Nua left earlier that day. No fish, no coppers, just bruises forming slowly on her back. Despite the lord merchant's orders, the guard hit hard. No love for the Unsagga in this one, too. Fortunately, as she reinforced her body with ether before each lash, they would not make her seriously ill, just a bit sore.

She needed to think. She made a few more calculations on her way to her favorite hideout at the junkyard. Instead of doing proper numbers, she mostly imagined piles of fish - Ursan had taught her simple calculations before, but she never paid attention. Still, it worked.

Anki was floating nearby. She was ignoring him on purpose. She already realized that he could not save her from every mess she got herself into. He had no body, nearly no power on his own, and his knowledge was mostly outdated, useful only in specific occasions like the one with the Vedan language. Still, she didn’t feel like talking to him at the moment. He did something to her without asking for permission, despite promising otherwise.

Only after she made it into her favorite ruin and climbed on the window frame, she calmed down enough to ask questions. Her back still throbbed against the porous, moss-covered brick. She sighed and tried to think about something else.

“So, true. That was a bad plan”, she mumbled, “Just don't say I told you so because you have no right. You broke your promise. Your oath”, she corrected herself. “You did something to my head without me knowing.”

The blue spirit blob settled on the windowsill. “Nua, I didn’t put anything in there that wasn’t already inside.”

The girl cast him a sideways look.

“Brains don't do that. It is not natural. Ursan can’t do that, and he’s smart.”

“Apparently, your brain does.”, he said, his tone thoughtful. “This skill isn’t unnatural, Nua. It is just rare, even among smart people. Their respective talents vary, after all.”

“Anki. I’m not smart.”

“You might be getting there, though,” he mused. “In retrospect, it is not all that surprising. I have suspected the events to unfold along this course since I examined you at the beginning. You’ve been doing exceptionally good, given the extent of your damage.”

“Slow down. I still don’t understand half of the words you use.”

“Apologies.”

“And I want you to explain why exactly I can do that and what’s going on with my brain. All of it. I don’t care if I don’t get it. I will try and think until I do.”

Anki gave out a long sigh.

“I’ll try. First, I need to ask a couple of questions to be sure. Could you tell me how much fish is three hundred and seventy crates with two hundred twenty-four fish each?

“…oh.” Nua faltered. “That’s too many. I need to take my time to count it.”

“Don’t bother,” the spirit said. “Your answer is clear enough. The result does not come to you without effort; you really need to calculate it. You do not have what they call a splinter or a savant skill – a rare, specialized ability, but ultimately not elastic and not as useful, perhaps as a parlor trick. You are just that fast at mental mathematics.”

Nua frowned. The bulk of Anki’s words was, as usual, some ancient nonsense. She wasn’t sure if he was complimenting her or if it was the other way around.

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“Is it good or bad?”

“Good. While it is probably too late to make a scholar out of you, and your… personality does not seem to fit the stationary lifestyle, quick thinking and the sense for mathematics are of use in many occupations. Traders, ushumgar pilots...” he coughed. “Now, let us continue. What do you know about destiny?”

“Is this a trick question, too?”

“I have no idea at what basis of knowledge the world currently operates. For example, you knew that thinking takes place in the brain.”

“…isn’t that obvious?”

“No. I do not want to go into historical digressions, but no. Now, for the destinies...”

“So, a destiny is something that priests often talk about.”, Nua said. “Some complete bull about how the nobles stay noble, and the poor stay poor and should be glad of what they have and never try to climb up.”

“You do not like the priests, I see,” Anki chuckled.

“They do not like the Unsagga. I guess we’re even.”

“It’s not that kind of destiny, then,” the spirit continued. “Nor it is the grand destinies, fates of the nations and civilizations, that stem from probabilities, or stemmed, until we fiddled with that, too. But I digress again. You see, everyone has a little destiny of their own. It is not metaphysical but entirely physical in nature. It’s a description that every living thing carries within their bodies in billions of minuscule, invisible copies, be it a fish, a musushu, a plant, or a human. It foretells what the creature ought to be and how it develops. When a living thing reproduces, the offspring inherits parts of their destinies from their parents. That is how a cat gives birth to kittens and a human to humans. However, this little destiny is only a plan for nature to act upon. Many events can influence it, partially rewrite it, or throw your destiny off the rails altogether — for example, an early sickness. Or poor living conditions,” he glanced. “Do you need more time to follow?”

“A moment.”, Nua said and quietly repeated some phrases under her breath, preparing an abridged version, as she recently did with Anki’s ramblings. It was disgusting to imagine her body housing billions of descriptions, perhaps written on little scrolls, crowding like worms in the belly. Knowing the king, he only tried translating his ancient knowledge so she could understand a fraction of it. Still, the way it really looked like could be even creepier, and that thought gave her shivers. Then, she got a general sense of his lecture and became even more worried.

“…you didn’t fiddle with my destiny?” she asked.

“Regretfully, I cannot do it in my current form, without my full power and proper equipment.”, Anki answered. “All I did was tell your brain to heal itself, using your original destiny and the nutrients you have been providing. The process is still not done, by the way. I have looked at how it is going – with your permission, as you remember – and the parts of your brain are reconnecting nicely. In short, you’re becoming more as your destiny described you to be. Which, as it turns out, involves some rare skills.”

“…wait, so there will be more weird stuff?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But you are going to learn faster and focus better. You can already prepare and execute plans and hold off some of your decisions.”

Nua sighed with annoyance. So, that whole week, he was testing her, all right. He could have said something more and saved her from the beating. She was sure that she would have listened.

“That counting stuff is still weird. Maybe smart, but weird.”

“Intelligent people are all weird in different and interesting ways. I am weird,” Anki boasted.

“My idea was not intelligent at all.”

“That is another thing to think of. Intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom are three different things, and you can perfectly have one without the two others. In fact, this is quite a common occurrence. Therefore, Nua, please – no more brilliant ideas without going through me with them.”

Nua’s brows shot up.

“Wait, so there’s plenty of people with knowledge and…”

“Yes, that is what I have in mind and why I am so worried about those ruffians messing with my Sapphire Leopard,” the spirit huffed. “We’re talking about delicate, precise machinery that requires a gentle hand.”

Nua thought it was quite the opposite, but she didn’t want to contradict the king, not when he was getting emotional about the old goliath.

“You can go there now,” she suggested. “I can sneak in closer if you want,” with a quiet squeal, she gently touched her own back. “It’s a bother, but it will be even worse if I don’t move. I have to walk it off.”

“This is not what you should do with wounds, Nua,” Anki complained.

“I want to move. I need to think, and I so need to move. And they’re just bruises anyway.”

The spirit floated in the air for a while, as if mulling on a thought.

“Hmm. I’d like to try out a certain trick if you agree. With your increasing abilities, I can put more strain on our connection, and we might pull it off.” He paused. “It is called farvision.”