[quote=@Tatterdemalion]
[b]Adila![/b]

One of the clocks begins to chime. One, two, three, sharp silvery tones. For a moment, it's the only sound in the whole world. Everyone stops breathing, the dust stops settling, even the night wind stills. Then the hymn begins. Not an Igniter hymn; this is the sound of Palatine piety, rising from nearby roofs, from windows, as one of the new clocks (peeking out from under a budding branch) sings its song. Four, five, six.

The song rises from throats like tongues of fire. Do you join them, Adila? Seven, eight, nine. Each of the old clocks is gone. This new tree of time... it is the ship, each part changed, but still the same. It is the turning point of time. And despite this, despite the overturning of prophecy, the wiping clean of the slate... has the great work changed at all?

That's for you to decide, as it is for everyone in the Bazaar.[/quote]

Time is broken here. That's what this is. That's what this has to be. How else could she see the past and the future both so clearly from where she stands? 

She can't find it in her to sing, can't remember the words in time. She's captivated like she's standing at the intersection of two waterfalls. And in that moment she - to her shame - experiences the kind of sudden, shocking enlightenment about the nature of time that the Igniters claim as the core of their beliefs.

Perspectives aren't linear. Minds aren't linear. Thoughts aren't linear. The future can reach back to the past's wisdom to make sense of its new insanity. The past can be bound to visions of the future, dragging it with the strength of destiny. She has days when she feels ancient and wise, and she has days when she feels as new and fearful as a hatchling. She has days when she wants to take refuge in the past and days when she can't wait for the future. 

And with that insight, her magic ignites within her. Now she's an adolescent - powerful and fast, but in the same kind of size and scale that humans are powerful and fast. Now she's a hatchling, stealthy and playful and the right size to catch cats who have committed cat-crimes. Now as she is now, mighty and vigilant, ready to defend her friends against any sort of darkness. She'd loved each time in her life, and she'd felt incomplete in each part - torn between future and past, the friendships and deeds she'd thought she'd had to leave behind and those she couldn't do yet. But now she recreated herself in tripartite and by acknowledging her own different selves her mind finally felt whole.

The Time Dragon blurred between shapes, one to the next, and then in three voices raised her voice to join in with the final chorus of the song.

[Advance: [b]Unusual Upbringing[/b], to provide [b]Lived in a Shoe[/b] from the Halfling. Adila can change her size at will]