Deet sighed and nuzzled Ashona as she yawned and curled up on her shoulder. Rian was already sound asleep against her other shoulder, an arm draped over her and the baby.

She had gotten used to it, especially since she and Rian had resumed intimacy. Ashona would sleep for a couple of hours after the evening meal, a window they often took advantage of. At first, it felt unfair that she had to get up and nurse as soon as they started drifting to sleep. Now she loved it. Especially this moment, when the two of them were asleep, both sated and nuzzled against her.

In an odd way, it was the only time she really had to herself.

Back in Grot, she spent the majority of her time alone, allowing her imagination to soar as she herded nurlock or hiked the riverbed.

She didn't miss spending time alone, or so she thought. But in these moments of silence - except for a the sounds of their breathing, occasionally punctuated by a brief, light snore that Ashona had inherited from Rian - she could let her mind go free, whether she wanted to remember a favorite song or think clearly about something.

She thought about the ticks, and what she would say to Brea, before her mind recalled the songs of the Stonewood wedding and she drifted off to sleep with her family.

Deet was awakened by a low, familiar tapping sound. So familiar was the sound, she was surprised to open her eyes and find herself, not in Domrak in Grot, but in the bed chamber she shared with her new family.

Rian was facing her, on his side, still soundly asleep, Ashona's back to her as she slept nuzzled into his shoulder.

Deet smiled. While he didn't verbalize it, she knew that he had fatherhood anxiety. She understood why. But fatherhood suited him.

She turned, quickly, as the taps - not a dream, it turned out - echoed in the room again.

She slid out of the bed as carefully as she could, but Rian stirred awake.

"You Ok?" He asked hoarsely, squinting despite the lack of daylight.

"Do you hear that?" She asked, approaching the coral wall. She was unclothed.

He sat up slightly. "I don't hear anything." He reached for his linen and pulled it up to his waist, just in case the mysterious sound forced them to escape. "Put something on," he said.

"There it goes again," she said. She put a palm against the wall and concentrated.

"What is it?" Rian asked, lifting the now-stirring childling to his shoulder.

Ashona blinked and cooed, her ears twitching.

"Do you hear it too, little one?" he asked, smoothing her rapidly-growing dark hair with his thumb.

Deet held up a finger as she listened. "It's… it's finger talking," she said in a loud whisper.

Rian blinked in surprise. He had heard of finger talking in a couple of his dreamfasts with Deet. It was an obscure non-verbal language of Grot, made by tapping the cave walls.

He slid out of the bed and approached her, shifting Ashona from one shoulder to the other.

"Does this mean there are other Grottan on the vessel?" he asked.

Deet shook her head no, still concentrating. "It isn't a fluent speaker," she said. "But I can just make out what they're saying."

"What are they saying?"

"Hm." She looked as if she was trying to crack a code. "Something about the prophecies."

Rian groaned. "Can we have one day?"

"I think…" she looked at them. Ashona's arms were stretched toward her, her cooing beginning to hitch into a cry. Rian passed the childling to her, and in a single motion she tucked her into the crook of her elbow to nurse.

"I think we should tell Brea."

Rian sighed. "Just one normal day?"

Onica was in a panic. With the swirling of a handful of sand, she had gone from an observer of prophesy - a sympathetic soothsayer who watched Deet and Rian navigate a world where they faced unimaginable expectations - to a part of it, more deeply than she ever could have imagined.

Part of her wanted to just disregard what Rauhl had said. The ways of the Dousan were far different than hers. It would be easy to reject it and move on.

Only she couldn't. She needed to talk to Brea, she knew, but she wasn't ready. For the first time, she didn't know what to say to Dovra. And little Tavra, what was she supposed to say to her? Anything at all?

She tried to separate herself from the situation and think of what she would say to another mother in her position, but she came up blank.

The only Gelfling she felt she could talk to were Deet and Rian. She didn't know them well, beyond seeing the many chapters of their life together after she had released the Darkening. She knew them better than she should, really, and they knew it. It had made their exchanges awkward. But Onica always felt, genuinely, that she was on their side.

Going to see them without Brea was out of the question. Onica rarely left the Citadel, and had never left to go down below by herself, ever. It would be too conspicuous if she started now.

She had heard of finger talking during one of her travels. It always fascinated her, the idea that Gelfling could communicate by tapping their fingers, a resonation that could reach others far away. It worked in caves. Why not on the great vessel, with it's winding tunnels?

She had been tapping for a while now, kneeling in the corner of an empty room, desperate to be heard.

It felt useless. She lowered her hands, her head bowed in defeat, when she heard a simple, clear response.

Onica's finger talking skills were rudimentary at best, but the response translated to one of the most basic words in any language:

Hello.

"I don't understand why Brea would use that language," Rian said, as they once again made their way to the Citadel. Today, Ashona, increasingly aware of her surroundings, was wrapped and perched on his side, her little knee and foot sticking out.

"Well, who else could figure out how to use it?" Deet asked.

"I don't know, Deet, there are a thousand Gelfling on this vessel," he said.

"It was definitely coming from above," she said.

"Maybe it was that Dousan shaman?"

Deet shrugged, and looked around, taking in the trees. Theoretically, the below was similar to Grot, but it lacked the flora she loved so much. Nothing could compare to the natural ecosystem of Grot in her mind, but the top of the vessel felt more like Thra.

Rian eyed her and was tempted to tell her not to get distracted, as she had the last time they came up and got sidetracked by the Stonewood wedding. After a brief consideration, he decided against it. He didn't really want to go back to the Citadel, and the distraction of the wedding had been pretty wonderful, actually. It was rare, even now that they had their own dwelling, that they were just in the moment together like that. As they turned a corner overlooking the spot where the couple had exchanged promises, he was a little disappointed to see it empty.

"Is it wrong that I miss my old life sometimes?" Deet asked, her eyes drawn to the ground in front of her.

"Of course not," Rian said. "Why would that be wrong?"

"Well, I didn't know you then. I didn't have Shoni."

"Oh. Huh." He looked down at Ashona peering out at the world. "I don't think that's wrong. You miss your family."

"I miss my whole life," she said. "I'm sorry."

Rian let her apology sit in the air. No doubt the sound of the obscure Grottan language had triggered something in her. The two of them had each experienced enough trauma that these kinds of moments weren't uncommon, and he knew that most of the time talking one another out of their feelings didn't help.

"I feel that too," he said, taking her hand. "And my life before was objectively pretty awful."

She nodded, with a hint of a smile.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"Tomorrow what?"

"Tomorrow we'll have a normal day."

Rek'yr stood at the bottom of the Citadel steps, seemingly confirming that Brea was expecting them.

"You came," Rek'yr said with a nod.

"Did we have a choice?" Rian asked.

Deet shot him a look. His demeanor could change on a flint.

"Leave if you want," Rek'yr said. "Onica has no power over you."

"Onica?" Deet asked, looking from Rian to Rek'yr. "What does Onica have to do with - "

Rek'yr turned and walked up the steps away from them before she could finish. He paused at the top and turned, his expression questioning why they hadn't followed.

Rian shook his head as Deet pulled him to follow.

"This should be fun," he said.

Rek'yr didn't lead them to Onica's quarters or the committee room where Brea held closed meetings about prophecy and the future of the Gelfling. He took them farther into the Citadel than they'd been before, up a spiral staircase that led to an open air platform surrounded by a parapet.

Rian looked around, uncomfortable with how similar it felt to the battlements he'd spent countless hours on watch at the Castle.

"Curious that we escaped the war only to build our own version of the Castle," he said.

Rek'yr smiled. "You sound like my brother," he said. "And neither of you are wrong."

Onica appeared, as if she had been hiding. "It's actually based on the Ha'rar citadel," she said. She clasped Deet's hands warmly, and nodded at Rian, whose expression was as suspicious as ever.

She turned her attention to the childling blinking up at her.

"Oh my Thra," she whispered, holding out a finger, which the baby grasped without hesitation. "You're growing!"

"What do you want, Onica?" Rian asked. "And why are we hiding up here?"

Onica looked at him and straightened up.

"We've learned some new prophecy," she said. "Something that changes things."

Rian widened his eyes in a bemused "well?" expression.

Onica took a deep breath. "There's not just one, but two," she said. "The boy we knew about, and a girl."

Rian stepped back, clutching his daughter, shaking his head.

"No, it's not her!" Onica said before they could get a word out. "She hasn't been born yet. And she is not related to your son, the healer."

"We didn't have a son, did we?"

Onica looked at them. "Well. Not yet."

As Deet glanced at Rian, Onica caught her giving him a look of "I told you."

"OK," Rian said. "That's great. We're leaving."

"The girl in the prophesy is the child of my daughter, Tavra," Onica said, as he started away.

"Oh Onica," Deet said, still standing where she was. "Are you sure?"

Onica nodded. "I didn't know who to tell. I don't know what to do."

"Well," Deet said, her brow kintted in thought. "I think it's better to know."

She glanced at Rian, his back still to Onica. He looked at her, and saw hope in her eyes.

"Is it true that they will live hundreds of trine?" she asked.

Onica nodded. "It's said they will rule for many trine."

"What would happen without the healers?" Deet asked.

Onica shrugged. "Surely the Gelfling would go extinct for all time," she said. She paused. "But they don't. We won't. Our children will be the mother and father of the future of our species."

Rian turned, looking at Onica. He'd never thought about it quite like that. It was a massive, overwhelming thought. It wasn't really about them. At the same time, the thought that they might be a part of this future hit him like a blade.

The three of them faced each other.

"Maybe it's time to work with the prophesies, and not just ride along on them."