Year 2001 - Original World
Alaric Valcaryn was five years old, and there was nothing about him that suggested danger.
He had the kind of face caretakers adored; round cheeks still holding traces of baby fat, large blue eyes that looked too sincere to question, and dark hair that never quite stayed in place. At Volthar's Valcaryn nursery estate, he was treated like something fragile, something to be protected from the sharp edges of the world.
The other children played around him, loud and careless, unaware that the adults watching them already measured their futures in quiet glances and inherited expectations.
Alaric played too. He laughed when he was supposed to. He lost games often enough to be believable. When he fell, he cried just long enough to be carried.
That mattered.
The Valcaryn family valued competence above affection, but for now affection was useful as competence could wait.
The nursery was part of the family's secondary estate - far from public eyes, surrounded by stone walls and long-standing tradition. Every child born into Valcaryn blood studied here before being separated by ability, ambition, and usefulness.
Alaric had many cousins. Too many. In a family this large, survival depended on timing and perception more than talent.
That lesson could wait.
When the caretaker turned away to settle an argument between two older children, Alaric slipped out of the play area and padded down the corridor on his soft feet. He knew exactly where he was allowed to go and more importantly, where no one expected him to be.
One of the sitting rooms was occupied.
His aunt, Christine Valcaryn, sat on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her, half-watching the news while scrolling through her phone. She looked up just in time to see Alaric standing in the doorway.
Her face softened immediately.
"Where are you running off to, hmm?" she said, already reaching for him.
"I missed you, Auntie," Alaric said, arms lifting.
It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.
Christine laughed and picked him up, settling him against her shoulder. She smelled faintly of citrus and vanilla. As she returned her attention to the screen, Alaric rested his head against her collarbone and watched with her.
The broadcast showed a panel of experts discussing a solar flare detected earlier that day. Charts appeared. Calm voices explained probabilities. The conclusion was unanimous.
Minimal impact. No reason for concern.
Christine relaxed visibly. "See?" she murmured, more to herself than him.
Alaric didn't move.
His eyes followed the data on screen, not the faces. He memorized the phrasing, the confidence, the exact places where certainty was assumed rather than proven.
For a brief moment, his expression changed.
The softness drained from his face, leaving something alert and distant behind his eyes. His fingers tightened slightly against his aunt's sleeve as calculations ran—quiet, precise, entirely out of place in a five-year-old's body.
Then Christine glanced down.
Alaric smiled.
The moment vanished so completely it might never have existed.
A knock sounded at the door. The caretaker had come to retrieve him. Christine sighed, hugged him tightly, and pressed a kiss to each cheek.
"Don't tell anyone," she whispered, slipping milk chocolates into his pockets, "but these are just for you."
Alaric nodded solemnly, as if entrusted with a great secret.
As he followed the caretaker back toward the nursery, he didn't touch the chocolates.
His thoughts lingered on the broadcast.
So it hadn't changed.
Different world. Same sequence.
If the pattern held, the next deviation would come in the summer of 2012.
That was soon enough to prepare.