Thief of Time

A familiar, eerie feeling descended on the world as a shimmering, incorporeal figure appeared before Dia, and everything in her vision warped and twisted. The starry sky, the white world, the lights beyond — everything that had been there a moment ago faded away, replaced by a single field of snow around her.

Flowerbeds persisted under the gentle onslaught of snowfall, but what caught Dia's attention was the single tomb that stood in the middle. As her eyes fixated on these words, insidious murmurs stabbed into her eardrums, and her body began to freeze over.

"The numbing chill is the only thing that stops me from hurting."

"The day of our reunion will never come. Time froze that day, when I lost you…"

"You were cruelly taken from me, leaving a hole where the icy winds blew. What did I do, O cruel skies?"

"Dreams are all I have left of you, but even your face is beginning to slip from my memory. All I have left is your icy tomb…"

"Why? What did I do? Why did you have to take her from me? Was it too much for me to have my source of warmth?"

"This is all that's left. I can no longer move in search of a new warmth…"

Dia, who had been spellbound by those words, doubled over and fell to the ground. Red liquid dribbled out of her ears, falling onto the snowy field as her vision reddened. The weight of these utterances, verbalised by a divinity, was too much for her mortal coil to bear, and Dia watched on in silence as the extremities of her body turned into ice.

Feeling fled from her body, and Dia felt a deep despair sink in. Forget about defeating the Frozen Emperor — she couldn't even last a moment against his quiet, unconscious thoughts.

Ice crawled up her body, and with a sickening crack, her vision fell onto the floor. Even with all her willpower, however, Dia could only see her own, decapitated body fall to the ground, broken apart by the sheer cold.

Darkness fell, and the excruciating chill turned into a comforting warmth.

"Dada?"

Dia opened her eyes, and then sat up slowly. The others looked at her carefully, bringing out blankets, soft toys and sweets for her. Nero, who was the only one holding on to a bucket of lifestones, handed it to her in silence.

"How was it?" Nero asked, with all the bluntness of a hammer.

"You should just ask how well my death felt," Dia replied. "Anyway, I got into Rimestar easily. The people there were…"

She fell silent for a moment, and then ran through the cluster of memories that she had accumulated over the past five years. Of course, since there was a huge gap in time, most of the information gathered were prefaced with annoying things like 'According to my father…' or 'I heard this from my grandma', blurring the line between legend and reality.

First, contrary to her expectations, Rimestar City was actually the last bastion of humanity. Humans lived there freely…in a sense. It was a city where the strong were given value and the weak supposedly protected, although there was much in the way of discrimination against people who had two mana circuits or below. In other words, one's ability to sense lifespan was the main factor of discrimination here…

At any rate, there was an intense military culture here. People of age had to report to the military for two years of full-time training and duties, and were then liable to be called up at any moment afterwards.

Their enemies, of course, were the divinities that were laying siege to Rimestar.

Another focal point of culture there was a culture built around the Frozen Emperor. While Dia couldn't quite figure out what the heck was going on, the Frozen Emperor's name had replaced the Moons entirely. People made promises in the name of the Frozen Emperor, people sang songs and made plays that revolved around him…in short, the dude was now the dominant culture figure.

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For someone who spent all that time alone and not showing his face, he sure was popular…

Dia shook her head. Other than that, though, the rest of her time here was spent on gathering information about the Frozen Emperor. For one, the general consensus about the divinity was that he was a mortal that turned into a god after someone killed his beloved.

How that was possible was anyone's guess, though. Secondly, some of the more reliable — to Dia, anyway — sources had mentioned the fact that he was the Omen. That needed more verification in their eyes, but this fact was enough to make Dia's estimation of their own information increase.

Finally, said sources confirmed the fact that a bunch of gods and divinities had indeed died by the hand of the Frozen Emperor. What they didn't confirm, however, was how the Frozen Emperor gained such a level of strength to begin with, and no matter how Dia asked around, no one knew the answer to that question.

After narrating the information she learned to the others, Dia fell silent.

"What's wrong?" Schwarz asked. "I've made some tea for you, by the way. Have some? You're shivering."

"Oh, thanks." Dia took the cup gratefully and sipped from it. "I want some soup, though…"

"Somi soup, right?"

"Yeap."

The bartender frowned. "You'll have to make do with good old stew for now, sadly. It's impossible for me to ship so much food over right now. Anyway, how did you die?"

"I climbed up a freezing set of staircases," Dia replied. "And then fought an ice giant. I killed it, pushed open the door, and then died."

"…What?" Nero coughed. "Be a bit more descriptive."

The scythe floating behind the quiet Kemata spun once at the same time, and Dia felt a bit annoyed. These two felt like the preliminary stages of the Frozen Emperor and his lover, whoever that was, and she didn't like it. If anything happened to Kemata or Nero, would their other half turn into a divinity afterwards?

She shook her head at them.

"What's with that expression?" Kemata asked.

"Well, the Frozen Emperor became the Frozen Emperor because his beloved died," Dia replied. "Couples are very dangerous, clearly."

Risti chuckled. "Love is a horrible, horrible thing."

Schwarz looked at her, and then said, "Your obsession is also equally bad, so don't go mocking other people, you stalker."

The duo glared at each other, and Dia rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I died in a very sad manner. When I stepped into the castle, the scenery around me changed to that of a peaceful, snowy hillside with a tombstone at the middle. After that, I heard a bunch of sentences all that once, and then my body bled and froze over."

"And you died?"

"Yeah," Dia replied. "My neck froze and shattered, so my head fell onto the ground. The last thing I saw was my body falling apart into shattered bits of ice."

Everyone looked at her with sympathetic expressions.

"That's not something a person should experience," Risti muttered.

"Dada…"

Farah shook her head. "Need more tea?"

"Yes, please." Dia shrugged and hugged the baby as Farah left. "But I died painlessly, so it wasn't all that bad. Anyway, there's no way I can do anything unless I can break through that freezing chill, so we're going to be putting that plan on ice for now."

"Was that pun intended?" Kemata asked.

"Of course."

The scythe floating around aimlessly looked around twice, and then drifted out of the room. Dia didn't understand what that meant, but little Beth was already snuggling up to her with the clear intention of a nap, so she didn't press the topic.

"Well, we'll head out now," said Nero. "Have a nice nap. I'm glad that we didn't need to use this ritual magic, but I'll leave it here anyway. It'll also help you get a better night's sleep."

"Nice."

The two lovebirds sauntered out, and for a moment, Dia found herself wondering if Nero was the Frozen Emperor. After all, the Holy Son of the Black God had vanished in this scenario, and he had happened to fall deeply in love during the Trial of Aeons. The timing was quite perfect, and it wasn't as if he wasn't knowledgeable about the inner workings of the divinities and gods.

Was he the Omen? And if Kemata somehow perished…

Would he become the Frozen Emperor?

"What are you thinking about?" Risti asked, looking at Schwarz, and then at the departing duo. "You have a…weird expression on your face."

"Just wondering if Nero's the Omen, and by extension, the Frozen Emperor." Dia shrugged. "I'm just having fun, don't worry."

"As long as you keep that in mind," Risti replied. "Anyway, I'll leave first. See you tomorrow, and don't get too worked up about the Frozen Emperor. We're reimbursing you the lost lifespan anyway."

"Reimburse me my appetite, not my lifespan…"

Risti chuckled and left, so Dia turned to Schwarz. "So?"

"I'll be cooking stew later, so if you want to have some, don't go and sleep yet," Schwarz replied. "Supper, see?"

Dia thought for a moment, and then nodded. "I'll think about it."