[Fiction] So It Was Said.... [AU] [IW]

[Long]

Long shut off the computer and armed the defense system. He spoke quietly to Sakurako. "Stay inside, stay with the children. Call Jager and Cade if anything happens. I'm going to go see just what is going on. Silvertalon can help, she's making alot of progress, Origami is here too. I'll be back as soon as i can."

Long seems to shimmer as he releases his wife from an embrace and Returns to his full eight foot Tiger form. "It's time I go meet her face to face again."

There's a silent explosion of Light and Long is in the other world, not fifteen feet from his counterpart Ryoko. "I'm just passing through sister. I'll out of your hair momentarily."

She gave him an amused smile and nodded. "Feel free to visit on your way back, my day is relatively unplanned thus far."

He nods once and vanishes again, reappearing over Coricanchac an flash of blue light. He flies through the air feeling only a few gazes upon him. He makes his way to the temple district, to her temple. "You've been busy as well all this time." He says to her image in his mind, knowing there's no chance for a mental link today.

There are guards outside the Temple, baselines and low level nova, nothing he could not sweep away if he were so inclined. All his senses went on full alert, He hadn't come to fight, merely for answers.

The Temple was cut along traditional Incan lines, though there were large blocks of obsidian inlaid with star sapphire. A young nova priestess greets him. "You're expected, the Portent of Things to Come awaits you inside. I will escort you to her."

Long nods once. "Yes I see. then fulfill your duty." He is led into the temple and notices that the interior is quite dark, black being the color most used here. The stones are highly polished, and most of the walls are done in the same sapphire on obsidian as the outside. It was rather spartanly furnished. None of it really appealed to him, simply because it made him really stand out in his stark white Fur. His cerulean eyes shone softly in the sparsely lit temple. She had accumulated worshipers from both baselines and novas. He'd have to be careful in this, if he was expected then it was easy to surmise she knew why he was here too.

He comes to stand in the Portent's chamber, a room done completely in obsidian, making it impossible for most anyone else to find her. "He is arrived my Lady." The priestess leaves quickly and closes the door behind her. The only light in the room is the soft glow from his eyes. It takes a moment, but his eyes refocus on an almost apparitionlike shape on a chair across the room and a smile curls his lips. "Timeslip, it's been far too long."

[Timeslip]

"Really? I wasn't aware... has it been so long for you?"

The voice - a haunting, echoing thing, out of temporal synch with itself - didn't seem to so much emanate from the barely-percieved form before him, but from various points in the room. It may not have been Long's first clue that things had changed, but it certainly drove home the point.

"But then, you've been so busy, and will be more busy still. Are you ready for what will come, Long-Who-Was-Ryu? Are you ready for the night that will befall the vaunted One Race? Or are you too busy teaching wingless dragons to fly?"

The vague form solidified, and now there was no mistaking that it was Timeslip... if changed. Faintly glowing blue lines traced from one point of light to another, creating patterns both alien and familiar. The starscape woman stood before him not only an unknown and unknowable sea of stars, but of constellations full of hidden meaning.

"Saori has learned her art well, you see. Long ago - or was it only yesterday? - I asked her to strive, to push herself, to create work worthy of ones such as ourselves. As you can see, she did so and more." Stepping forward a few steps, the constellations shifting and seeming to flow as she did, Timeslip said, "I am the Portent Of Things To Come, and what is to come to your world will burn the sky."

[Long]

"Yes it has." His tail unfurls from his waist as he stands motionless, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I am busy, yes, raising a family, securing a future, an dtrying to help a nova truly understand what being a nova means."

"I remember when you asked her for that, it looks good on you."

His face darkens considerably. "Then the world will burn, but my people will not be there. There is already another world where I prepare a place for them and myself. Those who accept what I teach are welcome."

It was as close as he'd admit to having allowed the Brotherhood of the Tiger to form, and how active a role he took in leading them. "I have never forgotten your prophecy of war, of what would happen to our people. After five months of being alone, War was the first word you uttered to me. A husband can never forget that."

"I see you have done well in your self-imposed exile to this world. Followers of baseline and nova persuasion, a goddess amongst the gods and goddesses. So I admit I am suprised that you took the time to come back to Prime. You knew I'd come seeking answers after your remark, so here I am. What would you have of me Timeslip? What have you seen that has given you cause for this?"

[Timeslip]

"Oh, I would have so very much of you if I could." The words, even through the hair-raising effect of the echoes, conveyed anger, hatred and betrayal that literally surpassed the bounds of time and space.

"But that is not to be. I have seen that much. Nor is what you think to be. Or did you really think that escaping such a thing would be so simple, so easy?

"What is seen can be changed, Long-Who-Was-Ryu. But not by fleeing to other worlds. Even I will be there, with the world burning around me. The message was sent because I knew it would be sent, that you would respond by coming here, that you would understand what I say now and return to prepare.

"The One Race will turn upon itself, and those who win will be what the mayfly humans need to set the world aflame. Prevent the first, and you make it possible to prevent the second. Fail to do so, and all you care for will end.

"Neither forgiven nor forgotten," the alien thing that had once been Timeslip echoed. "Understand that, and you will know what is to come and how it may be stopped. You have been warned."

[Long]

"If that is all you wish to say then so be it. I will see my daughter for a little while before I return. If you wish, I wouldn't be opposed to you coming with us."

There's a coldness in his voice that had never been there before, though still a small ember f warmth remained.

[Timeslip]

"You are not a prisoner, and may do as you wish. Do not think to take her from this world, but visit if you like. I will see much soon, and much stay here."

The constellations faded, stars remaining but the lines almost vanishing from sight, and Long realized that she was returning once more to a nearly ephemeral state. Sensory deprivation? he wondered. Might be needed for how she "sees" future events, to lose connection with the here and now. Whatever the meaning, one thing was clear: he had been dismissed.

[Long]

"I made you a promise that I wouldn't." He turns and stalks out of the temple and makes straight for where Yokiko is. She had been cared for well. His arrival was met with an exclamiation that never failed to make him smile. "Oto-san!" her small voice filled him with pride as the only lasting remnant of his relationship with Timeslip ran to him. He scooped her up into his arms and hugged her to his chest.

"You've gotten big my Moonstar. I've missed you."

"Did you come to see me?"

"Well not exactly. Your mother and I needed to talk, but we're finished now, and I thought it would be nice to take my beautiful daughter flying for a time."

Her eyes seemed to light up, she fully shared his joy of flying. Her intelligence was much greater than children her age should have, but he found this was also the same with Ryoma and Mizuki. Perhaps it was simply the shape of how things would be.

Without further preamble he took off into the air and held her close as he flew acrose clear blue skys. The time spent with her was never wasted, not to him, even if it was simply flying around.