Wonderful art by  SineAlas

Here's a short story I wrote for this piece too:

I loved the way the city’s bright neon lights reflected off my silver scales.
This was a fun era in history. Magic had not propagated throughout creation yet, and humans were the only sapient life form in the entire universe. Time travelers exempted, of course.
The year was 2078 AD. I could visit this time period without masking my dragon shape since humans had started augmenting themselves in various fashions, including with animalistic implants. Cities of this era felt old yet new, full of life in a world that didn’t know what the future would bring.
It could also be dangerous if one didn’t watch where they walked. However, often the most entertaining parts of the city were also close to the dangerous parts, and I wandered a little too far from the main road.
“Boss, look at that exotic!”
I turned my head and saw three men off a side street I had wandered into.
“Look at those scales. He must be fucking loaded!”
I sighed as they approached and didn’t make any sudden moves. The group’s leader stepped forward and grinned at me. “Hand over your cash and cards, and nobody gets hurt.”
I reached into my pant pockets and pulled them out. “Don’t have any,” I said.
“There’s no damn way,” one of the men said. “He looks like a million bucks! Like a real ass dragon!”
The leader rolled his eyes at me. “Look buddy, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Give up your goods or we’ll pull whatever pricy implants you got from your corpse.”
On cue, the three men pulled out their guns.
I did say the city could be dangerous. Dangerous for fools. I was armed with magic.
But these ancient humans didn’t know that. I held my palm out against them as if in a martial arts stance. “You should turn around and leave.”
The confidence with which I spoke seemed to deter the other two and they took a step back, but the leader didn’t back down. “What, you gonna use kung fu on us? Very funny. Just give us what we want and you can walk away.”
That got a chuckle out of the other two and they reasserted themselves. Three guns held their aim firm upon me.
“Last chance,” I said. “Leave.”
Gunfire was their response.
I waited until their mags were empty. I didn’t even need to consciously stop the bullets. I had passive spells woven into my scales which would have stopped them before they touched me, but I made a show of it with my palm out, stopping them in time. While they were shooting, I prepared another spell that I fired off as soon as they were done.
“What the fuck?” one of the thugs said, his eyes in awe at the floating bullets in front of me.
“I can’t move!” the other one said.
The leader just stared at me, analyzing the situation.
The next few seconds were quiet as I stepped in front of the mass of frozen bullets.
“Okay, you have some skill,” the leader said. “What now?”
I held my hand out and summoned a small clear tablet-like device. “You recognize what this is, yes? A palantir from the evil civilian-stalking megacorp of the same name. It looks a little different from what you’re used to because it’s from twenty years in the future.”
The gangleader glared at the device while his buddies scoffed.
“What, you saying you’re from the future?” one of them said.
“Bullshit,” the other added.
I ignored them and spoke directly to their leader. “Name's Cel, nice to meet you. I am indeed from the future. I can’t break the laws of time, but I know how to play within the rules very well. This palantir knows all of your fates as recorded by history.”
All three of them widened their eyes when they noticed I had spun their bullets around to point back at them.
I held the palantir in front of the first lackey and read off the words floating on the transparent screen. “Richard Delaney. Born August 17th, 2053. Died March 9th, 2078 from gang violence.”
Richard’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he realized that was today. With a small effort of will, I let the bullets on his side resume their trajectory. He grunted as he tried to escape my paralysis spell, but fell silent. I released him from my spell and he fell with a solid final thud.
I stepped around to the other lackey. “Brian Foster. Born July 24th, 2056. Died March 9th, 2078 from gang violence.”
Unlike Richard, he wailed and cried and begged for mercy.
I glared daggers at him. “And how much mercy did you give to your victims?” I flashed the palantir’s screen at him and showed him a list of photos of murdered people detectives had linked to him in the future. “What mercy did you give to them?”
He tried to stammer something out, and I let his own bullets speak for him.
Then I turned my attention to the leader. “Cain Ledger. Born December 10th, 2045. Married with two kids. Fell on hard times, eh?”
“What’s it to you?” he answered, his eyes seemingly still analyzing the situation.
I released the rest of the bullets.
He blinked.
I gave him a disgusted look. “You don’t die today.”
He tried to look down at his paralyzed body to confirm he was unscathed. “I must be lucky then.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I said. I waved my hand at him as if in farewell. “Good luck.”
He disappeared in a flash as I sent him 15 years into the future. My hands were tied by the laws of time. I had read his fate and couldn’t override it now.
I didn’t have to wait to see justice dispensed though. I snapped my fingers and teleported into the future too.

---

A disheveled man entered a convenience store and frantically spoke to the clerk. “Please,” he pleaded. “My phone has no service. I need to find my family.”
The clerk looked at the man’s phone in disbelief. “Whoa, I haven’t seen a phone like that in almost two decades!”
“Please man, can I borrow your phone, or buy a prepaid one or something?”
“Yeah sure, down that aisle.”
Cain shuffled his way to the aisle the clerk pointed out and picked out a phone. He went back to the clerk and was luckily able to pay with cash he had as his cards and crypto didn’t work.
He went outside into the night. The city was bustling, but he found a quiet street to make his calls.
First, his wife. No answer.
Next, his son. No answer.
Then, his daughter.
“Dad? Is that you? That’s your voice? This isn’t some sick AI joke is it?”
“Yes Diane, it’s me. Please, where are you? I need to find you, or mom, or Charlie, or anyone.”
“Turn on your video. I need to see that it’s actually you.”
Cain frantically fiddled with the phone until he found the video call function. “It’s me,” he said, exasperated and stunned at the image of a grown woman. There was no doubt she was his daughter though. She still had her mother’s eyes despite her now adult face.
The woman on the screen let out a small gasp and then narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t aged a day. Where have you been?”
“I—I don’t know,” he replied. What could he say? That he’d somehow time traveled? In a snap decision he continued, “I think I was in a coma.”
Diane’s face seemed to process through a spectrum of emotions. It eventually settled on mild anger. “I don’t know if I can believe you.”
Cain softened his voice as much as he could, speaking to her as if she was a little girl again. “Sweetie, please, I need to see you. Where are you? Where’s your mom and your brother?”
Her face didn’t soften. “Dad. I need to know first. Were you involved with any gang activity before you…fell into a coma?”
The question struck him but he stammered out a reply. “N-no, of course not.”
Her eyes became like daggers, and Cain could feel her gaze piercing through his lie. “Mom and Charlie are dead.”
Silence ruled for a while.
Her anger changed to sadness and she sighed. “Our house was robbed and they were killed. I wasn’t home at the time. The detective said it seemed like a targeted gang attack, and that you disappearing a few weeks earlier wasn’t a coincidence.”
“I—no, how, no, I, I was trying to keep us happy. It can’t be possible.”
She remained stern. “Were you involved in any gang activity, dad?”
Cain had started sniffling. “Sweetie, please, let me see you and we can talk about this.”
The anger returned to her face. “I can’t. I’ve been under protective services since the robbery. Fifteen years, dad. I’ve had to live in secrecy since then while you were who the hell knows where.”
“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.
“Sorry won’t bring them back.” She sighed and started typing on her phone.
Cain saw the message pop up above her and wiped his eyes. “What’s this, an address?”
“Go visit their graves, dad. Don’t call me back until you’re ready to face the truth.”
She ended the call and left him alone to his thoughts.
A few minutes passed, and he leaned against a cold wall. The neon lights of the city bleeding in from out of the small street provided no warmth for his soul.
“Please,” he cried out to the dark sky, “let me go back. I can protect them.” When his pleas went unanswered, he fell onto his knees as tears flooded his vision.
On the balcony of a hotel across the street, Cel stood solemnly. The time dragon watched the man break down and read his tablet device one more time to himself.
“Cain Ledger. Disappeared in March 2078. Reappeared June 2093 psychotic and claiming he had time traveled 15 years into the future. Died September 5th, 2093 from suicide.”