Floating Like Clouds at Dawn
Damn. It looks gruesome.
Here’s the woman. Not just any woman, of course, but the one who trapped him in his time-travel woes. Congratulations, Burn.
She was now rendered limbless in a bid to keep her from her usual party trick, killing herself and sending him back to square one.
“Huhuhu…”
Burn's laughter began as a low rumble. To compare, it was akin to a dormant volcano waking from a long slumber. His deep voice that was usually reserved for commands and threats, echoing off the battlefield in sinister chuckles.
“Huhuh heh, hahaha…”
As it grew, they started to cascade into a laugh so rich and unrestrained it bordered on the unhinged.
“...ahahaHAHAHAHAHAH!”
Burn threw his head back as his laughter spiraled into hysteria. His shoulders shook with each bellow of mirth. This was triumph.
“HAHAHAHA!”
There he was, the mighty emperor, reduced to a figure of manic joy. In this moment, Burn was laughing at both his capture of the woman and at the joke that had become his life.
Ah, what a sight they made. Another twisted rendition of 'Beauty and the Beast'? Yes, if the Beast's curse involved a sisyphean situation of time loop and the Beauty couldn't run away because, well, someone chopped her up into parts to ensure she couldn't make a ‘quick exit’.
Or any exit, for that matter.
It wasn’t like she wouldn’t die. She would.
Just… it would be Burn who would dictate her life or death now.
Before him, the woman lay on the ground against the charred battlefield. Her condition now was proof that Burn was resolved enough to halt this frustrating cycle.
Breathing heavily, horrid shock was painted on her features. All the while Burn approached, triumphant yet solemn.
"You failed to call my full name and kill yourself," he remarked, weighty. This should finally be the end to their endless dance through time. In his hand was a spare blade, catching the light of the dying day.
“Why?” Burn asked. “Why did you do this to me?”
The woman, despite her dire state, looked up at Burn. Her gaze held an unfathomable depth. But as he declared the end of their shared torment in his mind, a subtle smile graced her features—
She had no intention of answering, no. Burn saw the sign that she was going to bite off her own tongue to commit suicide!
“I won’t let you!”
STAB!
Burn wedged his blade between her jaws, staring deep into her eyes.
“Now, die.”
***
BLINK!
Chirp…! Chirp chirp…
Rustle…
KNOCK-KNOCK!
The door to his room was opened, and a man he knew as his closest aide entered.
“Your Majesty, the preparation for the war is complete.”
Burn didn’t even feel like getting out of his bed.
Ahh, what a peaceful start to the day. Beautiful morning sky, birds chirping, singing a song he knew all too well. Yet, this calm was not just the morning's gift, but the quiet after the storm of enlightenment.
He had been thrust back into the past once again.
Yes. Yes. Blah, blah, blyat.
Confusion clouded his mind. Wasn’t the ritual supposed to be incomplete? The woman hadn’t managed to utter his full name, hadn’t managed to kill herself. He killed her. So, what twisted strand of fate had flung him back to this point in time?
Questions spiraled in his mind as he lay there. The loop still persisted…
Why did the cycle decide to continue to ensnare him? What piece of the puzzle was he missing?
“Fu—”
“Your Majesty…? Are you alright?”
“Shut up, Galahad.”
This would be the fourth loop. Huh? Was it? If the original timeline was counted, then, this would be his fifth time having to redo the war.
"Hand me a sketchbook and some charcoal. Inform someone to ready a canvas and a set of oil paints for tomorrow. Summon our strategist and the intelligence bureau. We will commence the war in three days."
Burn’s order was fast, and as usual, effective and meticulous. His deep voice didn’t lose its freezing point.
Galahad, initially baffled by Burn’s list of requests, was quick on his feet. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
In the end, Burn didn’t completely waste two to three years of his last loop. The moment he got his hands on the sketchbook and charcoal, he started drawing her face.
Three years of relentless, realistic drawing practice had transformed him. Who would have thought? Burn, who was worse than a nine-year-old doodler just two chapters ago, and also, the man famed for his martial prowess, had emerged as the century's unsung genius in the arts.
It was apparently hand-eye coordination, mostly.
Nope, don’t take that on me, artists. That’s what he said. Ask him. Beat him up. Sorry, the author said he just needed three years to do well enough in art. It’s plot armor, I know. But, how do I say this… of course he can! He’s ya b—
Yes. I’ll stop that. Sorry.
As he sketched the woman's face, every stroke of charcoal was a stroke of master. I’m praising you. Don't stare at me. Ahem. The liiiines flowed under his commandddd, meticulously capturing the essssssence of her beauty.
OW! Fu—fine. Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.
Shading her eyes with precision, finding himself playing in the realms of shadow and light, he only drew her face from memory for all those years.
Her lips, oh, how he labored over them, ensuring the curve was just right. Heh. What a cruel mimicry of her smile that haunted his sleep.
But let's not forget the eyebrows, sketched with an arch that suggested surprise or perhaps perpetual bemusement at the turn of events.
"Floating like clouds at dawn," the narrator remembered how he'd insist, though anyone with a sense of aesthetics might question his metaphorical accuracy.
In the end, as Burn leaned back to admire his work, one could almost detect a hint of pride. A scoff escaped him.
“This time, witch, let’s talk. I really won’t let you die before you talk,” he whispered.
“But how would I get you to speak?”
***
In this loop, Burn had a plan.
Here was the grand strategy session of Emperor Burn, where ambition, wit, and strength led to an underwhelming lack of success so far. But hey, it was not like he could succeed on the first try every time.
He was armed with the foreknowledge of three years times five to the future. So he decided it was high time to put his imperial resources to good use.
Burn mobilized his intelligence bureau and the information-selling guilds, organizations that thrived on secrets like plants do on sunlight, except these plants were growing in the shade of his impatience.
His instructions were as clear as the perplexed looks on his aides’ faces, “Find the woman.”
He had her painting he made with his own two hands now.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into a montage of fruitless efforts, Burn’s confidence waned.
The information network, with all its spies, contacts, and dubious allies, could have found a needle in a haystack… but apparently not a mysterious woman in a realm they knew like the back of their hands.
“Perhaps she’s a ghost,” suggested one informant.
“Or maybe she exists in dimensions our feeble minds can’t comprehend,” mused another, pointing to the sky and likely talking about the invaders. “In this age, anything is possible, right?”
Disappointment was an understatement for what Burn felt. It was also like this in his previous life.
Fine, if finding her was akin to grasping smoke, he’d just make sure to catch her when she appears and... creatively discourage any self-destructive tendencies.
Alright, ready, folks?
Time skip time~
Off with another three years!
Here we go, we’re back. In the aftermath of the Wintersin Empire's spectacular fall, now less an empire and more a cautionary tale about challenging Emperor Burn, he found himself amidst the ruins.
To lay an ambush.
As the dust settled, literally and metaphorically speaking, Burn had chosen this apocalyptic backdrop for a rendezvous with destiny.
Or, more accurately, a rendezvous with her.
TAP!
There!
True to the script, she appeared.
Her timing was as impeccable as ever, unmistakable, and her intention to plunge into the grand finale of self-destruction clear. However, Burn wasn't in the audience for another rerun of this tragedy.
"I've had enough of this nonsense," Burn unleashed his surprise—
Thousands of magic scrolls that would make every magic librarian weep unfurled. And what were these? These were the magical equivalent of industrial-strength zip ties.
“BIND!”
As the scrolls tore through the air like aggressive party streamers, they bound the woman with magical chains that not even a master escapist could wiggle out of.
“AH!”
Her eyes.
Her eyes met him like that again.
Oh, how beautiful.
“My witch.”
Burn grinned wide.
There, his ethereal beauty. With hair as golden as the first light of dawn, cascading down her shoulders in a tumultuous waterfall of sunbeams, she seemed like a creature born from the very essence of light.
The scorching light burning him in his dreams and nightmares alike.
Her pools of bluest blue, held the depth of oceans and the serenity of the sky on a storm-lit summer day. How… even bound by magic, she appeared more an unwilling goddess than a prisoner? Her elegance undiminished, her posture regal, even in chains?
But, oh, the performance had only just begun. She smiled—a curve that promised the unraveling of carefully laid plans.
It seemed like she merely found the whole situation amusing.
