Tempus (Patreon)

The Origin of Tempus

Come closer, child. What's that? You're no child? I should doubt that. Few come to share a chat with me that aren't whimpering foals, relatively speaking. You're not from around here, I can tell. Maybe you'll become a native in time? That's for another day. Let's start with a history lesson about the future.

One of the first things to understand about this world, Everglow, that we live in is that it is very… mutable. What has happened, could happen, and is happening are all up for debate. Your very existence is not beyond disproving. Enjoy it, while it persists. It confuses outsiders to think that the city was founded long after it was destroyed, but that's linear thinking. Let's break that habit.

Along one, sad, timeline, Everglow became a place that was increasingly hostile to ponykind, and all the fey of the continent. Pressed tighter and tighter, we fought long and hard against the humanoids, but they always were better at war, in the end. The world progressed despite the sad politics. They developed better weapons, and so did we, and we stole all the good stuff from each other whenever we could.

Still, it wasn't fair from the start. When is life, really? Fair is a word we made up ourselves, a concept to make us feel justified in our actions. Nature doesn't give a hoot about what is 'fair'. In the end, we were going to lose and die and be scrubbed away. Maybe the world would forget that ponies ever once roamed the plains and studied books and that griffons once held an empire over the mountains. It seemed like a sure thing. That was the problem. When death seems certain, people do… unreasonable things.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we arrived at that sad moment of finality, a bold pony led others away, to a little barren patch of land on the west side of what was once our country. There weren't many others competing for it, and it became a little city unto itself. He was a bold leader, which was odd, for ponies. Most expect a strong female leader, but there he was. He was ready to take up the mantle, so he did, and he loved all his neighbors. He had a great idea. A fantastically great idea that seemed insane to most who heard it.

He proclaimed with certainty that the world they were living in was unsafe for them and their foals. But he knew a safer place. How could he not, his father had told him about it. Ignore the fact that he was his father. He didn't know that at the time. "Star Chaser," proclaimed his right hoof mare, "There's no way this will work. It requires more magic than anyone will ever have!" He had a grand spell worked out. He hadn't made it on his own, no, he had the help of every pony, griffon, or anything else willing to give him the time of day.

Likely as a result of this hodge podge of assistance, his spell was a great sprawling mess. It was too large to fit in any simple magic item. Not that he didn't try. He forged a sword that could cleave time itself and he gave it a swing, never to  be seen again, at least not as he was known. He became the husband to his mother and eventually produced himself who came and did all the things I talked about already, then he cut a hole in time, pfft, gone. So then he came back. He had waited for his son, who was himself, to go, then he strode into town, older, but more experienced for his efforts.

He still had that sword, the Time Killer, but he was loathe to allow others to touch it. "It has one job," he insisted repeatedly. That job would be realized with the building of the second greatest clock in Everglow. It didn't match the size and self-sacrificing awe of the one the clockworks put together, but ours could control time. Beat that! In the center of it was and is and will be the Time Killer. Still, even with it resting in the midst of the great machinery, nothing happened. We would not be saved. We had not been saved. Still, we were saved.

So back to that horrible future present. The fey races met one last time in such great numbers. All agreed that there were no better routes to peace, or even survival. They swore a death vow to make the other races pay for their crimes, ignorant to the crimes they had committed themselves in the name of self-preservation. They wove a spell that should never be and never has been woven. The delicate balance of elements that defines Everglow was itself compromised, and they all spilled out, like a broken shopping bag, if you were shopping for tsunamis, earthquakes that pulverized mountains, and flame hot and wide enough that those who survived the day swore they heard Apep laughing. Even banished, his work had been done.

The destruction rolled across Everglow from different center points, levelling and demolishing just about everything. Tempus was flattened. Tempus was born. Even as the ponies of Tempus barely got out a communal cry of pain, the great mechanisms of the great clock began to turn, and the entire city was ripped free from time itself. It was sundered, as the Time Killer is born to do. We became and are and will be fractured, touching on all times and possibilities. When the smoke cleared, we had always been this way. Some of us remember, like me, how things ultimately turn out. You know, eventually, we'll be back there. We'll have to face that end. We're borrowing time, or killing it, I've heard both terms used for this. Either way, our debt will come due eventually.

Enjoy your time.