#AtoZChallenge: The Princess and the Time-Travelling Teaspoon

There was a teaspoon on her dresser. She didn’t know why. Or where it came from. Had it been there yesterday? She thought hard, scrunching up her face, but couldn’t recall. She picked it up and scrutinised it. It didn’t look familiar. At all. It wasn’t the usual type her mother favoured when buying cutlery—too ornate, too heavy, too… silver looking? But it was just a teaspoon. Probably some kind of prank. She put it back down and forgot about it.
Three days later, the same teaspoon showed up beside her teacup. Which was normal, probably. That’s what teaspoons were for, wasn’t it? It looked like the same teaspoon. There was that same pretty design… which had her initials on it? She ran her thumb over the engraving.
TSP.
Tanya Sofia Petrina.
There was a number beside it. 2037.
She put the teaspoon down on the saucer and sipped at her tea.
“That’s the year I was made,” a voice said softly.
She looked down at the table. Princess Tanya picked up the teaspoon again.
“Impossible. It’s only 2017 now.”
“Nothing is impossible.” The teaspoon fell silent as she stirred her tea.

~

“Why do you want to go back?”
“To make sure the timeline is secure.”
“What if you change something?”
“I won’t.”
“How sure are you?”
“Because I was already there, wasn’t I? You remember me. From before.”
Queen Tanya’s assent dropped from her lips reluctantly.

~

“You were made in 2037. When I am 36. And Queen.”
“Yes.”
Princess Tanya paced her room. “What message do you bring?”
“Message?”
“There’s always a message. Something the future wants the past to remember.”
“I have no message.”
“I’m crazy. I’m talking to a teaspoon from the future.”
“You’re not. I’m real.”
“Why are you a teaspoon? And not a robot or something?”
There was a long pause before it answered. “The tech was small enough. And Timmy thought it would be humorous. Besides being functional.”
“Humorous?”
“A play on your name and all that.”
“Timmy made you? Stupid stare-in-space Timmy?”
Another long pause. “Yes. Another thing that changes in the future.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t show me to him.”
“What do I do with you?”
The Princess stared at the teaspoon. The teaspoon didn’t stare back due to its lack of eyes. Time ticked by.

~

“What do I do?”
“You insist on going back but you don’t know what to do?”
“You’re the one with the memories. It’s your past but my future.”
“What if what I tell you messes up the integrity of the timeline?”
“Just tell me what to avoid.”
“Timothy should never have made you.”
“If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be Queen.”
Another grudging assent.

~

“I don’t know.”
“You… don’t know.” Princess Tanya’s voice was flat. “You’re from the future.”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“She—future me?”
“It would mess up the timeline if I went in knowingly. She claimed. I’m just a teaspoon. I wouldn’t know.”
“What did Timmy say.”
“Timmy is dead in my time. I didn’t get to ask.”
Princess Tanya stirred her tea.
“Tanya! You have to run!”
Princess Tanya looked up at the young man who barged into her room, panting.
“Move, Tanya. They’re coming.”
“Who?”
“Rebels.”
She stared at him. Timmy is dead in my time, echoed in her ears. But Timmy lives until at least 2037. She followed him.

~

“I miss him.”
The Teaspoon was quiet.
“I’ve been Queen for thirty years. Because of him.”
“You’ve grieved him for five.”
“It’s not long enough.”
“I miss him too.”
“You’re a teaspoon.”
“I’m still sentient.”
She releases her grip on the teaspoon. “Go.”

~

They ran through corridors, crawled through vents and climbed over walls, making it out of the palace as the sounds of shouting built up.
“Where to?” Princess Tanya asked, leaning over to catch her breath.
“There’s a safe place in the mountains. We can lie low for a while.”
“Let’s go.”
He gave her a funny look. “All that running and you smuggled out a teaspoon? Really?”
She stuffed the teaspoon in her pocket without looking. “It’s… nothing.”
Gunshots in the distance spurred them on.
When Tanya next looked, the teaspoon was gone.

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Head over to Yuin-Y's for today's illustration.