Emerging from the Midnight Hotel, Valdis had to shield her eyes from the sun until they adjusted properly. The world still seemed too solid, too harsh, it didn't move and twist, both a comfort and strange at the same time. She had known that the world she had walked into would be different, but the extent of the change was unnerving. It seemed like it had been just yesterday that the city had been under siege by Malicant, but now the depressive air was gone.

Kedan bustled around the streets as if the war the foreigner's had been brought for was long over, which of course it was. It was still difficult to wrap her mind around, she had seen change, but had always experienced it over the course of time and now she had been thrown into an unfamiliar world yet again.

She was determined to make a place for herself, just as she had before, but it seemed that such an endeavor might be more difficult than it had been a year ago. The Kedan had changed, their demeanor and actions were more bright, more focused. It seemed that they had done well without a royal family, and perhaps it was better that way. Yet they had changed perhaps a bit too much, even in a year. Valdis decided to look closer, their souls had once appeared dim, as if they were being suppressed, but now their souls appeared bright against the darkness of the inanimate.

"There's no way," she whispered to no one in particular, "That isn't possible."