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Written to the prompt by make-up-a-wizard cohost prompt account — wizard who permanently experiences the world a minute ahead of everyone else.
When I saw this prompt, I thought “damn, I’ve kinda done that one”. There’s a text file on my computer named ‘Kitchen other timezone’ from 2016, it’s in a folder named ‘I really have to fucking organize this shit’.
Originally posted on cohost on April 1st, 2024.
There's a diminishing area of affect. The workshop is a full nineteen minutes ahead. The window of the kitchen that looks onto the path to the front door is just shy of five—this is very handy for a quick tidy and putting a kettle on whenever someone comes over. Aern had been flung through the workshop window by the initial explosion before the time fracture solidified, so they were only a minute ahead.
Everyone had been very concerned about the noise—even though there wasn't much apparent physical damage—but once Aern figured out what was wrong with themself, they had put up all the barricades and didn’t emerge from what was truly a quaint stone cottage if it weren't for the attached silo of a wizard tower until they could be handed something without dropping it and hold up a conversation without appearing to read minds. None of the tomes said a time fracture worked this way, but then it was a fracture in time.
It was all very handy whenever Aern wasn't prematurely grabbing things that weren't yet handed to them and responding to things before they were said. Aern now easily avoided the dangers of monster-filled woods and "assassination" attempts by rival wizards—a sort of game Aern had grown tired of in the last millennia. Similarly, trips to town went smoother when they could vacate a vicinity before a bothersome conversation or confrontation could even start—Aern was not the "village wizard" but they couldn't stop the village people from thinking it—they'd tried—and so there was always someone looking to ask or accuse or request something when they were in said village.
They did their best to keep village visits to a low, given the whole rival wizard assassination game potential for collateral damage.
Aern knew it wasn’t the village doctor at their door asking for advice—as wasn’t entirely uncommon—because the village doctor didn’t smell like sulfur. They had tidied and put on a kettle any ways. They had also sealed off their tower and put away any tomes and projects that had wandered out of the tower into the rest of the cottage.
Aern opened the door and greeted their guest with, “If you do anything to my house, you will regret it.”
“Damn.”
“Your travel spell still reeks.”
Basti reluctantly stepped inside. He had been planning on at least three avenues of catching Aern unaware—the assassination game was really a deadly surprise check if you were paying attention and keeping all your various magical guards up—but quickly stashed them for maybe a future attempt on maybe not even Aern. The cottage smells like his favourite tea and the rising suspicion in him—whose baseline has kept Basti alive through many a century—keeps a light crackle under the fingertips of the hand that doesn’t accept a mug.
Despite Basti participating perhaps too eagerly in the assassination game, he and Aern had a sort of gentle actual rivalry due to the overlap in their fields of study and Basti being absolutely determined that he was an even match for Aern despite the experience gap. When Basti wasn’t caught up trying to prove he was an even match in the very lethal ways the assassination game permitted, the two of them had great discussions about theory and discovery.
It takes most of an hour for Basti to catch on to Aern’s particular predicament.
"How are you that old but still fuck up a simple bottled time spell?"
"I don't need this from you right now," Aern wheezed. They were lying on the many rugs that made the cold floor of the cottage bearable after easily deflecting everything less physical Basti had thrown at them only to be hit in the chest by Basti’s open palm and the crackling force under his fingertips.
Basti knows there are at least a dozen safeguards and security measures in the cottage that will do anything from disarm him to disassemble him if he does anything else. He’s currently fighting off the force that’s working on teleporting him far from here into the middle of a very miserable swamp. He’s doing this while he crouches next to Aern, setting his empty mug down next to their head. “Got you.”
Aern’s hand is already in place to hold the side of Basti’s face when he turns just slightly. The touch makes Basti freeze. “Nuh uh.”
In the middle of a very miserable swamp, Basti’s heart beats too hard, too fast, and too irregular. An instant ago he was sure he was about to have his entire existence rent asunder. An instant before that he’d been caught by just how nice it was to be held by Aern. The confusing mix of rivalry, deadly rivalry, and genuine peership in however Basti conceptualized Aern churned with a new addition that Basti was livid about.
On the floor of cottage, literally tired of games and of talking to people who weren’t tomes, and entirely oblivious to the source of Basti’s stomping rage in a very miserable swamp, Aern takes a nap.
When I saw this prompt, I thought “damn, I’ve kinda done that one”. There’s a text file on my computer named ‘Kitchen other timezone’ from 2016, it’s in a folder named ‘I really have to fucking organize this shit’.
Originally posted on cohost on April 1st, 2024.
~~~
There's a diminishing area of affect. The workshop is a full nineteen minutes ahead. The window of the kitchen that looks onto the path to the front door is just shy of five—this is very handy for a quick tidy and putting a kettle on whenever someone comes over. Aern had been flung through the workshop window by the initial explosion before the time fracture solidified, so they were only a minute ahead.
Everyone had been very concerned about the noise—even though there wasn't much apparent physical damage—but once Aern figured out what was wrong with themself, they had put up all the barricades and didn’t emerge from what was truly a quaint stone cottage if it weren't for the attached silo of a wizard tower until they could be handed something without dropping it and hold up a conversation without appearing to read minds. None of the tomes said a time fracture worked this way, but then it was a fracture in time.
It was all very handy whenever Aern wasn't prematurely grabbing things that weren't yet handed to them and responding to things before they were said. Aern now easily avoided the dangers of monster-filled woods and "assassination" attempts by rival wizards—a sort of game Aern had grown tired of in the last millennia. Similarly, trips to town went smoother when they could vacate a vicinity before a bothersome conversation or confrontation could even start—Aern was not the "village wizard" but they couldn't stop the village people from thinking it—they'd tried—and so there was always someone looking to ask or accuse or request something when they were in said village.
They did their best to keep village visits to a low, given the whole rival wizard assassination game potential for collateral damage.
Aern knew it wasn’t the village doctor at their door asking for advice—as wasn’t entirely uncommon—because the village doctor didn’t smell like sulfur. They had tidied and put on a kettle any ways. They had also sealed off their tower and put away any tomes and projects that had wandered out of the tower into the rest of the cottage.
Aern opened the door and greeted their guest with, “If you do anything to my house, you will regret it.”
“Damn.”
“Your travel spell still reeks.”
Basti reluctantly stepped inside. He had been planning on at least three avenues of catching Aern unaware—the assassination game was really a deadly surprise check if you were paying attention and keeping all your various magical guards up—but quickly stashed them for maybe a future attempt on maybe not even Aern. The cottage smells like his favourite tea and the rising suspicion in him—whose baseline has kept Basti alive through many a century—keeps a light crackle under the fingertips of the hand that doesn’t accept a mug.
Despite Basti participating perhaps too eagerly in the assassination game, he and Aern had a sort of gentle actual rivalry due to the overlap in their fields of study and Basti being absolutely determined that he was an even match for Aern despite the experience gap. When Basti wasn’t caught up trying to prove he was an even match in the very lethal ways the assassination game permitted, the two of them had great discussions about theory and discovery.
It takes most of an hour for Basti to catch on to Aern’s particular predicament.
"How are you that old but still fuck up a simple bottled time spell?"
"I don't need this from you right now," Aern wheezed. They were lying on the many rugs that made the cold floor of the cottage bearable after easily deflecting everything less physical Basti had thrown at them only to be hit in the chest by Basti’s open palm and the crackling force under his fingertips.
Basti knows there are at least a dozen safeguards and security measures in the cottage that will do anything from disarm him to disassemble him if he does anything else. He’s currently fighting off the force that’s working on teleporting him far from here into the middle of a very miserable swamp. He’s doing this while he crouches next to Aern, setting his empty mug down next to their head. “Got you.”
Aern’s hand is already in place to hold the side of Basti’s face when he turns just slightly. The touch makes Basti freeze. “Nuh uh.”
In the middle of a very miserable swamp, Basti’s heart beats too hard, too fast, and too irregular. An instant ago he was sure he was about to have his entire existence rent asunder. An instant before that he’d been caught by just how nice it was to be held by Aern. The confusing mix of rivalry, deadly rivalry, and genuine peership in however Basti conceptualized Aern churned with a new addition that Basti was livid about.
On the floor of cottage, literally tired of games and of talking to people who weren’t tomes, and entirely oblivious to the source of Basti’s stomping rage in a very miserable swamp, Aern takes a nap.
