we feel misfortunes deep and keen

[dark_light]

Pensive cuddling goes on a long time.

Path nudges against Kas occasionally, almost like he's testing over and over to see if it hurts, but he never flinches, so it must not.

Comments

[telesonorous]

Helen comes out of the basement.

[dark_light]

"Hi."

[telesonorous]

"Hi," she says nervously.

[dark_light]

"How are you holding up?"

[telesonorous]

"...Okay, I guess. How are you?"

[dark_light]

It's Path who answers. "Dealing. I want to see Kalavar."

[telesonorous]

"Okay," says Helen. She pauses, then adds, "She's in the backyard now."

[dark_light]

Path nudges Kas one more time, then takes wing and goes out the window.

He lands in front of Kalavar.

He is much, much smaller than she is.

"Hello."

[telesonorous]

"You're little," says Kalavar. "And puffy."

[dark_light]

"You are enormous and extinct," says Path.

[telesonorous]

Kalavar giggles.

[dark_light]

Path stretches out a wing and preens a little self-consciously. "My Isabella has never been especially good at getting to know new people. High stakes don't help. She's nervous."

[telesonorous]

"Helen's nervous too," says Kalavar. "She wants to get along but she doesn't know how."

She hunkers down and sits on the ground, putting herself more on Path's level. Well. Her head is only about two or three feet above him now, instead of five or six.

[dark_light]

Path conjures up a little perch to put him at eye-level. "Talking to the other Dominiques didn't help?"

[telesonorous]

"Well... it helped her feel less nervous then," says Kalavar. "But the other Dominiques don't really know how to get along with their mothers - they've never had to try. Talking to Soph helped a little more," she adds. "But it's not really very much the same thing."

[dark_light]

"If my Isabella could do what Juliet did, if that would make any sense here," Path says, "she would."

[telesonorous]

"That's good," says Kalavar. "But - it wouldn't." She sighs. "I wonder if there's a similar thing that would make sense?"

[dark_light]

"She can pastwatch. But it takes a long time and it's not the same."

[telesonorous]

"It's not," Kalavar agrees. "It wouldn't be like her knowing us. I guess the only way to do that is to... get to know each other." She sighs gustily, her head dipping lower. "I wish we were twelve again so I could be a chinchilla and snuggle up to you."

[dark_light]

"If you wish it very much there's shapeshifting magic. I don't think any daemons who don't already shapeshift have tried it though."

[telesonorous]

"I can snuggle anyway," she says. "It's just - hard."

And she leans forward and turns her head and touches the side of her face against Path's fluffy feathers, keeping her enormous beak out of the way.

[dark_light]

Snuggle.

Inside, Isabella says, "I should probably tell my parents, at some point. Did they know I was going to come back? Did they know anything?"

[telesonorous]

"I don't think Inkeri told her prophecy to anyone but us," says Helen. "Granatee knows about Things now - minting and other worlds and stuff - but Charlie doesn't."

[truthwright]

"I told 'em you were coming back. Didn't say when," says Kas.

[telesonorous]

"Oh, and the queen," Helen adds. "Inkeri told the queen her prophecy. But it just said sixty-six years after you vanished, and nobody knew what day that was."