calescent | flexibility

flexibility

They leave Thiyec, cross Soche-Tas, and re-enter Welce.

Kiri sends a letter Jayce's way as soon as they stop in a Welchin town. It's brief - we found the Lalindar prime, we'll drop him off and my next stop is the palace so please forward my correspondence there.

The Lalindar house, on inspection, appears to be completely empty. There's a note from the butler on the dining room table stating - in appropriately formal language - that no one was paying them and so they have left, but he, the cook, the gardeners, and the maids may be contacted at the following addresses respectively if the new prime, when located, wishes to re-employ their services. Unlike the Ardelay house at the time of Elytte's death, this house as of Nerine's death contains no extended family. There's nothing to do but for Loel to move in. Kiri draws him a little map of the route between the estate and the nearest town, where he will probably want to buy groceries, and she and Aleko leave to let him plan his moat.

They're at the palace the following day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I think you've got better range than I do. Although admittedly I've never tried sensing distant heat while completely surrounded with fire, so you have the advantage of me there."

Sarelle smiles.

She makes arrangements for the carriage, and comes back, and begins leading the twins along what is presumably her planned route.

They follow, taking in the scenery as long as they aren't responsible for deriving clues from it.

"So what exactly is the thing you do that you did before you became prime?" inquires Aleko. "Which from context somehow has something to do with finding missing Serlasts?"

She considers this question for a few steps.

Then she says, "I find things out."

"...What kinda things? How?"

"A wide variety, and mainly by finding out other things and then applying that knowledge. Like what I did to find out that there were missing Serlasts in Malinqua. Or how I knew that I was prime almost immediately, without doing anything strictly magical - it changed the way my senses fit together, and I was an elay Dochenza who could suddenly taste the wind and there was nothing else it could have been."

"It has a taste?"

"Not exactly. But that is what it felt like at first. The way I would describe it now, I think..."

She ponders phrasings for a few more steps.

"...Looking through a telescope makes distant things seem close enough to touch, with all attendant detail. Breathing as prime does something very similar. I know what the wind has touched, and often when and where, almost as though I had seen it or touched it myself."