I love a scifi series called the Hyperion Cantos that has a supernatural creature called the Shrike that impales people on a “time tree” to steal their Entropy. It’s not at all adorable though.
(major death of the author tho, and the 3rd/4th book get pretty problematic)
Kind of? I think it mostly lives outside of time iirc, but it’s been some…time, since I digested it all. It definitely originated in the future though, you find out in the Endymion books.