A/N: Since writing this, I found out that Taimi is 13 years old. For the purposes of the story, I'm leaving her at my original guess, six. You'll probably understand why when you read it.

Rytlock swore it meant nothing.

It was a relationship of convenience. They were barely adults. They were friends, sort of. They had unanswered questions about the process. They had no reason not to experiment. It was years ago, though. She was long gone, and he rarely had cause to think about things like that.

Until he went down to the south side of the citadel on a small order of business, and through some twisted stroke of fate, met the familiar eyes of a gladium.

She'd spared him the briefest of glances as she would any other stranger, hurrying along into her canton. Of course she wouldn't recognize him. But no other charr had eyes like that. That was a quirk from the womb, and he'd only seen anything like it once, shortly before she left the cub in the fahrar and they both moved on with their lives.

He was the one to implant the idea of joining his warband. From then on, his instincts were at war. What was he doing? Inviting some kid he barely knew to try and join a group of seasoned warriors? Hoping she succeeded...? Perhaps he was being a little harsher than he would be towards anyone else, but he suspected that if he didn't, he would end up going soft on her instead. Initiation tests weren't supposed to be easy. It didn't matter who she was. He couldn't let himself think, even for a moment, that he was being biased.

But she was so damn cheerful. So eager, so unreserved. She was the exact opposite of him in personality, and he knew it should have grated on his nerves, but it didn't. Underneath her childlike demeanor lay a sharp, stalwart soldier. He didn't need to send her on any impossible errands to know that. He could tell by the way she moved, by the way she spoke. It was the same as her.

Yes...Rox definitely took after her mother.

Logan didn't know it, but he did eventually seduce the queen.

Well, he hadn't, not yet. He would have...will have done. Not yet. The relationship was (would be) complicated at best, but it had happened (was going to happen).

The child was illegitimate. Normally, they would weather the scandal, but in this age of political unrest, they thought it best to change her appearance and give her up in secret. She was adopted by a noble family, but they never saw her again, not until much later. They never saw her grow from a curious, excitable young girl to a curious, excitable young woman, and they never heard tales of her prowess as a mesmer - she had natural talent, the people might have said, but only the queen and her sometimes-consort would have known it was inherited from her mother.

Thanks to some impossible fluke, Kasmeer ended up displaced in time when she was only two weeks old.

She lived happily, oblivious to her origins, until the day it all went wrong. Her adoptive brother dug himself too deep, and her father spent all he had to save his life. Everything was taken from them. Everything but her mother's staff and a stuffed bear from her father. She was ruined, devastated...all was lost. But somehow, by a will she didn't know she had, she kept living. She went on.

And then the day came when she met Marjory Delaqua, an alluring private detective on the hunt for a business partner. Nobody seemed to want to employ a washed-up Lady; the common folk didn't trust the nobility. Kasmeer was sure Marjory would be the same. She wasn't. In fact, she hired her on the spot, apparently seeing something in her that she liked.

Thus, she moved on, rebuilding her life. She never knew where she came from, but maybe, in the end, it was better that way.

Snaff had been a carrier.

His mate wasn't. When their progeny was conceived, she had gotten the recessive gene for a skeletal degenerative disorder from him. One allele was not enough for the disorder to manifest, and she remained unaware of it, just as she was unaware of its source...of who her biological father was.

He knew it was wrong to take her on as his student, given their connection. He had done it anyway. And when things started getting out of hand near the end of her apprenticeship, when some intentions grew too strong to be ignored...he knew it was a thousand times more wrong, not to stop her - to reciprocate.

And he knew Zojja would never forgive him if she found out.

With him gone, and her alone, the most logical choice was to give the progeny up to Rata Sum's social agency. The logical choice wasn't always the easiest, though. She kept an eye on Taimi, inching much closer than she probably should. By the time she'd started college, Zojja was practically acting as her mother anyway, legal custody or not.

From where he was, Snaff would smile and shake his head, calling out warnings and advice that she would never hear. But Zojja was in a much better position now than she had been six years ago. And that boy - Vorpp, he thought - was a lot of help as well. He saw them looking at each other: Vorpp with an almost clinical admiration, Zojja with private intrigue.

Snaff couldn't help feeling responsible. He'd known there was a one in two chance of Zojja being a carrier like himself, and with a one in four chance of both recessive genes passing on, that made a one in eight chance Taimi would suffer from the disorder. Maybe he should have predicted their illicit affair. Taken steps to prevent it.

But Taimi had Zojja's ambition and irreverence, and his own fortitude and humor. And as the offspring of the two greatest minds asurakind had ever seen (even if some of them still wouldn't admit it), the child was of course a brilliant prodigy. He wouldn't change anything. Not if it meant removing her from existence.

And in the end, Taimi's condition made no difference to any of them, least of all the progeny herself.