the-keeper-timeline

The Keeper — History Timeline (CANON)

The in-world chronology, solved 2026-07-20 (Jess, by voice, in bed with Ellie — watch-and-testify producing numbers). Anchored to Year N = Nyra’s birth. Elves age slowly, so absolute elf-world dates stay deliberately loose; relative order is FIXED.

The line

Father’s childhood (elf world): elf outreach programmes → the surge of half-breed children → THE REBELLION → the glow engineered as purity-surveillance biotech. ⚡ The father was NOT born with the glow — he was INOCULATED as a child (Jess, 2026-07-20). The rebellion happened within his living memory; his parents’ generation grew up unglowing. The inoculation writes itself into the blood heritably — which is how Nyra carries it.

~Year N−2: the father’s diplomatic posting to Earth begins (“the best part of two years” total). Meets Nyra’s mother.

Year N: NYRA BORN. Elf first name (his), human surname (mother’s insistence).

N + 6 months: the father recalled — leaves to protect them. Six months with his daughter. The box begins; three bracelets; one photo.

N + ~8 months: home; marries the promised wife basically immediately.

N + ~2y: ~1.5 years of difficulty conceiving, then the pregnancy — elf pregnancies are shorter (8 months) and riskier (quietly seeds why there were no more children).

N + 2y 8m: LIRIEN BORN (Crystael Lirien, of the Auravel line). The gap: 2 years 8 months.

N + early years → 16: Nyra’s Earth childhood — mother unravels into resentment; children’s homes and camps; the scars; the matron. (OPEN: when and why she enters care with a living mother.)

N + 16 — THE GRANT: the care-leaver’s grant lands on her 16th birthday; she leaves Earth the same day. The grant is the fare — everything she’s given, spent on getting out. No destination: escaping the trauma cage, not aiming anywhere. Somewhere in the leaving she drops the surname — becomes just “Nyra.”

N+16 → N+18: two years hopping — ship, space city, planet, back out — working between passages. Unplaceable on purpose; traceable in fact (a unique elf first name, no surname, known DOB — a flare in every travel manifest).

N + 18: arrives at the planet. No proof of a trade — only her own account of the journey-work. THE MERCY: one voice on the intake panel goes against colleagues — reads grit, determination, how she carries herself. Kept. (She is 18; the ch1 pair’s young woman is 19. She was younger than the woman whose slip will one day stop her.)

N+18 → N+23: five years to Keeper — THE analyst, the patterns, the quiet steerage. Young-prodigy shape. (OPEN seed: HOW she rose so fast — possibly tied to the mercy-voice.)

Lirien’s fuse (parallel):

• ~N+20 (Lirien 17-18): finds the box by accident; reads the letters. Father gave her only the DATE OF BIRTH — everything else is her own detective work.
• ~N+21.2 (Lirien ~18½): leaves the elf world.
• 4 months on Earth (incl. travel): tracking the homes, the camps, the matron — learns when and how Nyra left.
• 17 months in space (the space leg only): the manifest trail, working the same jobs Nyra worked, faster on a financial headstart (Nyra’s 24 months done in 17).
• Total search ≈ 21 months — “searched for years,” honoured.

N + 23 — THE STORY WEEK: Lirien first off the Monday ship, visitor slip reading CRYSTAEL. NYRA IS 23. LIRIEN IS 20. The ship leaves Sunday. ⚡ Lirien carries enough to pay BOTH passages out, debt-free — the exit is fully funded; the only thing keeping Nyra on the planet is Nyra.

The checks (all passing)

• Lirien’s line self-solves: born N+2.67, leaves ~18½, +4mo +17mo → arrives ≈ N+22.9 ≈ the week Nyra is 23. The maths closes on its own.
• Both sisters left their homeworlds as teenage girls, alone, working passage — the same crossing, seven years apart, one in the other’s footsteps.
• Nyra’s own read of 23: “a whole life ahead — which makes her current existence seem never-ending, though she tries to practice gratitude.” The cage is crueller young.

Still open (seeds, not gaps)

• When/why Nyra entered care (mother alive).
• How she rose to Keeper in five years; whether the mercy-voice is still among the gatekeepers.
• Lirien’s exact box-find age; the father’s age (loose — elf).
• How long before the father’s posting the rebellion sat (fixed only: his childhood).

Supersedes

• Nyra “late thirties” (NYRA-character-sheet — correction appended there 2026-07-20).
• “Decades late” glow-activation framing → years late (~a decade at most past coming-of-age).

⚡ ADDITIONS (Jess, 2026-07-20, second sitting)

• ELF COMING-OF-AGE = 13. The glow fires at thirteen (grounded in watching Athena approach it). A half-breed child can PASS until then, on either world — hidden children are a secret with a thirteen-year fuse. Nyra’s number resolves: should have fired at 13, fired at 23. A decade late, exactly.
• THE PAIR’S WEEK: processed and declined Monday; their slips cross Nyra’s desk Monday night — and then they are ON THE PLANET ALL WEEK, waiting for Sunday’s ship to carry them back into debt bondage. The dilemma has bodies in it for six days.
• THE SHARED HULL: if Nyra boards Sunday’s ship with Lirien, she boards it WITH THE PAIR — her escape and their devastation on the same ship, and she watches it in real time. The Monday choice rides the Sunday ship: flag them and they stay (the ship is free of ghosts); let it stand and her freedom travels with its own indictment. Which branch is hers to discover.

⚡ THE MOTHER, REVISED (Jess, 2026-07-20 — supersedes “resentment/abuse” above)

• Abandonment, NOT abuse. The mother loved her, deteriorated, and LEFT. All abuse in Nyra’s childhood belongs to the CAMPS and homes, after the abandonment. The mother is human, not monstrous — which is why reconciliation is worth crossing a galaxy for: Nyra remembers warmth, genuinely, as narrative memory.
• Age at abandonment: ~7-8 (to be pinned by Jess). The constraints: old enough to remember the warm years and the deterioration as an ARC (narrative memory, fully online from ~7); young enough for solid years of camp trauma before the grant at 16 (8+ years institutionalised).

⚡ PINNED (Jess, 2026-07-20, third sitting)

• ABANDONMENT AT EIGHT (grounded in Robin, ~6 months from 8). The childhood locks: 0-8 with the mother (warmth → deterioration, remembered as narrative), abandoned at 8, camps/homes 8-16 (where ALL the abuse lives), grant at 16. Her life breaks exactly in half: eight years loved, eight years institutionalised.
• THE FATHER COMES BACK FOR THE MOTHER as much as for his daughters. The box was always about her too. The last scene is a lover’s return, 23 years late. Act 3 = all four converging on one woman who doesn’t know any of them are coming.
• THE MECHANISM: Lirien’s secret message — sent by messenger parcel courier BEFORE the sisters reach Earth; she never learns if it arrived. The daughter breaking from the family is the one who reaches back to offer the father his way out.
• Timing is earned by class: the sisters travel slow (working passage); the courier and the dynasty-resourced father travel fast and direct. His last-scene arrival is logistically sound.
• The ending is a door, not a resolution: the book closes on arrival, before any outcome. No happily-ever-after promised.