Please start at the beginning.

  "Hmm, alright. In the beginning, there was nothing. Darkness, emptiness, yet nothing cannot really exist without comparison. And so there was mana. And from mana-"

  Stop.

  Not that beginning. You know what I meant.

  Provide necessary context and skip ahead a little.

  Chapter 01 - Closure

  "I want to be prepared." When I was a child that was my response when an adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

  With that in mind our story begins with a not insignificant amount of context. Background so that you can understand my decisions and what all drove me forwards, or at least so you have a slim chance at understanding. I'll try to spread out the information, only share what's most relevant, and jump forward to hit the important bits, but I haven't exactly planned this all out.

  "Prepared." It was a witty thing for a child to say, one that got a few polite chuckles from the slower folk, and bright smiles from the smarter ones. Luckily, my parents fell into the latter category, sharing especially warm smiles and nodding in understanding. Other adults, like teachers and tutors, got out their polite laughs then asked me again. With added clarification, as though I didn't know what they had meant. They proceeded to become a bit worried that I was completely serious.

  My parents, on the other hand, asked "What else?" And so, I was forced to derive more positive attributes from the aether.

  "Courageous, Honorable, Just."

  Those sounded good, but they were early failures. My parents dug into their meaning immediately and forced me to defend them. Not something I was fully prepared for, and diving into their meaning led me to philosophical arguments that I couldn't rightly support. I had hardly touched philosophy and rhetoric at the time, though it did spurn on my interest in learning both.

  Oh, I still considered them to be positive qualities. Aspirational, worth attempting, when you have the luxury to do so. Yet, difficult to embody.

  For my tutors and the less interested, my response became, "Prepared to take on whatever challenges the world throws at me." That was usually enough.

  I never bothered replying as another child might. Aspiring to a career or artistic fame didn't rank among the things I wanted to be. There was little use in that kind of planning or blind hopefulness for me. My future was set, I was my parent's child, heir to their small savings and their larger business.

  They had grown their parent's business, and I was expected to do the same. At the least, oversee it as someone more capable took the reins.

  I made my mark and showed my strengths when I was a teen: through research and analysis of gathered data. The strengths of someone who strives to be prepared for situations before they arrive.

  At the time, our family business was expanding, slowly. My parents sought investment to start larger growth and were leaning towards opening another pearl farm, the main source of income for our business. They tasked me with selecting a location, or narrowing it down, at least.

  It was not a true task, they had already done most of the work, or hired consultants to do so. This became obvious when my requests for information quickly produced the desired data, too quickly. The market data, location scouting, and other information had already been gathered.

  Being naive enough to ask the simple, stupid questions forced me to learn a lot about our business.

  "How many pearls are sold here, vs shipped abroad?" Most were sold within our country, as the exporting tax was high.

  "How much was processed, versus sold directly?" Only about a third were sold as is. Only a third of that for traditional high-end jewellery. The rest was ground down for gem-work additives and sealants.

  "Why not just sell more, grind down less? Especially as jewellery?" A very obvious question, it was the highest earning market, "Why bother with the others?"

  The simplest questions from a naive mind. Yet, also the ones that I needed to ask; the ones that would let me learn and understand the economics at play. Supply and demand is only a simple concept once you already understand it.

  After a solid week of research and numerous simple questions. I started asking the harder questions such as, "What would happen after we opened the new pearl farm?"

  That set me on the right path, and one that I enjoyed. What better way to be prepared for the future than to begin trying to predict it. Not with any special insightful skills or mana powered gem-work tool. Just hard work and understanding.

  More pearls from a second farm couldn't really move the bottom line. It would add more small profits from the gem-work supplies. Yet, not really enough to keep the new farm afloat. We were one of the main suppliers, so flooding any of the markets would simply destroy our existing profit.

  The only clear path was if we could produce and export high quality pearls for jewelry. Those would still be taxed and tariffed, but the margins were much higher. The global market could handle the bump in quantity, unlike our small country, and as best as I could tell, few other countries farmed them as we did.

  The problem then, was could we do it. Could both our existing farm, and the new one, be tweaked to produce high quality pearls more consistently.

  Because, yes, that was the catch. It wasn't just supply and demand. We only sold a ninth of our production as high end jewellery because the farm only produced that many high end pearls. And that was after we put considerable effort into polishing and magically refining the best of the season's selection.

  Many more common grade pearls were made, polished, and sold to our workers and the middle class. Hardly any profit in that compared to the effort spent in polishing. However, the region was known for our pearls, our company was known for them. So, they needed to be seen by the populace, taken away by tourists. Spoken about by people that didn't have the money for the expensive jewelry, so that word reached those that could afford it.

  Technically, pearls were a magical commodity. Both when ground up for their use in gem-work and as whole gems for the greater task of holding a spell. Purity was prized there, but even a poor quality gem could hold a weak spell, which was not exactly the case for pearls.

  Many tourists planned to have their pearls enchanted, without knowing how little magic the imitation gems could support. They were not a controlled magic commodity for that reason.

  Supposedly, it took our family's matriarch quite the effort to have pearls removed from the list of monitored items. I wasn't sure why, everyone involved with gem-work knew you couldn't do anything serious with them.

  As it would turn out, that was a little white-lie supported by the environment. Other places, other worlds had much greater use for the simple faux gems. It was no grand conspiracy, simply that the magic of my world and my people had leaned in such a way as to make pearls inefficient. And more importantly, other gems were more plentiful.

  In any case, quality was still the major hurdle. While I never solved that issue, the issue of where to next build a farm was settled. Nowhere. There was no need for a second farm, it just wouldn't be profitable, and it might actually drag the business under.

  My parents made me argue my case, of course. Debate it until I was exhausted, then again when I had gathered enough information to continue. I was never certain if they had ever actually intended on building that second farm. Perhaps it had all been a ruse just to train me. I don't really feel it matters anymore, and even then, I preferred to keep the mystery open ended.

  Instead of a new farm, I suggested we branch out into gem-work. We had most of the materials for simple enchantments. The mark-up on even simple enchantments was significant. Making tourist tat, and enchanting it ourselves would skyrocket our profits.

  They took it more as a suggestion from a child than I would have preferred. Smiling politely and laughing it off. Not even forcing me to argue my case.

  That was the first real betrayal that I had ever experienced. A betrayal of respect. The only one from them that I would ever experience, and almost the only real betrayal I felt for the next decade.

  At the time, I took it in stride. I was used to those patronizing smiles, not from them, but still. It pushed me back into research. Research we didn't have on hand, and research that was harder to find.

  It took me two years to gather enough for a proper presentation and to argue my case. By that point, they were well aware of what I intended, and well aware of the results of my effort. Our company did expand into enchanting. Not quite as thoroughly as I had first envisioned, but enough to make the venture worthwhile.

  Enough to attract snakes, vipers, leeches, and vultures. Opportunists of all kinds, and even the more thoughtful kind that are willing to play the long game. Willing to put themselves into a position where they could pull the bottom card out of your card tower just to get themselves a petty advantage.

  As you can imagine, it hit me pretty hard, and it's still a bit raw.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  It was about halfway through my third decade of life when I was truly betrayed for the second time.

  Fair to say that it's not as though I had never been tricked or lied-to before that. And certainly, the family business has had its share of leeches and gliders. Not to the same extent as a huge and truly successful business. We had been operating smoothly for nearly a century, slowly growing and expanding. Yet, with the bounty of a decade of great success, it had now grown fat with dust mites and scavengers. Some spring cleaning needed to happen, I simply wish it hadn't been such a dramatic affair.

  We knew that the addition of gem-work would put us on a new stage. Put us into a group that researched magic, and one that pushed its development forwards. We greatly underestimated how valuable some people thought those developments were.

  From a business perspective, it's amazing how little damage the betrayal did to our regular operations. Material losses were less than a single pearl diver's salary, before bonuses. The loss of information will likely cost us in the long run, allow our competitors to catch up and possibly surpass our meager offerings. Our advancements were never going to start a revolution, enchanted pearls are still weak on that world, but there is a market there.

  I suppose the size and prosperity of the family business is only important in that it was large enough to be infiltrated by corporate espionage and foreign actors. Yet, culturally it is important to say that many people relied on the company for their livelihoods, and we treated our employees well.

  Personally, the betrayal destroyed me. I fell into a fugue state that lasted months. Long enough that our surprisingly efficient legal system had caught, prosecuted, and exiled the perpetrators before I returned to reality. Including the person who had once been closest to me.

  I've come to learn that exile isn't a particularly common means of legal punishment. That it is more often used politically, but on my people's world, it is an ancient tradition dating back to our migrating tribes period. The legal system then, as now, was focused on community.

  The people as a whole put a lot of effort into their community. We go out of our way to support one another and ensure that all are accepted and have a chance to prosper. If you forsake that kindness by committing a serious crime, you are banished from the community. Simple as that. How long, and the particular stipulations are dependent on the crime, of course. Ideally, the point is to remind you of what you will be missing, what life would be like without our hard won community.

  With the advancement of magic, especially very powerful magic, new options for exile became available.

  Notably, criminals could be exiled to another world entirely.

  Not to some prison colony. Not to some foreign beach full of corpses. Not an inhospitable wasteland that is equivalent to a death sentence. We are not so callous.

  For any exile, the expectation is that you can and will return, after your sentence is complete. That you'll want to return to our community. Many off-world exiles do not, however.

  We know that most live full lives because those that do return bring word from those that do not, when they have the fortune of crossing paths. Thus, we know that there is life out there, safety of a kind, and even communities which are vastly different from our own. We don't know everything about them, very little in fact. The world-web is vast, and so few exiles are sent out, fewer still meet others, and surprisingly few return.

  So it was, when I emerged from my fugue state, I found a world lacking any closure for the crimes committed against me. Sure, they had been caught, successfully prosecuted, and their sentencing had been executed. All involved, corporate spy, state actor, or backstabbing vulture, all were exiled to one of the many worlds that ours refused to have any sustained contact with.

  Justice of a sort, but not closure.

  I could not address the perpetrators directly and ask why. I could not ask the love of my life ... if they regretted it ... or anything else that weighed heavy on my heart.

  When your world is destroyed- your personal world, I mean. The world at large didn't notice these events anymore than you notice a grain of sand under your shoe.

  When your world is destroyed. When your social circle crumbles out of existence. You might find that you'll cling to anything, even the frayed threads of connection to someone who has already hurt you.

  The world-web might have noticed us slightly more. Likely they only saw the ripples of our passing. I think something else noticed me, and they likely watched those ripples with great care. Hoping each would become a wave. Hoping someone would turn them into tsunamis.

  I was rather distraught, even after returning to my own sanity. The family's company had largely continued on without notice. Even without my parents or myself at the helm. It was self sufficient. We hired good people whenever we could. A company was a kind of community, it needed to be sculpted and grown, its health maintained. Those before me had made that a priority.

  My grandfather's favorite comparison was a bonsai tree; you can fill in the metaphor.

  I preferred strawberries. The plant will grow in many places, but having it successfully produce an abundance of fruit is significant work. Its lunging runners try to grow new plants, but you have to be considerate of where it spreads to. You should check if the new location can actually support fruit production, and if not: prune the runners. Strawberries grow best on a ledge, by the way, so the fruit can hang down over it and get more sun.

  I shouldn't spend so much time discussing the company as it's no longer in my name. The very events I'll soon speak of encouraged me to give it up almost as soon as I inherited it. I regretted doing so, but the family was too small, the possible inheritors too few. As a community, it was better managed by the hands of its employees, those still in the community that surround it. I did put in some work to ensure it wouldn't go astray. To ensure it couldn't grow too quickly and spread too thin.

  I'm distracting myself a little. The initially momentous events are still quite hard to speak of.

  ...

  I had always intended to be prepared for my future. Prepared for any turn of events, at work or personally. Yet, how do you prepare for betrayal?

  How can you prepare for it? Yes in business, certainly, it is logical to do so. We had plans for significant losses, breaches of security, insurance for each tank of giant mana-gorger clams that grew the best and worst pearls. That was why the business hardly felt the crimes against it.

  Yet, to do the same preparation for your personal life? To brainstorm the most damaging things that your friends and loved ones could do to you and yours? Then still meet up with them and smile and greet them. Pretend that you trust them completely when your preparations prove the exact opposite?

  Luck had saved me from earlier trauma and paranoia. Even now, that simple logic prevents me from looking for those daggers in the dark. I'd rather not feel smug that I saw it coming.

  If someone close wishes to gouge out my heart in the dark, again. Then let them. I'll not let fear or anxiety rule me.

  Justice, however. I'm willing to aspire to justice.

  We follow laws and punish crimes for justice; to make an attempt at it. True justice is impossible. You cannot take back what was stolen. You cannot recoup the time and emotional energy lost to the process of justice itself.

  Six individuals stole from my company. In doing so, and because of the immediate fallout, they also destroyed my family.

  Legal justice was served by sending them on an international vacation. Five years of exile, to different worlds of course. Worlds that have people, community, safety and security. Some worlds are even reported to have greater opportunity than our own, if you believe the stories from the returned exiles.

  Back when our people migrated as tribes, leaping along the coast, from island to island, their exile was much stricter. I did a research paper about it as a teen, I think that most well-schooled children have.

  Back then, exile was about separation, struggle, and loneliness. Not just going somewhere else for a while. History moved on, settlements and cities made exile difficult. Banishment from a particular region became more common. Along with some method of marking the criminal, a brand or chain, marked with the date their sentence ended on.

  Eventually, the legal system needed to encourage people to return, specifically to have the markings removed. It was thought to be healthy for the community to witness their return. Many things were tried, most were circumvented to some degree. It fueled the development of the mana cuff. A type of enchantment that can restrict its wearer's mana use. As a bonus, it is difficult to remove.

  Being stripped of some of your power, if you had any, was seen as a suitable equivalent to the struggle of exile. Simply wearing the cuff marked you as a criminal, as so you would be ostracised from gatherings, providing some of the separation and loneliness. It could be made to be even more difficult to remove: the gem-work could self reinforce by draining the user's mana. Just wearing one is a rather uncomfortable experience.

  Incentives to not remove it early were also provided. Including social incentives. ... ah, but again, I have coasted a bit too far. Moving on to modern exile.

  When access to the world-web was discovered, it was seen as a great boon for the struggles of criminal punishments, among other things. Traditionalists were rather excited: true exile was once again possible.

  You might think that access to even a single other world would be incredible for trade and expanding knowledge. Like discovering another continent or country that you could trade with. What opportunities would await us, just beyond reality?

  It turned out we were at a significant disadvantage there. No one wanted to come to our world. Except to strip its resources and leave again. Sure we could have beggared our world to access unknown magics and gem-works. Advance our technology by centuries. But why bother?

  Luckily for us, a system was in place to protect young worlds like ours. For the small price of regular tribute, we would be protected from invasion. Economic or otherwise.

  That tribute could come in many forms, sending people was one. Rarely used, as who would blindly sacrifice their population? You can see where this is going, of course. The tributed person wasn't at risk of death or enslavement. They simply needed to leave and join the greater world-web.

  How fortunate that we wished to send people away. How fortunate that many exiles have no desire to return.

  Now, I have to ask. Was this justice?

  After the betrayal, that was the major question I was struggling with. It was effectively permanent banishment, sure. Culturally that was seen as a far greater punishment than exile. And yet, these are ideals from when our communities were still small migrating groups. The ideal that exile is sending them to nothing like what we can provide. I suppose that is accurate, just in the wrong direction.

  Returned exiles, those that have gone into the world-web and made their way back. They proclaim their love for the world-web. They petition that we join it as a whole. Our planet would be stripped, yes, and possibly forsaken completely. It might be too much of a mana sink to raise up, drawing mana from the system instead of providing.

  But individually, we would be wealthy, they say. Our communities would prosper, and we could simply leave this world for a better one. Spread out to the many worlds and flourish.

  We are a naturally-migrating people, it isn't an unreasonable idea, even for those who are comfortable as is.

  So again, I ask. Is being a fore-runner for your entire species a punishment? Has justice been served?

  I do not think it was.

  I could not think so.

  I knew that I would never consider the matter settled.

  So. What was I, Heron vol Gleamwright, to do?

  Revenge? Vengeance? Justice? Nay, this is a story about closure. About seeing events to their rightful end. Even if I have to do so with my own two hands.