Dani Strand

## Overview

```
Dragon, dragon, burning bright,
In the mountains of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Dragon, dragon, burning bright,
In the mountains of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

```

Daenys is the last of her people.

Rebelious as a teen she had rejected the rules of her society, her father had taken her, her sister and brother into exile.

Her affinity with magic, and her curiosity had her dabbling in the forbidden art of chronomancy; the study of time. And as she peered through the passage of centuries, she saw the Doom that would take Valyeria, she saw the rise of foreign empires, she saw the death of dragons. She was lost. Her family, a universe apart, scattered within the ticking of time.

She wandered so many time streams. Nothing could hold her, and she slips and wanders more. Magic grew weaker as time went on, the further she hopped, the less there was to answer her call.

Then she fell in love.

The descendent of a group she knew well, from back when she had studied under the old wooden desk and obsidian roof in her father's house. Old enemies, in a sense. The last time those two groups had gotten together had caused great destruction, and almost both their extinction.

But love cares not. He doesn't know his history, much had been lost after Valyeria's fall. She had seen it happen, walked through the rises and falls of kingdoms by time's hand.

Like ice and fire, hers is the god of Valyeria. They worshipped the dancing flames. His, is the nameless spirits of the wind, the snow and the trees.

Born a Valyerian noble, and now, a wanderer without a name, without kin, without a people to support her.

Is it any wonder she clings so desperately to what could be love? Even if it is the kings of winter who had once waged war with her people.

He is not his father, as she is not hers.

It's the same old song and dance isnt it?

They found solace in each other, kindred, when they seemed orphans of the world. They are good together. And perhaps, with time, he might even grow to love her too.

For now, she stays. For once, she lets time pass her by faster than she passes through it.

She had left her family willingly, tossed the familiarity, and the comforts of home far behind her. And now, there is nothing else she craves more. But such is the nature of youth.

Always seeking to strike out on their own, just dashing back under their parents wings when the world proves too dark. She went just a little too far, pushed a little too hard, and there was no way to return.

There was a reason chronomancy was banned

It's diffcult, to be the last of the Valyrians. Perhaps not THE last, but those who are left take care to remain low. So many lust after their power, so many *fear* their power. The dragon is in their blood. Noble or not, the fire, the taint of magic runs in their veins.

But what about the man? He is mortal.

Unlike her who bends the seconds to her will, he has a fistfull of sand and she counts every grain.

When the timestream ripples around her, she remembers but he loses sight of her, loses what they've been through. She waits for him. always waits for him to catch up as her magic pulls her into a jagged non-linear life. Sometimes meeting him for the first time again, a different time, a different lifetime ago. And she stays.

She loves him, but she is a stranger to him, and she waits for him to fall in love with her again. Even if it takes a lifetime. His or hers? What difference does that make?

She will wait forever. The only anchor keeping her in this world. To have her heart broken again as she closes her eyes next to him at night only to wake up in a strange world full of strange people, to watch him struggle, and drown in his own demons, because he doesnt know her yet does he?

Perhaps even fall just a bit off that edge, and wake up in a world where...

She can never meet him in this lifetime. Maybe she even sees him die. Those are the good worlds, the good worlds where she can at least hold him for a few moments. Sometimes she does not even have that luxury, and it's only a trading of eyes, as the time she balances perilously takes him before she can reach him.

He is mortal.

His life bound to numbered seconds, to a predestined slot of time. This was his and nothing more. She lives apart from his world, above it.

She steps through time. occasionally on purpose, largely by accident, and as she steps a bit too far through time and not enough through space, and turns back desperately, watches him call her name, and yet never hears it. Jumps towards him, but sees only an empty timeline, lost amongst millions in a vast universe.

She will find him again. But he will be different.

She doesnt know what she is to him. She knows what he is to her. Her light, her beacon, her better half. The tether that connects her to this mere mortal realm.

Where is she now?

When is she now?

They had a child together. It was a bad idea from the get go but love still burns all reason in its wake. She can lose her love over and over for eternity if she must but she cannot let her child be unborn.

It doesn't matter when she is. She had to find a way.

It took hundreds of years on her end, mere moments in his. Making a pact with a dragonic avatar, and plying the power of a goddess. Fighting decade long wars in the name of her new patrons. They gave her power in exchange for her service. the power to lift her love, and her child, beyond the chains of time. Let them walk in worlds not destined for them, no longer stuck in a loop of a mere human lifetime.

He could see now, she will no longer need to walk paths he could not follow.

The seconds that had to limited them now served their whim. They can love without fear, for they had time now.

They can build where they used only to scavenge, those stolen moments, those years, nothing but memories of a time when they had both seen, loved and lost. For they had time now.

Yet he, who used to be mortal, loved his people in a way she has never loved hers. He lives his life. And they become her people too.

Their child, as wily as their mother when she was young, yearned to stake out her own claim in this world of plenty. A daughter of giants, yet, perhaps, when one looks at the history books, it will be her they speak about.

Heir to two kingdoms, who revels in the challenge yet suffocates under the expectations, Visenya fears she would spend her whole life under her father's shadow. She feels the weight of a name and the responsibility of a crown. She has everything and yet rails against her destiny. She loves her parents, but longs to be free.

But as the only heir, she has to learn to price of rulers. These expectations were already on her long before she was born.

## Time Traveller

```
My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,

it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of "Old Battersea Bridge."
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn't hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.

Here when I say "I never want to be without you,"
somewhere else I am saying
"I never want to be without you again." And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

-- Other Lives and Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem

```

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” He said, head in his hands.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She lied.

“I know about the timelines, I know you aren’t supposed to be in this one.” He stood up to face her. “Look, I don’t know how any of your magic works --”

“We can’t have this discussion again.”

“-- you talk about things that have never happened between the two of us. You talk in your sleep about other lives. About... Visenya.” He shook his head. “This isn’t the time you were supposed to live in. You can leave. You should leave.”

“Any time where I am with you is the one where I’m supposed to be in.”

That almost kept him quiet -- almost -- but she watched as her love closed his eyes, her own occasionally glancing out the window to view the quieter city beneath them. “I can’t go. I can’t leave you like this.”

“I mean, whatever happens to me in this world won’t matter right? Does it just not exist the instant you leave?”

She shook her head. “I've never gone back to check. I assume they do, that they simply continue.”

She watched him carefully. He seemed like he calmed down, at least. She will take the little victories when she can. He blinked back in return, slowly moving his hands until he’s holding hers.

“Whatever happens--” He begins, voice strangely stead. “I... Whatever happens in all your timelines, I just want to let you know that... You almost had me, but this one was never going to work.”

“What--”

“I needed you. And I’m glad I had you, but I need you to keep going. I’m not gonna let you stay here like this.”

Before she can respond, he grips her hands, hard enough that they ache, and runs out the window. Theoretically, she could stop him, she could save what’s left keeping her in this broken world, but it isn’t worth it.

She leaves this timeline before his body can even hit the ground.

Out of curiosity, she tries to jump back, hands still trembling in shock. She sees an empty timeline -- forgotten amongst millions in an unforgiving universe.

In the middle of the cosmos, between dimensions, she cries.