and my ears will listen

[truthwright]

Time goes by. Shura's mother lets her cut a cloudpine branch, and she and Helen go flying together.

Helen celebrates her eighth birthday by baking all her favourite people a cake again. And then she goes away with Kas, to Iceland and Russia and back by way of Alaska.

When they fly in, Kas on Petaal's cloudpine and Helen on her own, Helen is wearing blue jeans and a pink T-shirt.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"I was thinking about people, especially my dad, but now you're here and I'm thinking about you instead."

[carillons]

"What are you thinking?" she says curiously. She's never bothered asking before.

[alicornucopia]

"Well, you're dressed differently, so I'm thinking about that because it's new and I haven't thought about it before."

[carillons]

"Yeah," says Helen. "Kaydi got mad and Shura got really weirded out and you're not doing either of those. I think I like your way better."

[alicornucopia]

"You aren't brandishing a bloody dagger or reaching for Veravia or trying to knock me off my cloudpine or announcing that you are the bearer of a prophecy about the end of the world," says Inkeri, "or doing anything else that would make that happen."

[carillons]

Helen laughs.

"Those don't sound like fun things to do. Well, maybe the prophecy about the end of the world. I could make one up and tell my spinach and he'd laugh."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, sometimes there are actual prophecies. I don't think I would like it if there were one about the world ending. Because then the world would end."

[carillons]

"Well, yeah," says Helen. "I like the world. Maybe if I make up a joke prophecy I'll make it so there's a way to save the world in it. Just in case."

[alicornucopia]

"Like, The Shade-Dreamer will return on the eve of the sixty-sixth year of her vanishment, and call on the magics of all the worlds," says Inkeri, closing her eyes. "Then I would be much less worried, wouldn't you?"

[carillons]

"Yeah," says Helen. "Yeah, I would. That sounded very prophecyish, do you read a lot of prophecies or something?"

[alicornucopia]

"...No," says Inkeri, "not really, they're very uncommon."

[carillons]

"I'm not sure I've even ever heard one before," she says. "But that sounds like what I think one would sound like if I did."

[alicornucopia]

"They can only be made by people with a certain birth blessing and not all of those," says Inkeri thoughtfully.

[carillons]

"...do you have that one?"

[alicornucopia]

"I have the right goddess and the right domain but it could be something else, my grandma wasn't sure."

[carillons]

Helen tries to think her way through all the goddesses and their domains, to see which one seems most prophecy-ish, and then she shrugs and says, "Which?"

[alicornucopia]

"Evisa Iannakara. Time," says Inkeri thoughtfully.

[carillons]

"What does that blessing do when it's not prophecy?" she wonders.

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not sure. Maybe it makes you be on time to things, or fast, or have a good memory."

[carillons]

"Well," says Helen, "there must be some way to tell that prophecies are prophecies, or we wouldn't know things about them, would we? So how do we tell?"

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know. Probably some grown-up witches do."

[carillons]

"Do you want to find a grown-up witch and say the thing at her and see what she says?"

[alicornucopia]

"I guess. My mom and my grandma are both busy right now, though."

[carillons]

"I'll see what Ranata's doing," she says, and listens.

[alicornucopia]

"You will?" asks Inkeri, after Helen fails to go anywhere.

Ranata appears to be talking to one of her cousins.