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rainbowfic2026-06-10 03:53 pm
paradoxcase) wrote in rainbowfic2026-06-10 03:53 pm
Realgar #14, Warm Heart #19 [The Fulcrum]
Name: Return to the Beginning
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Realgar #14: Deny, Warm Heart #19: Naivety
Styles and Supplies: Silhouette, Life Drawing, Canvas, Tempera ("Six of Swords brings a sense of calm and transition. As you embark on this journey, find solace in leaving behind turbulent waters and moving towards a more peaceful horizon. The image of the boat slowly gliding across the steady river symbolizes the passage from one phase of life to another, offering the opportunity to heal, reflect, and gather your strength. This card invites you to embrace the subtle winds of change and trust that better days lie ahead.")
Word Count: 2,239
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Characters: Setsiana, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: 1912.6.1.3, 1903
Summary: Qhoroali takes Setsiana to a special point in time.
Notes: This is the end of Part Two of the Fulcrum. Part Three will be pretty short, only 14 more posts of Fulcrum stuff (and a couple intervening Sims posts), and then it will be time for the next story.
The next day was Nyoacelya Lyuya. Setsiana awoke, momentarily disoriented, until she remembered that she’d gone to sleep in Qhoroali’s bed the night before. She blinked, taking in the room again in the sunlight. It was just as she remembered it from the dream she’d had two months ago where she’d watered the chonea and watched Qhoroali wake up. The chonea wasn’t here, yet — it was still in the other room with the rest of her things, where she’d put it after Qhoroali had given it to her. She’d have to move everything in here when she got the chance.
Qhoroali still slept, sprawled across the large bed like she wanted to take up all of it by herself. The sun did not shine directly into the west-facing window at this hour, and thus there was no ray of light to pull her from sleep the way that Setsiana had become accustomed to in her room.
Setsiana made no move to wake her, but instead went to the other room and returned with her own belongings, which were still quite limited. She put the chonea on the table near the window; eventually the sun would come around and bless it with some light.
She heard Qhoroali shift on the bed, and then say muzzily, “Ahh. I thought I heard you.” Setsiana turned back to her and their eyes met across the room for an instant before Qhoroali pulled hers away, and focused on the flower. “I remember this… this was another dream, wasn’t it? You, with that flower, by that table.”
“Yes,” said Setsiana, and came back over to the bed. “I guess you don’t mind anymore, if we reenact the dreams inadvertently?”
Qhoroali shook her head. “I don’t mind at all,” she said. “It hurt when I thought it wouldn’t work out with you, that it would just lead to more pain. But I would like to, now. I don’t remember most of my dreams, and the ones I do are always so unclear. I could use a reminder of the nice ones.” She sat there another minute, blinking her eyes as if to clear the sleep from them. “There’s something I want to show you,” she said. “I’ve remembered something… from a long time ago. About where and when I met you for the first time, the actual first time. And I think we need to go there today.” She took Setsiana’s hand in both of hers. “Will you come with me to Clérzyund? It’s the town where I grew up.”
As they left the apartment house, Qhoroali spared a glance at the circle of posts by the hill, but instead directed them along the streets of the city. They were empty due to the holiday, the businesses shuttered. Setsiana had never quite gotten used to Nyoacelya Lyuya outside of the temple and today in particular it seemed as if they walked through a dream world and not the real city.
They passed a closed carriage rental and left through the city’s northern gate, continuing along the road to Clérzyund, as indicated by a signpost. Setsiana had never been there in any time or timeline, though she knew the name well enough. “What are we doing in Clérzyund?” she asked.
Qhoroali looked at her, and turned her attention back to the road, considering the question for a time. “It’s mostly what you’ll be doing,” she said, after a bit. “You spoke to me there a long time ago, and I think that conversation has to happen now. Last night, the whole history of how we know each other came to me fully. Everything fell into place in my mind. All that remains now is to close the last loop.”
That seemed to be all she would say about it for the moment, so they walked in silence for maybe half an hour or so. Eventually, structures appeared ahead of them as they neared the town. Qhoroali took them off of the road, produced a bottle of qoire, and took them on a short time travel that could not be much further back than the T’arsi Fair had been.
“When is it now?” Setsiana asked, after Qhoroali had told her to stop walking the timeline.
“It’s 1903,” said Qhoroali. “I was nineteen on this date.” She led Setsiana to the edge of the town, and then turned right, skirting along behind the first of the buildings. “My parents’ temple was along this street, disguised as a smithy. You should find me sitting in front of it.” They came to a stop behind a large building that could very well be a smithy. “This conversation was where I learned to Guide, or first got the idea about how to do it, at least. It was you who told me what to do. I forgot about that… I forgot I ever met you here.” Qhoroali looked at her for a minute, and then gestured for her to continue alone. “It’ll probably be weird if I show up, too.”
Setsiana walked around the building and came out on the street, trying to remember everything she knew about Guiding without Sapfita’s help. Looking back over her shoulder, the building did seem to be a smithy, with the familiar icon over the door, but it was largely ignored by the passers-by. On the other side of the street was a green space, not quite big enough to be a park, and on one of the benches that lined it sat Qhoroali. Not the one she had left behind the smithy, but a younger, fresher-faced one, who wore the familiar modified nurefye.
Not entirely sure what she was meant to be doing here, Setsiana approached and sat on the bench beside the younger Qhoroali. Qhoroali looked over at her, and some sort of wonder flickered across her features. Her eyes fixed on Setsiana’s face for a few moments until she drew them away and said awkwardly, “Um, hi.”
“Qhoroali?” Setsiana asked, and she saw Qhoroali start at an apparent stranger knowing her name. She turned back to Setsiana again, this time with caution in her eyes.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Who are you?”
“Someone who met you and knows you in another time,” said Setsiana. She drew her mind back to what Qhoroali had said she would do here. “Have you ever wanted to learn to time travel?”
“Of course,” said Qhoroali. She opened her mouth and seemed to be about to say more, but then she shut it again.
“I know about your mother’s temple,” said Setsiana, guessing the reason. “I know you don’t have Mirrors there, because you’re not part of the main branch. But you don’t need one.”
“You don’t?” Qhoroali was looking at her with open admiration now, and here in this earlier time she seemed very young, even at nineteen. “What do you do, then?”
“All you need is to see the timelines,” said Setsiana. “Then you can walk them.” People who weren’t Qhoroali couldn’t do that, exactly, not by themselves, but only Qhoroali herself was relevant to this conversation. “You have access to qoire, right? Drink it, and you will see the Tree. Not just three drops, it takes more than that.” What had Qhoroali told her she’d done to discover the method? The ghlídrow, that was right. “The ghlídrow time travel during their mating season,” she explained. “Drink the qoire, follow a colony, and watch what they do. They will show you the way.”
Qhoroali had a very intense look in her face now, staring off at some mental image or vision of the future that only she could see. “That’s all there is to it?” she asked. “That’s all it takes?” A smile crept across her lips. “I know where she keeps the qoire.”
“It would be a little harder for other people,” said Setsiana. “But for you, yeah, I think that’s all it takes.”
Qhoroali looked back over at Setsiana, cautiously. “You said you know me in the future,” she said. “Are we… friends, in the future?”
“Definitely,” said Setsiana.
Qhoroali smiled at her, a big, genuine, open smile, and then turned away shyly, some color tinting her cheeks. “I’ll look forward to meeting you there, then,” she said. She got up, smoothed out the creases in her nurefye self-consciously, and looked across the street at the smithy with determination. Before she headed off towards it, she turned back to Setsiana one last time, to give her one last smile, and a “Thank you.”
Setsiana watched her hurry across the road and disappear into the building, and then got up herself, making her way back around it to the other side, where the older Qhoroali was waiting for her.
Setsiana gave Qhoroali a look. “You really forgot about that meeting?”
“Yes, really,” said Qhoroali. “But you made such an impression on me there that I think I remembered it subconsciously, anyway.” She motioned Setsiana back towards the road, and then fell in beside her. “It was just… please don’t be jealous, but there was a period where I tried dating Li. A long time ago. And I came out of it thinking I must not like women like that, after figuring out I really didn’t want to have sex with her. And then you came along, and proved that wrong, and… I didn’t know what to do with that, exactly. I couldn’t handle the thought that it might actually just be the sex I didn’t want, because I thought that meant I would be alone forever. I didn’t know anything about you, really, so it was easiest to just forget I ever met you.”
Setsiana laughed. “Liselye is very good looking,” she acknowledged. “I think I’d be more surprised if you had been friends with her for all that time and the thought had never come to you.”
“Yes,” said Qhoroali. “She’s very useful, that way. She can charm anyone, even if they’re not really into women — anyone who can appreciate purely aesthetic beauty. I have so much trouble making friends with people. Everyone always seems to assume the worst of me, no matter what I try. Sometimes it feels like everyone is automatically biased against me, personally, while they are naturally drawn to her without her even having to do anything. When I realized that was just the way things were, I officially gave her the job of recruiting and charming people for me.” She looked over at Setsiana, nervously. “Do you think that was wrong of me? Is it manipulative, to use her that way?”
Setsiana shook her head. “You’re not using her, right?” she said. “She’s helping you of her own free will. Everyone needs help from someone else sometimes, none of us can do everything by ourselves.”
She thought about the child from her class who had had Qhoroali’s disorder. The priesthood would look out for her, while she was still in school, but some day she would grow into an adult like Qhoroali, and there would be no one whose duty it was to help her anymore. The difficulties she had wouldn’t go away, and they might not be as well tolerated in the adult world. How many adults like that had she simply written off as too strange to bother with without realizing that they had once been a child like the ones she was helping?
“When I was living back at the temple, I kind of felt the same way, sometimes,” she said, after a little bit. “It seemed like the priestesses all had something against me, that they were all requiring more of me than they required of anyone else. And in retrospect, they probably were — they knew I was on their list, and they were watching me like a hawk to make sure I didn’t do anything bad, because they knew that in at least one timeline, I did. They wanted to make extra sure that I was being genuine and was truly dedicated to the priesthood. I didn’t understand why. It just felt unfair. My girlfriend was their star pupil, and she agreed with me that they were being unfair, and offered to help. At first, I thought it was cheating, you know? That I was making use of some advantage that no one else had. But she told me that didn’t matter, because I was also dealing with a disadvantage that no one else had. So it balanced out.”
She looked back at Qhoroali, who seemed deep in thought. “I think it’s the same with you, right? You’re getting help from Liselye that other people don’t have access to, but you’re also starting with a disadvantage. It’s not unfair. You’re just having trouble with something, and asking for help from someone who’s better at it. Which of us hasn’t done that?”
Qhoroali looked back at her, and seemed to search her face for something. Then a smile started to slowly form, gradually increasing until her face seemed consumed with joy. “I think you might actually get it,” she said. “Li doesn’t really get it, I don’t think. She’s happy to help, but she doesn’t really understand why I need it, she doesn’t get what it’s like. But you did have a similar experience, didn’t you? You do know what it’s like, at least a little bit.”
Setsiana smiled back, and they walked together back to Nwórza, and eventually back to 1912, in a companionable silence.
Story: The Fulcrum
Colors: Realgar #14: Deny, Warm Heart #19: Naivety
Styles and Supplies: Silhouette, Life Drawing, Canvas, Tempera ("Six of Swords brings a sense of calm and transition. As you embark on this journey, find solace in leaving behind turbulent waters and moving towards a more peaceful horizon. The image of the boat slowly gliding across the steady river symbolizes the passage from one phase of life to another, offering the opportunity to heal, reflect, and gather your strength. This card invites you to embrace the subtle winds of change and trust that better days lie ahead.")
Word Count: 2,239
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Characters: Setsiana, Qhoroali
In-Universe Date: 1912.6.1.3, 1903
Summary: Qhoroali takes Setsiana to a special point in time.
Notes: This is the end of Part Two of the Fulcrum. Part Three will be pretty short, only 14 more posts of Fulcrum stuff (and a couple intervening Sims posts), and then it will be time for the next story.
The next day was Nyoacelya Lyuya. Setsiana awoke, momentarily disoriented, until she remembered that she’d gone to sleep in Qhoroali’s bed the night before. She blinked, taking in the room again in the sunlight. It was just as she remembered it from the dream she’d had two months ago where she’d watered the chonea and watched Qhoroali wake up. The chonea wasn’t here, yet — it was still in the other room with the rest of her things, where she’d put it after Qhoroali had given it to her. She’d have to move everything in here when she got the chance.
Qhoroali still slept, sprawled across the large bed like she wanted to take up all of it by herself. The sun did not shine directly into the west-facing window at this hour, and thus there was no ray of light to pull her from sleep the way that Setsiana had become accustomed to in her room.
Setsiana made no move to wake her, but instead went to the other room and returned with her own belongings, which were still quite limited. She put the chonea on the table near the window; eventually the sun would come around and bless it with some light.
She heard Qhoroali shift on the bed, and then say muzzily, “Ahh. I thought I heard you.” Setsiana turned back to her and their eyes met across the room for an instant before Qhoroali pulled hers away, and focused on the flower. “I remember this… this was another dream, wasn’t it? You, with that flower, by that table.”
“Yes,” said Setsiana, and came back over to the bed. “I guess you don’t mind anymore, if we reenact the dreams inadvertently?”
Qhoroali shook her head. “I don’t mind at all,” she said. “It hurt when I thought it wouldn’t work out with you, that it would just lead to more pain. But I would like to, now. I don’t remember most of my dreams, and the ones I do are always so unclear. I could use a reminder of the nice ones.” She sat there another minute, blinking her eyes as if to clear the sleep from them. “There’s something I want to show you,” she said. “I’ve remembered something… from a long time ago. About where and when I met you for the first time, the actual first time. And I think we need to go there today.” She took Setsiana’s hand in both of hers. “Will you come with me to Clérzyund? It’s the town where I grew up.”
As they left the apartment house, Qhoroali spared a glance at the circle of posts by the hill, but instead directed them along the streets of the city. They were empty due to the holiday, the businesses shuttered. Setsiana had never quite gotten used to Nyoacelya Lyuya outside of the temple and today in particular it seemed as if they walked through a dream world and not the real city.
They passed a closed carriage rental and left through the city’s northern gate, continuing along the road to Clérzyund, as indicated by a signpost. Setsiana had never been there in any time or timeline, though she knew the name well enough. “What are we doing in Clérzyund?” she asked.
Qhoroali looked at her, and turned her attention back to the road, considering the question for a time. “It’s mostly what you’ll be doing,” she said, after a bit. “You spoke to me there a long time ago, and I think that conversation has to happen now. Last night, the whole history of how we know each other came to me fully. Everything fell into place in my mind. All that remains now is to close the last loop.”
That seemed to be all she would say about it for the moment, so they walked in silence for maybe half an hour or so. Eventually, structures appeared ahead of them as they neared the town. Qhoroali took them off of the road, produced a bottle of qoire, and took them on a short time travel that could not be much further back than the T’arsi Fair had been.
“When is it now?” Setsiana asked, after Qhoroali had told her to stop walking the timeline.
“It’s 1903,” said Qhoroali. “I was nineteen on this date.” She led Setsiana to the edge of the town, and then turned right, skirting along behind the first of the buildings. “My parents’ temple was along this street, disguised as a smithy. You should find me sitting in front of it.” They came to a stop behind a large building that could very well be a smithy. “This conversation was where I learned to Guide, or first got the idea about how to do it, at least. It was you who told me what to do. I forgot about that… I forgot I ever met you here.” Qhoroali looked at her for a minute, and then gestured for her to continue alone. “It’ll probably be weird if I show up, too.”
Setsiana walked around the building and came out on the street, trying to remember everything she knew about Guiding without Sapfita’s help. Looking back over her shoulder, the building did seem to be a smithy, with the familiar icon over the door, but it was largely ignored by the passers-by. On the other side of the street was a green space, not quite big enough to be a park, and on one of the benches that lined it sat Qhoroali. Not the one she had left behind the smithy, but a younger, fresher-faced one, who wore the familiar modified nurefye.
Not entirely sure what she was meant to be doing here, Setsiana approached and sat on the bench beside the younger Qhoroali. Qhoroali looked over at her, and some sort of wonder flickered across her features. Her eyes fixed on Setsiana’s face for a few moments until she drew them away and said awkwardly, “Um, hi.”
“Qhoroali?” Setsiana asked, and she saw Qhoroali start at an apparent stranger knowing her name. She turned back to Setsiana again, this time with caution in her eyes.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Who are you?”
“Someone who met you and knows you in another time,” said Setsiana. She drew her mind back to what Qhoroali had said she would do here. “Have you ever wanted to learn to time travel?”
“Of course,” said Qhoroali. She opened her mouth and seemed to be about to say more, but then she shut it again.
“I know about your mother’s temple,” said Setsiana, guessing the reason. “I know you don’t have Mirrors there, because you’re not part of the main branch. But you don’t need one.”
“You don’t?” Qhoroali was looking at her with open admiration now, and here in this earlier time she seemed very young, even at nineteen. “What do you do, then?”
“All you need is to see the timelines,” said Setsiana. “Then you can walk them.” People who weren’t Qhoroali couldn’t do that, exactly, not by themselves, but only Qhoroali herself was relevant to this conversation. “You have access to qoire, right? Drink it, and you will see the Tree. Not just three drops, it takes more than that.” What had Qhoroali told her she’d done to discover the method? The ghlídrow, that was right. “The ghlídrow time travel during their mating season,” she explained. “Drink the qoire, follow a colony, and watch what they do. They will show you the way.”
Qhoroali had a very intense look in her face now, staring off at some mental image or vision of the future that only she could see. “That’s all there is to it?” she asked. “That’s all it takes?” A smile crept across her lips. “I know where she keeps the qoire.”
“It would be a little harder for other people,” said Setsiana. “But for you, yeah, I think that’s all it takes.”
Qhoroali looked back over at Setsiana, cautiously. “You said you know me in the future,” she said. “Are we… friends, in the future?”
“Definitely,” said Setsiana.
Qhoroali smiled at her, a big, genuine, open smile, and then turned away shyly, some color tinting her cheeks. “I’ll look forward to meeting you there, then,” she said. She got up, smoothed out the creases in her nurefye self-consciously, and looked across the street at the smithy with determination. Before she headed off towards it, she turned back to Setsiana one last time, to give her one last smile, and a “Thank you.”
Setsiana watched her hurry across the road and disappear into the building, and then got up herself, making her way back around it to the other side, where the older Qhoroali was waiting for her.
Setsiana gave Qhoroali a look. “You really forgot about that meeting?”
“Yes, really,” said Qhoroali. “But you made such an impression on me there that I think I remembered it subconsciously, anyway.” She motioned Setsiana back towards the road, and then fell in beside her. “It was just… please don’t be jealous, but there was a period where I tried dating Li. A long time ago. And I came out of it thinking I must not like women like that, after figuring out I really didn’t want to have sex with her. And then you came along, and proved that wrong, and… I didn’t know what to do with that, exactly. I couldn’t handle the thought that it might actually just be the sex I didn’t want, because I thought that meant I would be alone forever. I didn’t know anything about you, really, so it was easiest to just forget I ever met you.”
Setsiana laughed. “Liselye is very good looking,” she acknowledged. “I think I’d be more surprised if you had been friends with her for all that time and the thought had never come to you.”
“Yes,” said Qhoroali. “She’s very useful, that way. She can charm anyone, even if they’re not really into women — anyone who can appreciate purely aesthetic beauty. I have so much trouble making friends with people. Everyone always seems to assume the worst of me, no matter what I try. Sometimes it feels like everyone is automatically biased against me, personally, while they are naturally drawn to her without her even having to do anything. When I realized that was just the way things were, I officially gave her the job of recruiting and charming people for me.” She looked over at Setsiana, nervously. “Do you think that was wrong of me? Is it manipulative, to use her that way?”
Setsiana shook her head. “You’re not using her, right?” she said. “She’s helping you of her own free will. Everyone needs help from someone else sometimes, none of us can do everything by ourselves.”
She thought about the child from her class who had had Qhoroali’s disorder. The priesthood would look out for her, while she was still in school, but some day she would grow into an adult like Qhoroali, and there would be no one whose duty it was to help her anymore. The difficulties she had wouldn’t go away, and they might not be as well tolerated in the adult world. How many adults like that had she simply written off as too strange to bother with without realizing that they had once been a child like the ones she was helping?
“When I was living back at the temple, I kind of felt the same way, sometimes,” she said, after a little bit. “It seemed like the priestesses all had something against me, that they were all requiring more of me than they required of anyone else. And in retrospect, they probably were — they knew I was on their list, and they were watching me like a hawk to make sure I didn’t do anything bad, because they knew that in at least one timeline, I did. They wanted to make extra sure that I was being genuine and was truly dedicated to the priesthood. I didn’t understand why. It just felt unfair. My girlfriend was their star pupil, and she agreed with me that they were being unfair, and offered to help. At first, I thought it was cheating, you know? That I was making use of some advantage that no one else had. But she told me that didn’t matter, because I was also dealing with a disadvantage that no one else had. So it balanced out.”
She looked back at Qhoroali, who seemed deep in thought. “I think it’s the same with you, right? You’re getting help from Liselye that other people don’t have access to, but you’re also starting with a disadvantage. It’s not unfair. You’re just having trouble with something, and asking for help from someone who’s better at it. Which of us hasn’t done that?”
Qhoroali looked back at her, and seemed to search her face for something. Then a smile started to slowly form, gradually increasing until her face seemed consumed with joy. “I think you might actually get it,” she said. “Li doesn’t really get it, I don’t think. She’s happy to help, but she doesn’t really understand why I need it, she doesn’t get what it’s like. But you did have a similar experience, didn’t you? You do know what it’s like, at least a little bit.”
Setsiana smiled back, and they walked together back to Nwórza, and eventually back to 1912, in a companionable silence.
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Thank you! There is still one major time loop left, but that will be the very end of the story.