Just passing through

“Just passing through” is the Talis sisters’ expression of strategic impermanence: they may accept conversation, hospitality, or information, but they will not mistake a temporary stop for a permanent allegiance. In the tavern scene with Hocine, the phrase turns a social invitation into a question of political independence and recalls the larger freedom they have only recently begun to possess.

Meaning in the Tavern Scene

Leese uses the expression after Hocine invites them to talk and attempts to lead them toward a tavern. She does not reject the conversation outright; instead, she distinguishes discussion from commitment. The sisters can listen to what a powerful faction offers while refusing to let hospitality decide their future. Their willingness to remain present therefore coexists with a firm refusal to become socially or politically possessed.

Raine immediately recognizes the phrase as more than a casual travel remark. Leese shares her misgivings over their link, and the two understand that they cannot simply join a Clan without examining the consequences. They need access to all of the Inner Worlds, and their status as Azoths makes concealment difficult: there are too few Azoths for multiple pairs of powerful, spear-wielding newcomers to pass unnoticed. A single Clan affiliation could also make other destinations inaccessible. “Just passing through” names the practical solution to this problem: preserve mobility, avoid visible subordination, and keep every future route open.

Freedom After Dependence

The expression carries unusual force because Raine and Leese have spent so many years at the mercy of people above them in rank, including Cato despite the power he gave them. Their earlier existence was shaped by the fear that some passing high-rank disaster might make them its victims. Their recent ascent has not erased that history; it gives the phrase its emotional charge. They have reached a position from which the System’s depths are no longer the whole of reality, yet that new freedom is disorienting rather than simple.

Raine’s memory of her first resurrection around Sydea intensifies the connection. She remembers the aimless near-freedom that followed the realization that years of striving had been rendered moot. Now the sisters face a different version of the same destabilization: they have breached the familiar limits of the System and must decide what freedom means when every powerful institution may offer protection at the price of dependence. “Just passing through” is their answer before any new patron can define them.

Hospitality and Political Leverage

Hocine’s generosity makes the distinction visible. He pays for their drinks, but Raine understands that the gesture is unlike the Flamewing’s earlier habit of buying them drinks. The Flamewing had been a high-ranker extending generosity to frazzled Coppers; Hocine is a powerful representative of a powerful faction trying to win the favor of two newly formidable outsiders. The same surface action therefore carries a different political meaning. The drinks are not merely refreshments but part of an attempt to establish goodwill and perhaps influence.

Raine can even imagine getting used to such treatment while sampling the liquor, yet the experience is undercut by its emptiness. Once the combat brains have stripped away the System’s essence tampering, System food and drink become relatively uninteresting despite their rank. Material luxury consequently loses some of its persuasive force. Hocine can offer status, hospitality, and access, but none of these automatically supplies a reason to surrender independence.

Shared Resolve and Narrative Function

Leese’s statement becomes a shared position when Raine silently affirms it while listening to Hocine’s pitch. The words resonate with her “down to her very bones,” taking the temptation out of whatever offer he might make. Their shared understanding is not merely verbal: the sisters’ link lets the same caution and resolve pass between them, while their ascent has made their mutual judgment more consequential than before.

The expression also compresses the sisters’ broader political identity. They remain Cato’s agents, even as their new rank gives them greater room to act, and they are unwilling to exchange one form of dependence for another. Their route through the Inner Worlds is therefore both literal and ideological. They are moving through systems of power without allowing any one of them to become their destination. The phrase’s final force lies in its refusal to convert access into allegiance: whatever the faction offers, the sisters insist that their presence is temporary and that their future remains their own.