“Well! Things are going rather swimmingly, wouldn’t you two say?” Time and Change asked the Dandy Man and Mother Harlot with a fanciful spin on the spot within the confines of the infinite space of his misty hall.
“As you say, Mr. Wink,” came the cavalier response of the Dandy Man, who stood with both hands resting atop his cane and grinning.
Mother Harlot said nothing. Crouched on the nothingness that was an excuse of a floor, her knees propped up to her chest and her hands resting on top of them, she listened to the distant drone of the churning mechanism that was all around them and completely invisible.
“Oh, I’m so excited! Oh! I’m so excited!” the eidolon practically sang as he danced like some gangly ballernino around the two of his minions. “If things keep going this smoothly we might actually stop Cathedral Terra you two! Oh, come on, isn’t that at least a little bit titillating to you two!?”
“Of course it is. How could it not be?” the Dandy Man responded, following Time’s circular movements around the two of them as the eidolon hummed a sing-song nothingness of a tune.
Mother Harlot continued to rebelliously remain silent and refused to look at her master.
“Then come on! Join me! Dance! Sing! Celebrate in this little slice of an infinite moment I’ve brought you two to! Come on, it’ll be fun! You really should relax more now that things are going in the right direction,” Time and Change encouraged with a graceful leap. Neither the Dandy Man nor Mother Harlot had the energy to keep up with the excitable eidolon. For his part, the Dandy Man simply smiled politely while Mother Harlot sulked.
“Ohohoho! Just think, you two, just think! With Twilight and Choice on our side, we might have a chance to stop those immortals before they finish it! And then what lies beyond that!? Who knows! I don’t! It’s terrifying!” Time laughed at the prospect and continued to prance around, now moving away from the two of them as his words echoed off to become a part of the drone of this place. “All we have to do is keep Twilight on the road he’s on, and things’ll turn out just swell! Just swell! Probably! Dandy Man!” Change cried out, stopping mid-step and pointing dramatically at the minion in white who held a sliver of his power. “Keep doing what you’re doing and nudging William along towards getting rid of that pesky Old Dead One for us! Give him Cornello back as a treat, even! Why not!? He’d earned a bit of carrot after eliminating Darkness’ eidolon like he did!”
“As you wish,” the Dandy Man said with a formal little bow, one arm folding in front of his stomach as he lowered his head. “I’ll be sure to retrieve Cornello once you return me to real time and place him at a moment of your choosing for William to encounter. Shall I hand over Cornello in person, or let the two reunite with one another of their own accord?”
“Either or! Both? Whichever you think would be the more hostly thing to do!” Change laughed joyously, spinning on the spot and pulling his hat from off of his head and using it to gesture towards his second minion. “Mother Harlot! Oh, beautiful, twisted Mother Harlot! You just need to keep doing what you’re doing and influence our dear cutesie lil Emperor Mordred towards winning the civil war and unleashing that special little secret that he doesn’t even know about yet so that the planet will be primed and ready for what I need it to do in a few thousand years’ time!”
She spoke up now that the eidolon had directly addressed her but still refused to look at him. “So the same thing I did for his father, and the countless other people in positions of various power that came before him, and the countless others I’ll have to deal with who come after Mordred?” she inquired, exhausted at the prospect.
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“Correct!” Time replied in that sweetly singing tone of his that made her cringe, her hand moving to squeeze her breast to distract herself from his laughter.
“Oh, the Bane! Oh, the Bane! It’s so funny how it thinks it can put a stop to all of this by corrupting life itself, isn’t it?” Time and Change asked to neither of them in particular as the clockwork mechanism of this real let out a low, hollow thunk. “Those Old Dead Ones, don’t they ever learn? Can they even learn? You’d think they might since they persist like we do, yet Time and Time again they just keep doing the same thing, over and over and over again! It’s like they’re crazy or something, but that would imply they have a mind to go rotten to begin with!”
“Now, now, let us not be so presumptuous,” the Dandy Man cautioned. “After all, there is much that could go wrong between this instant and the next. We cannot presume that our dear William will manage to succeed in slaying the Bane of Progress without the aid of others.”
Time and Change’s dancing came to a stop slowly, step by step, as the Dandy Man spoke until he was some distance away, facing the man in white, shoulders slumped and mouth turned downwards in a sagging frown. “Don’t harsh the buzz, Man, I’m in such a good mood for a change!” Time moaned.
“Apologies, sir. I simply felt it prudent to be realistic. After all, Twilight and Choice is not a mere mortal that can be easily controlled. Manipulating him to do what is best for your grand design is a tricky matter. One drop of the Bane’s blood would have been enough to -”
“Ugh! Okay, I get it! We’re not at the finish line yet! No celebrating prematurely!” Time and Change cried out, exasperated, hands thrown up into the glowing air. He sighed and replaced his hat upon his head, adjusting his monocles and turning his back on his two allies and folding his hands behind his back, one set of fingers tapping the back of the opposite hand in time with seconds passing in real time. “We’ll just have to make sure that they cross that finish line like we want them to, when we want them to. Then, and only then, will we finally be rid of Cathedral Terra and the immortals that build it, and you two can… well, you know.”
“Yes,” the Dandy Man whispered solemnly.
Mother Harlot let out a soft sigh as she rested her cold cheek against her knee, one hand gliding up and down her chitinous leg while the other pinched her nipple. The thought of being rid of her duties… it kept her going.
“Well then, we know what to do, don’t we? Twilight has to murderlize the Bane of Progress, Mordred needs to win the civil war by letting those reliquae out to play, and so on and so forth ad infinitum ad nauseum until we have definite, solid proof that Cathedral Terra will NOT be built and everything can finally, finally, progress as it always should have!” Mr. Wink sighed, the smile returning to his face as he shrugged, brought his hands out in front of him and interlocked his fingers together to crack his knuckles as he pushed his arms out in front of him.
“Right then, you two! That’s enough dawdling around! You’ve got your assignments, and I’ve got the orchestra to lead! Dandy Man! You’re off to get Cornello, I’ll let you know when it is you’re to drop him off so that our dear Twilight and Choice continues playing ball in the manner we want him to. Mother Harlot, keep seducing that pretty blond and feeding him little hints about what he’s supposed to do. You’ve got him right where you want him, and that’s almost between your legs!”
The pair of agents of Time each bowed their heads in difference to Mr. Wink’s orders. The Dandy Man lifted his cane and idly spun it around and Mother Harlot stood up slowly, shrugging her garment back up onto her shoulder. She hoped that Mordred, handsome young ningen that he was, would finally be willing to play with her fully when she saw him next.
With a beam Mr. Wink clapped his hands and at once all three of them were gone, leaving only another Mr. Wink who stepped out from behind a pillar and continued to hum and dance and think and plot and plan in the vast halls of eternity, giggling as his fractal mind sorted out the details as they came and went from him in infinitesimally small fractions of shifting futures all at once.
“Let’s get to work!” he said to no one, everyone, everywhere, and himself.
