Name: Return to Syarhrít
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Fresh Thyme #8: Turn Back, Dogwood Rose #1: red: courage
Styles and Supplies: Chiaroscuro, Cartography, Glitter (this poem), Novelty Bead (this gif, given here)
Word Count: 3099
Rating: T
Warnings: Fantasy Drug (Ab)use, Non-Graphic Violence
Characters: Setsiana, Qhoroali, Liselye, Cyaru, Chuanyoa, Meqhola
In-Universe Date: 1912.1.1.2, 1647.6.2.2
Summary: Qhoroali returns Setsiana to 1647.


Setsiana awoke the next morning in a better mood than she had been in for some time. She dressed in her old nurefye that she had been abducted in, and did her braid up with a rubber band for the first time a while. It took her mind back to when she would wake to the chime of the temple clock, back in Taleinyo, and she thought it was even the right time of morning for it, or at least not too much later. She put all of her belongings back into the bag she’d been carrying when she was taken, leaving only Qhoroali’s novel on the small table. She spared a glance at the pot with the seedling in it that she had placed there the previous evening; she thought ruefully that she would never know what New Years’ flower would bloom there, but it was alright. She would plant a new one in three and a half months after she got back to her right time, anyway.

Qhoroali was also awake at a reasonable hour for once, and in a better mood than she had been in the day before. When they left the apartment, no one was holding tightly onto Setsiana’s hand; no one was preventing her from escaping. She was really going home.

In the hallway, they bumped into Liselye and Cyaru, coming the other direction. Liselye looked at them curiously, but before she could say anything, Qhoroali said, “I’m taking her back. You were right, it’s the only decent thing to do.” She sighed.

Liselye grinned at Setsiana. “See? Didn’t I tell you she would change her mind? And look, it’s been pretty much exactly two months, just like I guessed!” She laughed, and maybe two months ago Setsiana would have been charmed by it, but ever since that night on the train she could not help but feel like every charming thing Liselye did was just another trick. It didn’t matter, though; she was going home.

Liselye moved passed them, but Cyaru paused. “Can I come along?” He asked.

“Why?” asked Qhoroali.

“I don’t have anything better to do. I could help you out.”

Qhoroali’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I don’t need a second person to go 250 years, I went by myself to do this trip the last time.”

“But what if you’re wrong this time?” He did manage to look at least slightly concerned.

Qhoroali rolled her eyes, but said sighed and said, “Alright. Whatever reason you actually have for this, you can come if you want. It doesn’t matter that much.”

Out in the city, the three of them went to a carriage rental that Setsiana was familiar with from her time, and rented passage to Syarhrít. Seeing the name of her town on the signs lifted Setsiana’s spirits even more; she was really going back. She was really going home.

It was after they’d bundled into the carriage and had been on the road for fifteen minutes already that Cyaru asked: “When we take her back, can I Guide?”

“Why?” Qhoroali asked. “You know it’s much easier if I just do it.”

“Lise thinks I’m getting rusty, she won’t let me Guide anymore. I know I’m not; she just misinterpreted some stuff that was all just an unlucky coincidence. I want to Guide for you here so that you can vouch for me to her. If you tell her there’s no problem, she’ll believe you — she has incredible respect for your abilities.”

“Well, that makes me even better about letting you Guide.”

“Come on, this isn’t a critical mission, is it? If you don’t even give me a chance to prove myself, how am I supposed to do that?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“What, can you not carry me anymore?”

“I can still carry you!” Qhoroali snapped at him. “Alright, fine. You can prove that you can still Guide, and I can prove that I can still carry you. I guess we’ll see who actually succeeds. You know the time we’re going to, right?”

“Yes,” said Cyaru. “I remember you telling me about the details Setsiana gave you in the first place.”

They lapsed into silence for the remainder of the ride.

A little while later, Setsiana realized she still had the knife tucked into the modified pocket of her nurefye. It had become so automatic to put it there when she dressed that she had done it without noticing that morning. She thought ruefully back to the time when she had thought she was actually going to need to stab someone to escape; in retrospect, it was a pretty silly idea. She’d have to surreptitiously “return” it to the dining hall the next time they served something that required sharp knives — she might have to wait a while for that, though, as the dining hall could go a whole month serving nothing but tlichrún. She’d have to restore her pockets later, too.

A little while later, they arrived at the much smaller carriage rental in Syarhrít and walked to Taleinyo. The temple clock had a round face here on the second day of 1912 — it must be powered by weights now, or maybe by Qhoroali’s springs. The painted texts on the temple arch were all slightly different, too. They went to the little clearing across the road from the temple, where Qhoroali had abducted her from originally.

Qhoroali produced bottles of qoire, while Cyaru came up behind her and put his arms around her shoulders. “Reminds me of old times,” he said.

“I’m telling Li you said that to me,” said Qhoroali.

“Oh come on, you’re no fun.”

“I think that’s why we broke up, isn’t it?”

He closed his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to bring all that up again.”

Qhoroali sighed, too. “It’s ok, really.”

Setsiana wondered again what kind of strange past they must have had, but decided that she didn’t really care. None of it mattered; she was going home, and would never see any of them ever again.

She did notice that this time, Cyaru drank way more of the qoire than Qhoroali ever had, any of the other times they’d time traveled, and then that Qhoroali did indeed pick up his legs and carry him, having Setsiana link arms with her first. She wondered why, but then decided, again, that she didn’t care. It didn’t matter; she was going home.

A short journey later, with Cyaru directing, and they were back in front of a very familiar version of Taleinyo, with the water clock and the outdated Vrelian text that Setsiana was well-familiar with. She could have screamed with happiness. But Qhoroali narrowed her eyes and studied the clock.

“You were off,” she told Cyaru. “We’re nearly 25 minutes later than we should have been.”

“25 minutes,” muttered Cyaru. He seemed a good deal more out of it than Qhoroali usually was. “That’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. We ought to have arrived slightly before we left originally, like we always do, but instead, we’re 25 minutes late. Timelines have probably diverged in that time.” She sighed. “We can fix it. Let me think. I guess we just need to go a couple weeks into the past, and then back, maybe. And I’ll Guide this time — Li is right, you’re bad at this. So we’ll have to wait here for a bit until you’re sober again.” She lowered him down to the grass and massaged her forehead.

“Let me try again,” said Cyaru. “I’ll do better this time.”

“No.”

“It’s ok,” said Setsiana. “It doesn’t matter if it’s 25 minutes later, this is still the right time. It’s still my home.”

“No,” said Qhoroali. “You remember how this works, right? Timelines will have diverged, so there will be some timelines where I never return you, and where all the people who know you here never see you again. I can’t leave things like that. Don’t worry about it, it’s a minor inconvenience, but we will fix this. I am going to do this correctly.”

“I understand,” said Setsiana. “But it really doesn’t matter. To tell you the truth, I don’t think there are really any people here who would care that much if they never saw me again.” The priestesses certainly wouldn’t. Yeimicha might consider it a good thing, even. The last conversation she’d had with her parents had been an argument. She did have a few friends, but she knew she wasn’t anyone’s favorite person, and none of her current friendships were more than a few years old. It hurt a little to think about, but she couldn’t think of any compelling reason to do more time travels when she was already so close to being home again. “I know we don’t go back to 25 minutes ago,” she continued, “because we didn’t meet ourselves coming back. Right?”

“Well yeah,” said Qhoroali. “When we get on the carriage going back to Nwórza in 1912, our other selves will already be in the carriage coming the other direction. Since we’re in different carriages, we don’t see ourselves.”

“No,” said Setsiana. “I mean, when you abducted me in the first place. We didn’t see ourselves returning, 25 minutes ago, to drop me off at that time. So that means we don’t do that.”

Qhoroali was silent for a minute. “You’re right,” she conceded. “You’re really sure that no one will care about you never returning?”

“Pretty sure,” said Setsiana.

“Alright,” said Qhoroali. “If you insist.” She sighed. “Since I’m not letting him Guide again, we’ll have to wait here a little while for the qoire to wear off. I’d appreciate it if you did us a favor and didn’t report us to anyone, since I am also doing you a favor here, right?”

Setsiana nodded, and then walked past the line of trees to the road, and across the road to the temple arch. Setting foot in Taleinyo again felt like waking up from a nightmare back into the real world; her steps felt lighter and her mind was clear for the first time in weeks. What had she been doing when she’d been abducted? She cast her mind back. It was the day after Yeimicha broke up with her, she remembered. That event seemed like something from the distant past now, not even something that had happened even as recently as two months ago, which was the actual amount of time she’d spent captive. The pain of it seemed so remote now, like something she could actually just forget about and move on from.

She thought back to Qhoroali’s request for her silence. It was true, she could go to the priestesses here in the temple, and tell them about her — tell them that she’d been stealing their research, had stolen research from this very temple, and exactly where she was, and they would put an end to her quest to kill Sapfita, surely. Maybe that had been the whole point of her adventure here — to put her in a position to do that, and save Sapfita. Maybe that was the decision Sapfita needed her to make, here, the one that would keep her connected to the dreams. Qhoroali hadn’t really done her a favor here; by returning her she’d been righting a wrong that she committed, she didn’t deserve any favor from Setsiana in return. And she’d held Setsiana captive for two whole months; Setsiana felt that the wrong that Qhoroali had done to her hadn’t even been truly righted just by returning her now. And she’d wronged Setsiana by stealing her papers, too, hadn’t she?

She thought about that book of her papers that Qhoroali had made, again. Yes, they had been stolen, but the way that Qhoroali had talked about those papers… it had felt so good to hear someone show appreciation for her work in that way, even someone who was working against her. She might never hear that kind of appreciation again, she realized; she was going back to a place where her focus subject wasn’t popular and the priestesses did not value her research. She might never have that experience again. Suddenly, she realized she would feel awful if she turned Qhoroali in, simply because of that, because she was maybe the one person who was an actual fan of Setsiana’s work. Alright then; for that, Setsiana could do her the favor, she decided. For the appreciation she’d shown her, Setsiana would spare her, here. Thinking about Sapfita’s words again, she realized that if Sapfita had wanted her to turn Qhoroali in, Setsiana might not like whatever future plans Sapfita had for her, either.

There had been something she had been in the middle of when Qhoroali had abducted her, she remembered, and now she recalled what it was; she had been looking for the head priestess to recommend that Gyélhwis be accepted into the junior priestess track. No, that wasn’t quite right, was it? That was just an excuse she’d prepared, because she’d actually been trying to see what Priestess Chuanyoa was doing with a Mirror she was using. It was 25 minutes later now, but maybe she was still in there, doing whatever it was she had been doing before Setsiana’s abduction. Maybe Setsiana could still get a glimpse.

She went back to the door to the west wing of the temple, which still stood open; no one had come by to close it in the last 25 minutes, apparently. She did a quick mental check, and verified that she did indeed remember putting the key to this door back into her bag, so she could lock it again when she left. She approached the open door to the meeting room where she remembered Priestess Chuanyoa being.

Priestess Chuanyoa was unfortunately no longer using the Mirror, but more importantly, there were now four people in the room. Priestess Meqhola and a short priestess whose name escaped Setsiana for the moment were there as well, and between them, fighting against the grip they had on her arms, was an unknown girl, maybe 15 or 16 years old. She seemed likely to be a northerner, with her short black curls and olive-toned skin. She was trying to scream, or shout, but the unknown priestess had her hand over her mouth. Setsiana just stared at them; she couldn’t imagine what could have happened here in just 25 minutes.

Priestess Meqhola looked away from the girl for a moment, and her eyes latched on to Setsiana at the doorway. “You,” she said, sharply. “What are you doing here?”

Setsiana reached for the excuse she had prepared about looking for the head priestess, but she had prepared it two months ago and it no longer came readily to her tongue. She was also overcome with curiosity — how had this gone from Priestess Chuanyoa using the Mirror to this? Had the other three been brought here through it? Perhaps because her fear and respect for the priestesses was also no longer so fresh in her mind, instead of answering, she asked: “Where did she come from?”

Priestess Meqhola looked sharply at Priestess Chuanyoa, who got up from the chair she was sitting in and ambled slowly to where she could get a better look at Setsiana. “Not to worry,” she told Setsiana genially. “She is going to be helping us out in the dining hall.”

“She doesn’t seem to want to,” Setsiana said, watching the girl struggle. The girls in the dining hall and the other servants were hired from among the villagers, weren’t they? What need was there for something like this?

“She’ll become accustomed to the idea soon enough,” Priestess Chuanyoa said, and in the back of her mind, Setsiana heard Qhoroali telling her how she was eventually going to come around and help her kill Sapfita. It had been two months since she had been under the daily supervision of these women, and Setsiana was beginning to have the strange feeling that the three in front of her were three completely different people now, not the priestesses she had grown up with and learned from and held some respect for, but some uncanny doppelgangers who had maybe kidnapped someone with the Mirror, the exact same way she’d been kidnapped by Qhoroali two months ago.

Her anger at her own kidnapping was still fresh in her mind, and suddenly, she was angry for this unknown girl, as well. She didn’t think before she spoke; she didn’t consider that the priestesses could exact punishment for this disrespect. She said, “You can’t do this! This is wrong! Let her go!”

Priestess Chuanyoa only smiled. “We don’t have the funds to pay all of the servants,” she said. “It will be time for dinner, in a couple hours. Why not come join us, and we will explain everything to you, then. You are on duty for Nyoacelya Lyuya tomorrow, are you not? I think we can maybe arrange for someone else to do it instead.” Ordinarily and invitation like this would be invaluable for her networking inside the temple, and getting taken off of Nyoacelya Lyuya duty would be an amazing boon. But here, she could only hear this as a bribe for her silence.

Priestess Meqhola was holding the girl tightly in both hands and seemed to be vibrating with rage, or some other strong emotion. “You don’t understand!” she shrieked. “They are the enemy! They would have done the same to us!”

Setsiana’s arm moved almost before she was aware of it; after spending her time practicing in that room in Qhoroali’s apartment, the motion had become automatic in response to the things she was feeing now, and she found she had grabbed the knife out of her pocket and plunged it into Priestess Meqhola’s stomach. Priestess Meqhola let go of the girl and grabbed her stomach, sinking down into a nearby chair. Setsiana stopped, momentarily, in shock at what she had done, not even putting the knife back into her pocket.

The girl used her right hand, which was now free, to punch the other priestess in the face. The other priestess let go of her to put her hands to her nose, and the girl ran out of the room, past Setsiana.

At first, the girl tried to run the wrong direction, deeper into the west wing of the temple; Setsiana grabbed her arm and motioned her to the open door, and fortunately she took the meaning and changed direction. They ran out the door, out past the front archway of the temple, and into the afternoon sunlight.