge of her field of vision Garnet could see the eerie beings, blacker than black, whose darkness seeped out around them like some strange reverse glow. It was like even the light feared them. Yet for some reason they seemed very reluctant to come near, and every time the dragon shifted they seemed to move away from him.

"Dragons," K'toba said in answer to her unspoken question, "are one of the very few creatures who can harm these beings, and so are among the only things the Shadows fear." Garnet unconsciously moved a little closer to Taan. "Welcome," the cat continued, "to the world beyond worlds… the time outside of Time. Now, if you will humor an old man, I'd like to show you the true devastation that Paradox can create."

The felid made a sweeping motion with his hand, and the distant stars seemed to rush in on them until their view was focused on one section of a particular universe. It was like the space before them was some vast movie screen, and in her surprise Garnet forgot to be indignant.

"Wait… what happened to it?" Indeed, something had certainly happened here. There were chunks of space with empty gaps in them, halves of planets hanging dismally around pairs of suns that seemed to have collided and fused together. Everywhere there were different realities oddly juxtaposed, or parts simply missing altogether.

"It isn't always the same act, but always the same situation. Someone travels through time, alters something that was not meant to be altered, and they return home to find chaos."

"So, if I was to go back in time and step on a butterfly…"

"Not quite. You would have to go quite a ways back for such a small misstep to result in true Paradox. Although, the further back you go, the smaller an act it takes. If, for example, that butterfly were one of the first few that ever existed, then yes. The result would be terrible."

Garnet's eyes fixated for a moment on a world that was being devoured by the shadowy, glowing-black beings that thrived in Oblivion. She watched as they enveloped it, as the world crumbled in on itself and left emptiness in its wake. Shuddering, she tore her gaze away. "This is all very… enlightening… but what's it got to do with me?"

"You really don't know yet?" K'toba's eyes roved her face, searching. "I see. They hid the memory well. Such a dangerous game the Faceless One plays…"

Garnet waited, but the felid gave no indication that he was going to explain what "game" he was talking about.

"Did you not wonder why this assignment bothered you, when none of the others had?"

She paused for a moment, then, understanding, "…It was me." That feeling of déjà vu, the echoed thoughts…it wasn't transference. "It was me in the past. This me. And they were going to have me—"

"Take care of a problem they had created for themselves, and had thus far been unable to resolve," K'toba finished.

"Wait, so why the hell'd they send me after a past me? Wouldn't it have been safer to, say, have me kill myself tomorrow?" She paused for a second as thought trying to piece together the words that had just come out of her own mouth. Damn was this confusing.

"Indeed it would have been safer," the cat answered with a nod. "But who knows why they chose to do it this way? Perhaps it was a miscalculation. Perhaps the Wisen are greater fools than we thought. Or perhaps that very consequence was intended all along. The man who calls himself wise delights in chaos and destruction. Sometimes I wonder," he said, waving a hand toward the Shadows, "if he is their ally."

Garnet chewed on this thought for a moment, then realized something else. "Wait, if that was the last one of me…"

Her face fell as she saw the answer in K'toba's eyes. "I am very sorry. There is no cure for what has been done to you. You can, however, learn to harness it with great time and discipline… gain some level of control over yourself. It is a very small hope, a very difficult thing to master… but it is hope nonetheless.

"But now, I think it is time to take you home. Now that you know the Wisen have nothing more to offer you, perhaps at least you will feel a bit more freedom?"

Garnet did not meet his gaze. There was no cure. No going back. All of that work… all of that murder… for nothing. And she had fallen for it. Every last time.

"Ah, so often the learned prey upon the young while they are still wide-eyed and trusting. Perhaps a gift before you go—something that might cheer you up." He gestured to the dragon, who thus far had remained silent. Taan pulled out two strings of beads. "Sandalwood. It is a holy wood, a tree that carries light within its very soul. The shadow-creatures abhor it, and avoid it if they can." He placed one of the pair in a box. "If you would please be so kind… when you meet a white-haired young man, the second strand is for him. Keep it in the box for him. He would not like very much for someone else to touch it… and believe me, if you touch it, he will know."