and my ears will listen | Glowfic Constellation

"Well," shit," says Kas. He rubs his face with both hands. "Are you done, then?"

"Yes, that's the whole thing. I am supposed to tell the queen how you reacted."

Kas Petaal

truthwright

"You do that," he says, and he gets up, and Petaal turns into a witch and follows him into the cabin and shuts the door.

carillons

(Helen winces.)

Inkeri hesitates, but then flies back to the garden where the queen is, and lands again, and describes how Kas behaved.

"I think you're a prophet," the queen concludes.

"Will I make more prophecies?" inquires Inkeri.

"Possibly not. Some people with your birth blessing don't make even one prophecy in their lifetimes."

"Oh," says Inkeri.

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Helen drifts back a little more, and then turns and flies away.

She doesn't quite mean to listen behind her, but she does.

"How can you tell if someone is a prophet if they never make a prophecy?" asks Inkeri.

"If they have the right goddess and domain and no obvious birth blessing. Prophets occasionally appear even in clans that don't birth-bless, although then it's harder to be sure," the queen replies. "You should tell your friend not to come to me in mortal garb again."

"I can tell Helen you said so."

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Helen notices she is listening to the queen. She decides to stop.

After a minute, Inkeri catches up to her. "The queen doesn't want you to talk to her while you're wearing mortal clothes," she reports.

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"I know, I heard," she says. "Then I stopped listening."

"Oh. After that she told me that even when I am not making prophecies I'm still a prophet and this gives me special clan status and I will learn more about that soon," she volunteers.

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"That's cool," says Helen.

"It might be," allows Inkeri. "Your dad seemed very upset about my prophecy."

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"That happens sometimes," says Helen.

"Has he heard prophecies before?"

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"No, but he gets very upset about stuff sometimes," she says. "And it doesn't always make sense why."

"I wonder why I was supposed to tell him that prophecy."

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Helen shrugs.

Inkeri doesn't seem to have anything else to say, but she flies alongside Helen companionably.

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Helen smiles at her.

Smiles.

Kaydi is a full year older than Helen, and her daemon settles when she's just eleven. Lexaryn is a tree swallow, and very vain about it. She separates on the first try, and Lexaryn is barely within thirty feet of her for the next week, showing off.

Shura has been anxious about separating, and keeps asking Kaydi about it and getting told, "Everybody does it, don't be a baby."

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Whereas Helen prefers to hug Shura when she expresses such concerns.

Helen does not have the important attribute of having, in fact, walked across the Waste - "And even when you do, your birth blessing will help. I'm scared." (Shura is hugging Nicoa hard. He's being a Dalmatian; he's been being mostly mammals in deference to her nervousness.)

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"I'm sorry," says Helen. "It's okay to be scared. Kas was scared when he did it."