we do not bear children until we have so chosen

[dark_light]

Amariah appears in the Belltower, throws herself into a chair, and tries to read postcards, but her eyes won't focus on them. She tries the Bellbook, and scarcely has better luck, although her eyes do catch on a certain word.

"Jane."

"Yep?"

"I want to talk to Aether."

"I'll let her know!"

Comments

[telesonorous]

"What is it?" says Helen.

[dark_light]

"'Granatee'."

[telesonorous]

Helen giggles.

"Yep! I still call her that."

[dark_light]

"That's adorable."

Next postcard.

[pythbox]

More things about Helen. She baked a cake (with help); she wants to go on a roller coaster; Kas is now her 'spinach', apparently; she wants to learn runecasting early so she can bake cake wherever she goes; 'peculiar' is her new favourite word; Kalavar really likes being dragons.

The 'become amazing at magic' project went well, apparently. For her seventh birthday, she baked a cake and gave some to everybody.

The next thing after the postcard about cake is a letter.

Helen got kidnapped. She's fine, don't worry. Some asshole witches got her lost and said they'd take her back to me, and then they did a spell to kill me instead, right under her nose. Sent Petaal after her as soon as I torched. They killed me again on the way back.

And then they wised up and put me under some kind of freezing curse. I went to sleep and the next thing I knew your mom was standing over me with a knife. Really freaked Helen out - the freezing, not the stabbing, Ranata wouldn't let her watch the stabbing, she's pissed about that but she'll get over it.

The queen found the kidnappers, got their queen to hand them over, killed them both. Still don't know what they were after. I can guess, though. Nobody's supposed to know whose daughter Helen is, but shit gets out.

[dark_light]

"Getting kidnapped is not fun," says Path softly.

[telesonorous]

"It really wasn't," Helen agrees.

[mindfields]

Yseult hugs her.

[dark_light]

Next card.

[pythbox]

Back to the minutiae of Helen's life. Cake, magic, her first cloudpine, Kalavar likes being condors and albatrosses, Helen really likes flying, she's more comfortable with her ingot power now, baking her own birthday cakes is now a tradition -

She wanted to try on some clothes she saw in a store today. I let her keep 'em. She looks cute in pink.

A few days later, Turns out one of the other kids can be a real asshole about the clothes thing. Shura's not happy either, but she's trying. Also, Sue visited today and Ranata saw him, so I told her a bunch of stuff. I don't even know why you never did.

Not very long after that: FUCKING PROPHETS

[dark_light]

"Prophets? Is there one around?"

[telesonorous]

"Inkeri Saara," says Helen. "One of my friends. She prophesied that you were going to come back, and when. That's when Kas started crying a lot more."

[dark_light]

"Oh, geez."

Next.

[pythbox]

A sheet of paper covered in the words I can't repeated over and over and over and over in decreasingly legible handwriting.

[dark_light]

"And she told him, I take it. I wouldn't have guessed it would make things that much worse..."

[telesonorous]

"I'm not sure why, exactly," says Helen. "I just sort of chalked it up to Kas being peculiar. But I think it was something about hearing it six years in advance, after so long not knowing."

[dark_light]

"I guess I'll have to ask him, if these postcards don't get any more coherent."

Next.

[pythbox]

For about a week, the postcards suffer a total breakdown - occasionally it's just a piece of paper that has been marked up with a pen and then cried on.

After that, it's a lot of incoherent helpless scattered phrases with occasional perfectly lucid reports about Helen's life. He can hold it together talking about Helen, but talking about his feelings leads to things like the page full of I can't and the postcard with a heart-shaped bloodstain blurred by tears.

As time goes on, the proportion of incoherent messages about his feelings decreases.

All of Helen's friends settle before she does; when she gets around to it at last, it's just before her thirteenth birthday and she separates on the first try.

Postcards get sparse after that.

The very last one says, Maybe I'll clean your house again.

[dark_light]

She puts the bag down.

[telesonorous]

"Are you okay?"

[dark_light]

"I've been better." She sighs. "I - guess I'll go home again - are you coming along or getting to know the other Dominiques a bit more?"

[telesonorous]

"...I think I'll stay here for now," she says.

[dark_light]

"Okay."

It has not really been that nice to meet her, so Amariah doesn't say it, but she does smile a little at her - daughter - and tap her Janegem.

And here she is in her basement again.

[truthwright]

Someone is crying in the living room.

[dark_light]

Amariah goes up.