vision

[calescent]

Kiri's up early the next morning, restless with various low-level simmering concerns, and wanders out of her room.

Comments

[calendarofcrime]

Sarelle finds her in the hallway.

"May I speak with you privately?"

[calescent]

"Uh - sure." Kiri turns back whence she came towards her room.

[calendarofcrime]

Sarelle follows her there, and shuts the door, and listens for a moment.

Then she says, "I would like you to tell me if you know what used to break Loel's bones. I don't need the information itself, only to know if you have it."

[calescent]

She's totally fessed up to reading Loel to Sarelle before.

"I do."

[calendarofcrime]

"Does he know that you do, and has he expressed opinions about what you should do with the information?"

[calescent]

"He knows I know. We've - communicated, about the details."

[calendarofcrime]

She nods thoughtfully.

Then she says, "You were friends with the vanished prince."

[calescent]

Kiri just looks at her.

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes," she says, quite as though Kiri had responded verbally. "That is what I thought."

[calescent]

"What are you driving at, Sarelle?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I have recently concluded that the vanished prince must have had a good reason to vanish," she says. "I prefer not to share this conclusion with anyone who does not already know it."

[calescent]

"Okay then."

[calendarofcrime]

She nods.

"That is all," she says, and departs.

[calescent]

After a short delay to let Sarelle turn into another corridor, Kiri seeks out Loel.

[free_flowing]

Loel is in his rooms. He opens the door when she knocks.

"G'morning."

[calescent]

"Morning. Can I come in?"

Sarelle probably isn't deliberately eavesdropping; a closed door will help prevent the accidental kind.

[free_flowing]

"Sure." He steps back from the door to let her through.

[calescent]

Kiri comes in, shuts the door, gets a ways into the room, checks for open windows, and when she's satisfied that the room is reasonably secure, says:

"Sarelle visited me just now and asked if I know why you broke those bones - and when I said yes, she wanted to know if you knew I knew, and if you'd registered an opinion on what to do with the information - and I again said yes, and then she said, 'You were friends with the vanished prince'. And then I didn't say anything much and she said that she's concluded the vanished prince must have had good reason to vanish and that she didn't wish to share that with anyone who didn't already know it."

[free_flowing]

"Where did she pull it from?" he wonders. "I never met her before."

[calescent]

"I didn't read her today but I did on the way here and the way her mind works is - really something else. I shouldn't be as surprised as I am that she's managed to come up with a guess out of a million little things."

[free_flowing]

"Okay. Fine. At least she said she's not gonna go talking to people about it. And she doesn't know who used to break my bones. Does she? There's no reasonable way she could know that, right?"

[calescent]

"She didn't mention it - but even I could probably make a decent guess from the facts we already know she has."

[free_flowing]

"There's a difference between a decent guess and knowing." He sighs. "But I should probably go chase down Ekador and ask him not to go talking about my skeleton, just in case anybody else ever starts guessing. That is a rumour I don't want to let get even a little bit started."

[calescent]

"Yeah, good plan. Just make it out to be about - privacy or something, not rumors."

[free_flowing]

"Yeah. I know."