NOTE- Just finished the Heartstriker series. Sequels are imminent. Rachel Aaron and I will have to race.
SIXTY-THREE PERCENT THEORETICAL
CHAPTER ONE- THE THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY
It should be known that Bob handed over all duties of care to Felicity's family as soon as he was able.
It was just that the whelp was accustomed to being tucked into bed a particular way. There was a spot between her wings that needed to be pressed—not rubbed, pressed, solidly until her breathing slowed. She would wake up if you left the room too quickly. She would claw at her dreams, and fingers. Frederick did not complain, ever, but everyone noticed the way his work slowed, and how he winced at tasks that required finesse.
The baby's habit of snapping her jaws was deeply ingrained. She liked to attack hair, of which Bob had plenty and in great length. Chelsie, with crew cut still firmly in shape, was at risk of losing her ears.
And little Felicity stared at things, unblinking, for longer than what she should. Her father cheerfully noted his daughter's pensive disposition. He tried to compare the long spells of stillness to meditation. He insisted it indicated a highly active mind.
Her mother snorted, and said her daughter was staring at things that weren't there yet.
"You're wrong," said Bob. "She won't see the future until she's thirteen."
Thirteen, the magic year. The year of every seer's first vision, the vision of their death. A gloomy birthday present from the oldest seer, the construct Black Reach.
"And that's when you'll see me next, I think," said Bob, after a terse few weeks of joint parenting.
Chelsie's head had moved faster than the eye could follow. "You're leaving?"
Her brother smiled very gently. "Don't pretend to be disappointed."
Felicity would have thirteen years without visions. Her parents would have thirteen years to enjoy raising a normal dragon. And Bob had things to do.
"Like what?" Frederick demanded.
"Stuff," said Bob, and enjoyed Frederick's glare.
He gave them his cell phone number and said to call if any 'seer stuff' came up. "And make sure she learns how to play chess," he added on his way out the door.
"Are you going to use chess analogies to teach her about being a seer?" Chelsie asked.
Bob paused. "No," he said finally. "It's for…other stuff."
Chelsie snorted again. "You're such a dork."
Bob smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "I won't call."
Chelsie's face went still. Then, very softly, she said, "Thank you."
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
The day was tense.
Chelsie felt bad about that. They had tried not to build it up. Or rather, they had tried to build it up in the way birthdays ought to be. Presents to be anticipated, friends to be seen, surprises to be enjoyed.
Felicity's birthday was widely regarded to be the happiest day of the year for the Qilin's family. Xian's joy on every anniversary of his daughter's birth was so fierce that the sun would rise in ultraviolet clouds and set on summer storms, thunder rolling over the mountains like a drum. Felicity's first love was warm summer rain.
This year was no different. But Chelsie's heart sank as she joined her daughter on the roof to watch the sunrise. Felicity's eyes were shadowed and sore, but her back was as straight and rigid as if struck by lightning. She had not slept. No chance for visions.
"Are you nervous?" Chelsie asked, running her fingers through her daughter's hair.
"I can't wait," said Felicity. "And I'm making it worse."
They rushed through the day. Felicity, already a stoic child, glared at each gift and surprise as if imbuing each experience with her complete focus would make the night come faster.
Chelsie had thought about calling Bob the night before. But she couldn't bring herself to hasten his return. She couldn't deny she hated inviting him back.
She satisfied herself by writing a small, separate card for Felicity. She wrote Bob's number in it with a short note saying what it was for. When Felicity found it, she stowed it quickly in the pocket of her new jacket (a gift from Frederick, who doted on his youngest sister). When she thought no one was looking, she would slip her fingers in to worry at the corners of the paper.
Chelsie tucked her youngest in bed as the sky banged ferocious outside.
"Nothing changes after tonight," she said.
Felicity glared at her, puzzled. "Mom, everything changes after tonight."
"Not really," said Chelsie, pressing kisses against her daughter's forehead. "You're still mine. Your father and I are still here. We love you more than anything."
She returned to her own bedroom and lay down with Xian. They faced each other in the dark, listening.
In the morning, Chelsie found her youngest sat upright in bed, clutching the card with Bob's number on it. She stared at nothing in a way she hadn't since infancy.
She had not slept. No chance for visions.
"Is there any chance she did actually have a vision and is just…having a hard time remembering it?"
Chelsie paced the halls, phone in hand.
"I have dreams I don't remember. Everybody does. Couldn't she have—-"
"Chelsie, if Felicity had had a vision last night, you'd know it," said Bob over the line. His voice crackled with the age of his Nokia phone. "Trust me."
"Then maybe we got the day wrong," Chelsie continued doggedly. "I wasn't there when she was hatched, so I couldn't say for sure the day."
"I was there the day she was hatched. Because I hatched her. And I know what day I hatched her. Because I picked it very carefully."
"Then maybe you got it wrong!" Chelsie snapped. "Or maybe we're—is there any chance we were just…wrong about this? Maybe she's not…"
Chelsie glared at the empty hallway surrounding her suspiciously. Frederick had taken his sister out for a flight to clear her head. Or rather, Felicity had flown out of the house at a furious pace, and Frederick was doing his best to keep up with her.
"Chelsie," said Bob, and his voice sounded weary. "Has Svena called you to crow about one of her brats having a vision?"
"Don't call them brats," Chelsie hissed. "We've got a peace treaty with those filthy two-faced ice vipers."
"So she hasn't. And those were the only other dragons born on the same day. Right after the death of the last female seer."
"Then why hasn't Felicity had her vision?" Chelsie snapped.
"It's not something she has," said Bob. "It's something that gets sent to her. Maybe the Black Reach screwed up the time difference?"
"You think an immortal, omniscient, super-intelligent construct got the time difference wrong?"
"Oh, the death vision? On the thirteenth birthday? Well, we're not really doing that anymore, are we?"
Bob blinked at the Black Reach stupidly. "What."
The Black Reach shrugged as best he could from his recliner. "Well, we used to be heading quite directly towards an impending doom, weren't we? And you seers were contributing rather directly to it, weren't you?"
Bob hissed his reluctant agreement.
"But we're past that now. There's no horrible future to warn you lot off from. So there was no reason to send the little thing her death-vision." The Black Reach tilted down his sunglasses. "I can't believe you're even asking me this, it should have been self-evident."
"So that's on me, really," said Bob when he called Chelsie back. "I was riding on thousands of years of tradition, and I kind of forgot we completely revolutionized that system."
"Brohomir, my daughter is DEVASTATED," Chelsie screamed at the phone her devoted husband was protecting from her claws.
"Aw, she's got nothing to worry about!" Bob drawled. "The death vision sucked, she's better off without it. She'll still have real visions. Organic things she'll dream up all by herself!"
"WHEN?"
Bob shrugged. Then he remember he was speaking to his sister on the phone, so he said, "I don't know."
The doorbell rang like a normal doorbell.
Felicity wasn't sure why she thought the doorbell was going to be special. Her mother might have called it intuition, of which she seemed to believe her daughter had plenty. Her father might have said something about his daughter's wonderful ability to see the best and most fantastic potential in everything.
Felicity suspected herself of being gullible and having siblings who enjoyed gossip.
She had not slept in two weeks. In that way, the terrible start to her career as a seer felt self-inflicted. Nerves were not something Felicity was accustomed to. She had been filled with absolute certainty in all things since before she could speak. She believed in things, hard, until she didn't, and never in her mind to any contradiction.
A moment ago, Felicity believed that if she traced the number her mother had given her, flew several miles over New Mexico and went door to door demanding to know the identity of each inhabitant, she would find her famed Uncle Brohomir, last Great Seer of this plane, and he would speak five words and fix everything.
Now, having rung the final doorbell once and received no answer, Felicity believed that Brohomir was a concept rather than a dragon—not a cool, functioning, speaking concept like the Black Reach, but a mythical concept like Santa Claus or the Super-tooth Dragon who came to yank fangs out of the mouths of dragons who didn't brush enough, thanks a lot Frederick—and that this was an elaborate thirteenth birthday lesson from her family, most probably her father, about trusting her instincts, or not worrying about the visions, or something.
That she had been raised feasting on the delicious infamy of Bob's exploits was irrelevant. The ghost of a warm hand pressing between her wings meant nothing. If Bob wasn't answering this door, then he did not exist.
And yet…
She decided to try another tactic.
"So, I think this is your house?" Felicity tried to yell. Felicity was not good at yelling. "Pretty sure it's your house. Wish I could say I knew it was your house because I like, dreamed it, but I think we both know that hasn't happened yet. I used the internet to find you. So…you know. Sorry."
The door stared back, implacable.
Felicity's mouth twisted. "Look, I know you had some rule about not seeing me before I had any visions, but I can't sleep and everything sucks right now and I am asking for your help—-"
Suddenly the door awoke with the sound of several locks being snapped and unlatched as quickly as possible
"Lesson one," A voice called over the noise, "if you're going to get stuck in this future-minding business, you need to know that you are NEVER, under ANY obligation WHATSOEVER—-"
The door swung open.
"—to obey rules that don't exist," Bob finished breathlessly. "My heart, I'm very happy to see you."
Felicity stared at her uncle until his breathing slowed.
"My bedroom is at the back of the house," He added nervously. "It takes a while to get to the door. I don't, uh, anticipate visits the way I used to."
Felicity said nothing. A pigeon fluttered into view and landed on Bob's shoulder. He reached up to touch its head, crossing his arm over himself in a way that came across defensive.
"I don't believe I've wished you happy birthday yet, properly," he said. "I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry."
"Oh," Felicity breathed. "I remember you."