Before you can prepare for the future, you must release the past. Likewise, to fully acknowledge the past, you must set aside expectations for the future. This is the paradox of Solaria. The moment, eternal, unknowable, constantly stretched between what was and what will be.


    <hr>


    "So, Eythron wanted us to let things play out as they would without interference this time around. I don''t know who all—"


    "That would be you," Qahrvirna interrupted. "You''re the largest out of place factor."


    "I don’t see why. He has no reason to assume anything about me one way or another."


    "But you would be attracting attention with all your fancy titles. And as the heiress''s companion."


    "Companion is it?" Lilin sidled up closer with a sappy grin. "Finally admitted what''s been obvious to everyone else for years?"


    "You only met me a month ago," Raina protested.


    "Years!" Lilin danced away grinning.


    "Maybe keep her with you," Qahrvirna said low, giving an eyebrow raise in Lilin''s direction. "Controlled chaos can handle this. We don''t need interference."


    "So you want me and Lilin to go off to somewhere else and just hope that things don''t go terribly wrong?"


    "You can check in."


    "I want to see."


    "Then come back next time," Eythron grumbled. "I''ll keep an eye on everything."


    Jair nodded, but he was mentally deep into planning. Perhaps this would be for the best. Let Lilin loose on some other noble''s party and let her have her fun there, then he could double back and lurk about the oasis. Keep an eye on things without being officially part of the group. As long as Sekir didn''t have any reason to notice Jair''s existence, then there would be no change of his plans.


    "You alright with playing noble on your own for a bit?" he asked Lilin.


    She batted her eyelashes at him and waved a fake fan in front of her face.


    "Yep, that’s good enough for me. Go ahead and pick out your outfit for today."


    Lilin needed no second invitation and rushed over to the storage cave.


    "And don’t worry, as soon as we''re done with Sekir, we''ll get you into a good healer apprenticeship."


    She called back, voice muffled slightly, "Oh, Qahri said she could teach me."


    "Qahrvirna? Teach you healing?"


    "Alchemical medicine. Which is better because it doesn''t rely on magic. We can figure out manabody and imprints and all that magic stuff any time.”


    "Eythron can help you with that too."


    Eythron stuck his head around the corner to glower at him.


    "What, you''re great with alchemy!"


    "I am not a teacher. I have more important things to do with my time than help children learn their homework."


    "She wants to be a healer, that''s a bit different."


    "Then find a proper healer to apprentice to." Eythron snorted, then pulled his head back out of sight.


    "Qahri isn''t improper!” Lilin protested. She emerged wearing a soft pink floor-length gown. “She''s been showing me how to discern and distill the different essences, and how they should be combined for best effect."


    "Is that what you two have been up to all this time?"


    "Yeah."


    "And here I was worried she''d be inducting you into some creepy vampiric rituals behind my back."


    Qahrvirna laughed uproariously.


    Lilin bit at her lip and looked away.


    "Whatever makes you happy, Lil. I mean it. If that means becoming a vampire, I''ll still support you."


    "I don''t think that''ll be part of the plan."


    "Good. Vampires creep me out."


    "Even Qahri?"


    "Especially Qahri. Though she is a very good kisser. In case you ever need lessons."


    Lilin snorted, shaking with unsuppressed laughter. "That''s... not something I''d ever have expected you to say."


    "Well, I thrive on being unexpected, don''t I?"


    "Always have," she agreed. “Though I’d have expected an unusual historical fact rather than… this.”


    “Qahrvirna is definitely an unusual historical fact.”


    That made Lilin burst into another flurry of giggles.


    “Time to get this started, shall we?”


    She nodded and grabbed her hat, and when she turned back around it was with a pure joyfulness that made him smile in response. “Let’s go crash some noble parties while we wait for the crazy sorcerer to wreak violent chaos.”


    “Yep. There’s my Lil. Chaos creature under all the fluff.”


    She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m the soul of purity and decorum, good sir! You slander my good name with your talk of chaos and beasts!”


    “I never said beast. That’s allll you.”


    <hr>


    Solaria morning dawned bright and pink, just like the first time. Raina, Eythron, and Qahrvirna were already in place at the Serin party in the oasis. Jair watched for a few minutes from the roof of the gathering hall, then darkflamed himself back to Mount Ryenzo.


    Home? Meliarn whispered, tugging at him midway, and he ignored it.


    Lilin waited, lounging on the oversized furniture with a book while they waited. For their event, they’d be delaying departure a bit longer. Neither of them particularly wanted to be there for the boring part with listing out the previous year’s accomplishments, especially since it would be all strangers.


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    “Ready?”


    Lilin closed her book and stood. Jair held out Maelstrom for her and they arrived just as everyone moved inside to the freely mixing and gossipping portion of the event.


    Perfect.


    Today’s venue was a Parein townhouse, complete with balconies on each of the five floors and a double-height ballroom in the center.


    “Alright, here I go! Wish me luck.”


    She didn’t wait for him to do so but walked into the crowd with the confident stride of someone heading to market with a dunetrout over her shoulder, completely ignoring the way those around her reacted.


    Her pink gown for today and its matching sun-hat were delightfully out of place in Parein, where white and lace with earth-tone accents were the style, and she didn''t try to blend in at all.


    Even then, it wasn’t until an hour into the event that anyone bothered to check for his invitation. Unfortunately, that meant he had to be announced and have half the attendees staring at him.


    The party wasn''t one of the main ones that he anticipated creating potential alliances at—though now that Sekir was operating openly, he wasn''t sure if he needed to worry about Veor''s political scene at all.


    There were ways to influence the flow and sway of the elite, but when he could just walk directly into the king''s office and give the man a list of suggestions, the power of the councils was only minorly relevant. The king''s personal faction had enough strength to push through most things, and if Jair tried to build up his own it would take time.


    So while his original plan for Solaria was to test out alliances and prepare politically for what would be coming in a few years, Sekir stepping out into the open made it all something of an insignificant undertaking.


    Which meant it was a chance for him to sit back, sip expensive cocktails, and watch as Lilin traipsed her way into noble society with all the subtlety of a sandshark in a canyon.


    He alternated between lurking on the Serin event hall back at the oasis and lounging about in the Parein party as people came and went.


    So far, nothing of note had happened in either location. The Serin courtyard had emptied for the morning and staff were occasionally popping out to move something or drop things off, but it was largely unused. Most of the times Jair popped in no one was outdoors at all.


    Lilin was making enemies like a pro, but they were all doing their subtle undercutting noble games rather than anything overt enough for her to notice. Jair wasn’t sure which was more amusing: the fact that Lilin simply had no idea what they were doing, or how furious it made them that she accidentally blundered out of their traps time and again.


    It was almost enough for him to think she was doing it on purpose. But that couldn’t be the case. She’d never been in such society before, so had no way of knowing. Sheer glorious beginner’s luck.


    Eythron and Qahrvirna had integrated into Ajriol''s party flawlessly, and it was only sheer luck that Jair caught a glimpse of the intruder as he slipped in during one of his check-ins midway through the morning.


    He stiffened immediately and went very still. There was no mistaking that silhouette. It was definitely Sekir. Tall, slender, nondescript build and unexceptional robes, he looked like one more traveler. But Jair would recognize that face anywhere.


    Purple light shone from his eyes, his soulspell of unknown definition. Purple generally implied a physical change to the soulspell’s user, but whether that was how he appeared in different guises or if it had some other purpose, Jair had never been able to convincingly test. Sekir was far too slippery and behaved so unpredictably.


    Jair slowly dropped to lie flat on the roof, but the man below didn''t glance up. Sekir’s full attention was devoted to breaking the lock on the back kitchen hall window.


    Jair crept over to the edge and peered down at him. He''d never been easy to pin down but Jair had been right in the party the first time around and never caught a glimpse of him. This was one of the forms he knew, so even a hint of his presence would have been enough for Jair to verify who it was.


    Did he have some kind of invisibility power, perhaps? Why wouldn’t he be using it if so? Too much about Sekir’s capabilities remained confounding. As did his motives and behavior.


    Instead of climbing through the opening once he had it open, Sekir only tested the window, then closed it again and crouched down to circle around the house further.


    Jair crawled slowly after him above, silently observing from the roof without being seen.


    Sekir opened three other windows at various places, including scrambling up a pile of stacked stone with an absolute lack of dignity or decorum to reach one on the second story, before finishing up at a side door which he wedged very slightly open with a thin piece of metal.


    Jair followed his progress the whole way but there was no clear objective in the chosen windows. Once he''d unlocked all four of them, Sekir turned around and walked silently back out into the desert without looking back once.


    Jair frowned at this display. He continued watching until it was undeniable that Sekir was leaving, then returned to the balcony party in Parein to check on Lilin.


    Lilin was doing about as well as could be expected from someone who had no experience with nobles until today, talking her way through every group she could get her hands on.


    She’d finished up with the initial blundering and was actually making friends now. She wasn''t nearly as shy about approaching people as Jair had been when he was first looping.


    At this rate she might end up becoming an even better political manipulator than him. He always had a certain gruff overbearingness about him these days, as a result of his years of fighting and... everything. But she was young, female, innocent-looking. Even if she wasn''t nearly as experienced and would never be able to truly catch up to him, he could already see her becoming a major asset to any future schemes they needed to pull off.


    If only he''d had her the first times around. He might never have lost his mind or shattered himself over and over, if he didn''t have to be alone.


    But back in those days, when he was doing what she was now, when he was first fumbling his way through interactions so far beyond him that they shouldn''t even be in the same room let alone the same conversation, he''d been just as oblivious as any sandfisher boy suddenly thrust into a society he was unfamiliar with.


    And he''d been angry. Grieving. Angry. Very angry. It didn''t help at all that the nobles were the epitome of everything he''d always hated about Veor. The elitism, the controlling nature, the dismissive attitude.


    Even when he worked his hardest to integrate into their groups, to play by their games in their societies, they still considered him lesser. Always second class. Never a true equal.


    It had taken until this set of loops, until he had Maelstrom and sheer overwhelming power, before they''d even begun to respect him. Sure, they''d used him in the past. Would allow him to sit at their tables and talk with their children. But they never really considered him as a player. Just a particularly interesting piece.


    Well. Now he was so far beyond their games that they were the irrelevant ones.


    Jair smiled to himself as he watched Lilin blundering through the interactions, making friends, enemies, starting feuds obliviously, and gathering a group of followers who''d be far more committed to her than she could currently imagine.


    She''d be fine.


    He left the party again, returning to the Serin section of Veshin Oasis.


    Sekir was further away by now, in the minutes Jair had been away the man had continued walking. He was skirting the edge of the oasis toward the Berris holding.


    Berris, a smaller house, didn''t have a full oasis presence like Veshin or Serin, only a handful of out buildings and a single curing warehouse for its own private creations. Specialty pickling was their business, one of relatively high repute, but why would Sekir be going there? What use did he have for pickled sandtrout or preserved starfigs?


    Jair followed at a safe distance, hovering on Maelstrom rather than leave footprints or raise a dust cloud, crouched low to avoid presenting a clear silhouette.


    Sekir walked straight into the first building in the cluster, and didn''t emerge for hours. Jair checked back on Lilin several times, and on the Serin courtyard, but there was no sign of any disruption.


    Noon approached without incident. The afternoon began to draw on, and Jair wondered if they''d disrupted the timeline too much for anything to happen.


    Then the door re-opened and an older man emerged. Shorter, a bit on the hefty side, with dark hair greying at the edges and a well-trimmed beard. He was wearing standard white robes with only a single red triangle over one shoulder. It had something written in it, but Jair couldn''t read it from here.


    He might have doubted who it was, but the irregular flicker of purple light from his eyes was a dead giveaway. Sekir wasn''t the only person with a purple soulspell, certainly, but the coincidence of someone else coming out of the same building he''d gone into? Especially when he was known for changing his appearance? Incalculable. Jair had no doubts as to who this was.


    Sekir-version-2 moved with a sort of hasty bustle, more like a lackey with orders to carry out than the self-confident stride of the previous version. Jair waited until he was out of sight back toward the Serin side of the oasis before breaking into the building.


    House Berris was ostensibly using this place for the preservation of perishable foods, but that wasn''t the sort of thing Sekir would need.


    The ground floor was empty, just a reception area without an attendant, and several record spools for contract details. Jair ran a hand across a few of them just to check the sort of people House Berris was contracting with, but they were all fully ordinary Veori merchants and fellow noble houses.


    So what was Sekir doing in here for so long?


    <hr>