edw spoilers just in case [salutes]

i talked to mags last night about ruyan and tock's indivitual time in elpis and tock has an entirely different time but in ruyans universe i think hades does send a missive back about althaeas familiar like a har har for sending this thing and Althaea, knowing fully damn well she only has one familiar and its Eos and shes literally right next to her, recognizes that something is afoot, but dares not mention it back to hades

no she realizes that someone is lying that theyre her familiar and her interest is IMMEDIATELY piqued, and since she has family working in elpis she KNOWS she would not look out of place visiting, so she BOOKS it there and slips past everyone with them assuming ''oh althaea is here visiting her father''

but she makes sure that hades and hythlo doesnt know shes here, and she immediately deciphers who this mystery familiar is (Ruyan) and understands that she is most certainely either

A) not from this time B) knows something althaea doesnt

so Althaea basically stalks ruyan around elpis to see what shes up to acting as her familiar, all while her actual familiar Eos watches him as well

and i think Althaea puts some pieces together? She doesnt know how, she doesn't know why, and she doesn't fully get where, but she knows that Ruyan must know her, and that Ruyan isn't from here, and so something very, very silly is afoot.

But Althaea also knows that silly little plots like this mean that something very meticulous is happening and must not be disturbed, so Althaea tries not to intervene; but she so badly wants just a moment, and i think in a lull she gets awfully close by to Ruyan and gains his attention and eventually manages to call her over. and IMMEDIATELY Althaea is like ''do NOT tell me anything about you, do NOT say anything i shouldnt know, all i want is to meet you'', and Ruyan realizes that he is in fact standing in front of his fully unsundered self from 15,000 years ago and that she has ''caught'' him in his lying act.

But all she does is get really excited about how for SOME reason, someone or some thing from some where has come here, and she KNOWS about Althaea, and its the coolest thing ever to her! And I think Althaea puts some pieces together and guesses that Ruyan is somewhow connected to althaea in some way, meybe a reborn her from the future, because their aether is exactly the same, but Althaea is for sure that Ruyan isn't any creation of hers. But she's just so EXCITED to see the future standing before her, and she cant stop touching Ruyan's face and scales and hair and the glasses she wears, curious and wondering what the future is like where Ruyan had come from, where people like Ruyan exist born the way they are (points to althaeas ears) and can live without ridicule.

I think the utter joy and delight on Althaea's face churns something in Ruyan's gut, but he promised not to reveal anything or say anything to Althaea she shouldn't know, and even when he tries she shuts Ruyan down and tells her that she must not know, it will ruin the magic of wondering.

Althaea eventually has to return, especially knowing that hades is lurking around and she must not be seen randomly in Elpis after she had missed the chance to come cause she was on an expedition and therefore raise Hades's own suspicions, but i think Althaea Ruyan not by asking a question about the future, but by telling Ruyan one thing, and it's that she hopes that wherever Ruyan came from, and for whatever reason, that she knows that Althaea is rooting for her from the past, and that she hopes that Ruyan enjoys the time she came from and doesn't linger in the past, for to Althaea, living in a past is missing out on the excitement of an unknown tomorrow. She gives Ruyan (essentially herself) a kiss on the cheek, and tells Ruyan that if she wanted to pretend to be one of her familiars she should've made herself an awful lot smaller (especially alluding to Tock, who is lalafell), and then disappears off with Eos in a flash of blue butterfly wings, never to be seen by Ruyan ever again