How do you stop a Lan Spherian?
It would be really... difficult. They live for an eternity with limited knowledge of future and past, knowing just what they need to improve themselves. Varsas had a rough time the first time he arrived on that island. At that point he thought he was strong. There was none that was his rival in the Mahaima army, not Fenryr, not Viola after her exaltation, not Vaine, not a single one. They came close, but his great mastery over his family's art put him in another league compare to his other comrades. It comes to question what exactly Vaine was doing with his heritage since his royal family has a longer and greater tradition, however Varsas just chalks it to the way they were raised up. His grandfather was really determined in making sure he was the family's legacy.
There was a battle where Varsas was the only one holding down the enemy line as a recruit, Viola did not know much about the sword and magic then so she stayed behind, the only thing Vaine could do was running interference.
It was a time when Varsas really thought that was the peak a man can achieve, he really felt he can contribute to a battle then and there. But then he arrived on the island of Lan Sphere, and everything become... difficult.
Varsas realized that at some point he really felt that he was on top of the world, there was satisfaction in knowing that you are the best. In the Lan Sphere isle, that satisfaction dulled and gradually disappeared. He knows it is unreasonable to compare one self to a people who live for thousand of years and he did well for himself in battle most of the time in spite of everything, but he was frustrated.
Outside of it being difficult, Varsas was mostly not willing every time he has to face a Lan Spherian seriously.
The last Lan Spherian he faced was his second mother figure. This time, it is a child, a child with great power but still a child nonetheless.
He owed a lot to the Lan Spherian and considers them his second family, hurting them would require extraordinary circumstances
So Varsas Gungnir decides to do the same thing he did every time a mock battle with a fellow Lan Spherian gets out of hand when he was training in Lan Sphere. It is a bit different from usual, but Varsas has already known that from the start.
Varsas closes his eyes, covers his ears and walk away, distancing himself from the child.
There is a fence in the garden, so he steps behind the fence and put the fence between him and the child.
Sure enough even though he has covered his ears and distances himself, his keen hearing can still pick up a muffle "Queen?" in the distance.
Whenever a battle with a Lan Spherian got out of hand back in the day, his teacher would always interfere for him.
But currently she is dead.
It is a paradox, when Varsas killed his teacher, he has known that death, even to the Lan Spherian was permanent. Yet as a people who can interfere with time, present, future and past, shouldn't they still be able to affect future events after they die?
Their death would be permanent still.
The paradox is, currently Varsas is in the past. To him, his teacher is dead, permanently dead. To the timeline, she would still be alive.
The only way to resolve this paradox is for Varsas and his teacher to not interact.
He has known long ago that she was watching him when he comes back, he can feel a familiar presence, still alive. She would be his teacher still, to her the present, future and past is the same, but they can't interact. So whenever she visited, he went to sleep. Whenever she went away, he would wake up. It is a sad state of affair between student and teacher, but that is the price he has to pay for killing her.
The point is that she would still be alive to the inhabitant of this timeline, as long as she and Varsas does not interact.
It is certainly an appeal to authority, even nepotism perhaps, letting a conflict between Varsas and a Lan Spherian be dealt with by the queen of Lan Sphere herself, but she is his second mother after all.
He closes his eyes and claps his ears, for a while there is only silence.
A figure claps him on the shoulder, causing him to look up. It was the girl from Lan Sphere, Lufa. She looks like she was crying, his teacher probably bullied her into compliance.
"She has a message for you. She said she can't talk to you in person, so she asked me to be a messenger to pass message back and forth." Varsas considers it. It is a suitable solution for their conundrum. A Lan Spherian is probably the only one who can do this though, passing message back and forth between two people who is separated by life, death and time.
For a moment, the girl disappears behind the fence talking with the person behind it, Varsas leans back on the fence, waiting for a conversation with his teacher at last.
Lufa appears again, bearing a message.
"The queen asked me to tell you that she is glad that you have finally managed to escape your fate of living as a hermit, and that she disapproved of your horrific experiments against God and nature, stating that it unnerved her even if you weren't going to harm anybody." That girl says, but after a while she starts looking at Varsas weirdly.
"Well... it didn't happen did it?" Except for that one time, even long before the war is over, Varsas was working in secret, experimenting on himself, trying to find a way to enhance his ability even further using technology from the old Lanton empire's machinery.
The girl says dubiously but continues.
"Also, she asked you a question. Is this life what you really wanted?"
Varsas stays silent. Only his teacher can know him well enough to silent him with a single question. Is this life what he wanted? Well just now he met his best friend who didn't even recognize him. His relationship with the love of his life is done and over with before it even started, and the only interactions they have was between a patient and a healer. He is probably never going to see any of his other long time comrades without going out on the field himself.
Is this life what he really wanted?
But he still has his family.
This question Varsas can't really answer his teacher truthfully.
Lufa waits a while before walking behind the fence and returning. She fidgets a little before saying further.
"The queen asked me to tell you that the Venir family knows about their future famine through me. They also know about your preparation for the famine, causing them to be suspicious about how you manage to have knowledge of the future. She told you to see if any of your servants have signs of interrogation on their body and that you should be careful of accidents occurring around your family's food storage in the future."
For a moment his heart cools greatly, so that is what Margaret is doing right now. Even in the past before the famine, the Venir still uphold their suspicious and coercive nature. Varsas should really do what his teacher told him and checked if any of the servants was "asked a few questions" by the Venir family member. The servants definitely wouldn't tell anyone even if that happen, if Varsas knows anything of the Venir's methods it is that the servants would be too scared to say anything, and if he knows anything of Margaret's mystical method it is that they won't even remember anything in the first place to answer.
Though now that his teacher has artfully asked him one question he can't answer, it is Varsas turn to ask her a difficult question that has been on his mind for a long time.
"Why did you suddenly attacked the party?" Which lead to her death under Varsas's hand
"Why are you pretending boy? You already know the answer a long time ago, you just chose to not consider it." And that is how most of the conversation between Varsas and his teacher end, cryptic answer that doesn't really answer anything. But that is exactly how his teacher is.
Sometime he really wishes she gives him a straight answer though.