Dance of the Hours

Time is such an odd thing. There's always either too much or too little of it. When you want it to run with you at your own mad, impatient pace, it stubbornly crawls, all too aware of your urgency. And just when you want to slow down and catch your breath, take it all in, it races madly ahead of you. As if taunting you to catch up. And the longest wait, I've often observed, is during the last lingering minutes before what you are waiting for is granted to you.

Right now I'm caught between conflicting desires to speed up the clock and pause for one simple, shining moment of peace. Everything I've worked for, all that I have dreamed of, is so close to fruition that I feel the impatience growing in me. I've waited fifteen years for this, and yet I've never been more anxious about it than I am this moment.

Struggling with my impatience is a whisper, begging me to slow down, to take it all in. It isn't fear of failure, certainly not. I have no fears, no regrets. I've prepared carefully for this day, and I am confident in the knowledge that no one in this world, least of all the dragonboy and his pitiful group, can stop me now. I've chosen the right path, and the world will be better for it. There is no turning back now.

I never had any qualms about my choices before....so why this sudden desire to slow down when I am so close to success? Simple fatigue, nothing more. The dragonboy and his friends will be along soon enough, yet I linger here in this garden, this artificially created haven of nature in a steel fortress. My only true peace these days is here....the only place where I can forget the pressing concerns gnawing at me every waking moment. Closing my eyes, I can feel the hurried dance of the hours slow down to a blissful silence as the sweet fragrance of the foliage and flowers around me seeps into my senses. One last moment of peace before culmination of my life's work.

It reminds me so much of the garden I had in Vane. My majestic former home, shot from the sky but a mere hour ago. Remorse? I feel none. Perhaps a twinge of....something when I saw it fall, but it was washed away quickly by the more immediate concerns of preparing for the dragonboy's imminent arrival. Not that it really matters whether he makes it in or not....nothing can stop what is going to happen, not now . Dear Althena will soon be awakening....and the last vestiges of this that my dull foil holds so dear will be forever gone. Finally, finally....I can at last right the wrongs she and Dyne committed all those years ago.

I can still see that day in my mind as if it were yesterday. That fool, Dyne....proved at last to be unworthy of holding the title of Dragonmaster. One rash idea of Althena was all it took to make him cast aside his responsibilities to the world. And to the Goddess we were both sworn to protect. Such a grievous error they made....both of them too blinded by emotion and naiveté to see the mistake they were making. Only I could see the truth of it....the truth of the world. Humans cannot rule themselves, as they foolishly thought. Althena of all beings in this world should have known that. And I can only pray to my fallen goddess that it is not too late. Not too late to correct the harmful error that they made before the world suffers more. This world needs guidance....and I am the only one fit, it seems, to provide it.

Soon.....soon they will all see how very wrong they have all been. Soon they will admit that I was right all along. This pathetic world shall be mine, and I shall right the wrongs of Althena and Dyne. I shall save this world from itself. The time is right....the hour so close at hand. When the clock sounds it's final chimes, it will be the death knell for the dragonboy. And the dance of the hours shall become the waltz of eternity for me.