The first thing you need to know as a newcomer to darkmoon smuggling is how to perform a vampire check. They tend to hide inconspicuously among the goods, invisible to all but soulsight, but being harmless in their stowaway form does not mean they’re any less of a threat to your livelihood.


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    "Have you ever thought about what we could do once we''ve finished saving the world?" Raina lay with her hands behind her head, watching the swaying of branches overhead. She was a mess, the sweat and blood of their recent battle stiffening her clothes and matting her hair, but that didn''t bother either of them.


    Jair sat against the trunk of a nearby tree, smiling at nothing in particular. "Of course I have. I''m sure I have. Why wouldn''t I have?"


    She leaned up on one elbow and squinted over at him. "You haven''t?"


    "I have. I may not remember it very well. Or at all. But I certainly have."


    "You don''t remember?"


    "I don''t remember most of what I''ve experienced. Probably for the best. I''m sure I''m mad enough with just this much."


    "Is mad the right word for it?"


    Jair laughed madly. "You have another word for it?"


    Raina smiled and lay back, shaking her head as her eyes returned to the sky. "Nah. Why bother putting labels on it? You''ve been through enough without adding preconceptions to the pile. The question isn''t about your sanity or lack thereof, anyway."


    Jair snorted. "I don''t think sanity is a scale I even recognize at this point."


    "Exactly. So, what do you envision us doing after the end of the war?"


    "Whatever you want."


    "Whatever I want. You don''t realize how sad that sounds?"


    "Sad? It''s all I''ve been fighting for all this time. Why would it be sad to finally enjoy the freedom once we''ve destroyed our enemies and can relax?"


    "Do you even know what you want any more?"


    "I want you to be safe," he answered without thought or pause. "I want a world where Lilin doesn''t have to disappear. Where you can both be happy. Where lunar vampires aren''t going to slaughter whole continents of innocents."


    "Exactly. That''s the start point. But what comes after?"


    Jair shook his head. "If I knew that, wouldn''t it lose a bit of its magic? It''s not like I have a checklist of what you should do with your lives once they''re free to be lived without the looming threat of destruction."


    Raina huffed softly and shifted her gaze to the dead monster at the edge of the clearing. "You don''t know what you want. Being our perpetual bodyguard isn''t a life, that''s an occupation. Not a passion."


    "I''m pretty passionate about it. You think I''d have been able to go on this long if I wasn''t?"


    "What do you do for fun?" Raina pressed. "When you''re not pushing yourself through chaos scenario after chaos scenario?"


    Jair paused before answering, thinking it over. "Debating with Eythron, talking with you, training. Terlunia was fun, right?"


    "You have to ask?" Raina giggled. "And what happens when you''re strong enough that nothing can threaten you, nothing can get past you, we''re completely immune to anything but old age, and the seascourge themselves are gone?"


    "I''m not planning to fight seascourge," Jair answered immediately. "The adversaries I already have to deal with are plenty for me, thanks."


    "Lunar vampires?"


    Jair grimaced. "Yeah, exactly. They''re as tenacious as regular vampires, but with the added bonus of being stronger in daytime for whatever reason."


    "Shouldn''t they be called solar vampires, then?"


    "They''re from the moon."


    "Only one?"


    "Zelura."


    "The Ghost Moon. So they should be Solar Ghost Vampires."


    “Heh. When they''re all dead and you''re writing their history, you can call them whatever you want."


    They both laughed, then fell off into comfortable silence.


    "I don''t know what I want either," Raina said quietly after a time. "Everything I thought was going to happen has fallen apart. I don''t know. These months feel like years and even then there''s so much and only more."


    "If you don''t want to travel with me, you don''t have to feel obligated. I''ll protect you either way, but the goal is for you to be able to live your life freely and safely. Not for me to dictate your every move."


    "You know that''s not what I''m saying at all."


    "What are you saying then? Please, I''d love to know."


    Raina sighed. She sat up, shifting to crossed-legs and staring directly at him. "You don''t know what you want and you''re afraid to find out."


    "That''s ridiculous. I''m not afraid."


    "Then why do you keep putting it off? Jair, you''re a time traveler. We can go have fun for days, months, years, and still be back on time to save the world. If all that matters is our experiences, then why on earth would we stay beholden to a timeline that only wants to make things worse? You keep acting as though we have to replay specific days, weeks, hours, as if it''s absolutely urgent that we get it right as soon as possible, as if there''s some timer running down that you have to outrun. But you''re so powerful, so capable. Why are you limiting yourself so extremely?"


    Jair leaned back with a frown, tilting his head back against the tree trunk as he thought. He resisted the urge to argue immediately, which after so many years with Eythron was almost irresistible reflex. "I didn''t want to run out," he said at length. "There''s not enough to see for me to go wasting it on temporary jaunts." But that didn''t feel quite true either.


    Raina tilted her head over to stare at him, brow furrowed as she tried to understand.


    Jair huffed softly. "I don''t think you can understand it, not yet. Keep going, keep fighting with me and I''m sure you''ll..." Then he shook his head and ran a hand across his face. "No. I hope you never have to. I''d rather you never understand."


    "Why? I want to know everything about you."


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    He stood to walk over. She sat up, staring as though she thought he was going to leave, but he only sat down beside her. "Ask me anything and I will answer, but I will not gladly drag you through the hell I have become."


    "Isn''t that what we''re doing? By fighting the same battles over and over and over, never stopping until we win?"


    "That is simply the way it must be done."


    "Oh, really? The one and only way is to throw ourselves at it until we break or it does?”


    “The only shortcuts to power are by hard and painful paths. I will not drag you against your will, and it will bring me no pleasure to watch you struggle, but if you’re serious when you say you want to keep up, this is the only way I know.”


    “Because that sounds pretty hellish to me."


    Jair put one arm around her and leaned closer. "If you ask me to leave Sekir alone, abandon Veor, flee with our families and never look back, I will. If you want us to retire to a farm on Terluna and only use our swords as decoration, I will. And if you want to fight through hell and reforge yourself stronger… I will guide you through it."


    Raina shifted and looked away. "I don''t want us to abandon Veor. But have you considered that throwing yourself into the deepest part of it at all times might not be the best solution?"


    "I have no choice." He was surprised to find it to be true. "I can''t keep going if nothing matters, and if I do whatever I please without concern for the timeline, it all disappears. I can lose myself for as long as I want, and it only ends when the world collapses in on us. There''s no answer, no outcome, no solution. It''s only me dissolving from the inside out. When I let myself forget the urgency, the necessity, for even a moment... I wake up months later somewhere else, someone else, and can''t remember the path that brought me there. Only that I have neglected to protect the things I committed myself to protecting. And there''s only so many times I can walk away from everything I''ve committed before I''m no longer me. Only a hollow facade."


    "Taking a break doesn’t have to be giving up, it''s important to rest between throwing yourself into everything full tilt."


    "You can say that. I can say that. But I cannot believe it. I can think of ways to escape this cycle, yet when the moment comes to live them they fall apart every time."


    "You truly believe that the only thing you can do is charge ahead at full speed without pause every time or you''ll... disappear?"


    "Worse. I''ll become a mockery of myself." He pressed a hand over his eyes. "You remember Mersine''s warnings, that if I don''t follow her convoluted plans for perfect outcomes, I''d end up destroying more than the greatest threats of the world ever would? You want to see that outcome? That''s what I could be if I stopped binding myself so tightly to the exact specifics of the current challenge." He held up Maelstrom. "Look at this, Rai. Look at it. Tell me you want this in the hands of someone with no restraints, no goals beyond gratification in the moment. Tell me you wouldn''t despise the world that came to be."


    She shook her head, confusion on her face and pleading in her eyes.


    Jair drew her closer, pressed his forehead against the top of her head. "I''m sorry, Rai. I know this isn''t what you wanted. I don''t know how else to explain it to you. I am not a person any more, I''m a collection of principles and objectives. I''m a painted shell sewn back together enough times that it''s only held together by threads. The only part of me that remains is the part I committed to you."


    There were tears in her eyes as she cried for him, and he wished he remembered how. There wasn''t much that could truly move him any more, but his heart ached as he held Raina. Not one of the frivolous facade emotions that he lived through every moment as he tried again and again, not the over immersion in the present that kept him from being nothing, but something true and deep.


    It felt like it would be disrespectful of her if he were to falsify the tears. So he only held her and told her softly that it would be okay, because it ultimately would be. He had her and she had him and as long as they didn''t give up entirely they could still save the world and play with magic and explore the furthest depths of the moons...


    "I''m sorry," Raina whispered through her tears. "I don''t know what to say."


    "Perhaps I shouldn''t have told you. But I don''t want to hide. Not myself, not my goals, not my history. I don''t want you to have to worry. I may be a mockery of a man but for as long as you want me I''m yours."


    Raina buried her face in his chest. "It''s too much. Is that really why you''re doing this? Only for me?"


    "Not only. It''s more like you''re an anchor to hold all the rest of it together. I want to defeat Sekir before he can provoke the seascourge into eating Veor. I want to stop the Beastlord from consuming all the world''s magic and leaving us defenceless against the lunar vampires. I want to protect my family and yours. I want my friends to be happy and not murdered. These are my goals, my desires. There may be others, smaller or more situational."


    "And you can''t do any of that without me in the middle of it?"


    "I haven''t dared to try. If I were to remove you from that keystone position, would the rest of me remain, or would it all collapse? Contrary to what Mersine seems to think, I have no desire to destroy the world or the people upon it. I don''t agree with allowing another''s visions to guide my future. Especially not blindly. And she withholds too many details for me to make knowledgeable choices."


    "Is what she said bothering you that much?"


    Jair closed his eyes. "It''s my policy to ignore seers. I don''t even remember what specific advice she gave, how to avoid becoming this great destroyer. But it''s one thing to ignore her attempts to control me and another to blindly rush toward a fate none of us wants."


    "Can''t you ask Qahrvirna to repeat the message? Or go back in time to listen again?"


    "I don''t want to. The solution to avoiding her control isn''t to give her more chances to direct my path. It''s to move forward in my own time on my own route. Our own route. So if you think I''m going too far out of line, tell me. If you think it''s time to cut our losses and go on to a different plan, tell me. We can argue it out and come to a functional solution."


    "That''s your idea of discussion? Arguing?"


    "Exchange of perspectives until a middle ground is reached. Call it what you will." He grinned. "Weren''t you the one who didn''t want to use labels?"


    “I wonder where you picked up that habit from. Oh, wait…” and she waved a hand toward something behind him.


    Jair turned.


    Eythron stomped into the clearing cursing up a storm such as even Jair had rarely been witness to. The mad mageblade looked downright dangerous, eyes wild and snarl fixed.


    “You,” he growled, sword pointed at Jair.


    “Yes, master?” Jair said reflexively, before considering that perhaps it would have been better to behave more informally.


    “Stop it.” The sheer fury in his voice set Jair immediately on alert. That was the sort of tone he used when he was about to try and kill Jair.


    “You’ll need to be more specific.”


    “The time traveling. Stop.”


    “What time traveling? I haven’t reverted you at all since we arrived here.”


    “Then why does it keep skipping us around, hm? Every time you turn things back we lose track of what we''ve done or haven''t, have to redo steps we already did, or miss steps we thought we had. It''s turning this whole process into a nightmare. So stop. Try going at least a day or two without dying, eh?"


    "Wait, so you''ve been reverted with us every time, even when we''re out of reach physically?"


    "You have ears, congratulations. Now try using them."


    "I apologize, Master, I didn''t think you''d be impacted by our smaller reversions."


    "Now you know." Eythron turned and walked away without another word.


    Jair looked at Raina.


    Raina looked at Jair. They both giggled. The interruption had dispersed all the heaviness of their former conversation topic, drawn him back into the moment.


    And the moment was an unmissable opportunity.


    Jair reverted time.


    Somewhere in the distance, Eythron let out an angry roar.


    “Oops!” Jair shouted as loud and insincerely as he could, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Sorry, Master!”


    Eythron didn’t answer, or if he did they couldn’t hear over their own laughter.


    “Bet he tries to stab me next time we go to visit,” Jair said offhandedly once their humor subsided. “Ready to get going, or want to lie here talking about the future a bit longer?”


    Raina got to her feet. “We can talk while we walk. I still think you’re treating this prediction of doom too lightly, but I’m not the one who knows your seer lady. Maybe she’s regularly throwing out inaccurate prophecies of no consequence.”


    Jair frowned. “No, she’s always been entirely correct in the past. But I will no longer accept a future that requires us to die without having any say in the matter.”


    “Do we have to stay dead? We could fulfill it and escape it at the same time.”


    “Not how it works. Reversion undoes it, so the prophecy would remain unfulfilled.”


    “Aw, so much for cheating fate.”


    “I’m sure we can find a way. Nothing’s unbreakable.” Not even himself.


    “We haven’t broken enough things already? Got to set your sights on destiny?”


    “What else am I good for?”


    She smacked him on the shoulder, laughing, then linked his arm in hers and leaned against him. “You’re good for quite a lot, as it turns out.”


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