Emily, Dome of the Healing Shrine, Planting Season, 5th rot., evening of the 9th day

"Whatcha thinking?" Asgotl asked. I sat between his talons, leaning against his warm, fluffy chest feathers. We were on the shrine's dome next to the belfry, watching the sun go down. It was a good sunset, with lots of red in the sky and strings of cool-looking back-lit clouds. I wanted it to last forever and knew it would only last a few more moments.

"I w...was thinking I want to be anywhere but here, and to be anyone rather than Emily," I replied, because it was the truth. "I dread trying to explain to Thuorfosi that I had a chance to bring Wolkayrs back to life and chose not to. She's lost everything but the baby, and I hope she doesn't miscarry. I don't think I could bear it if she miscarries."

"I'm going to miss him," Asgotl said.

"Me, too, Blubber Brain." The sharp, raw pain of grief intruded once again, and the tears returned. We sat in silence after that as the sun dipped under the horizon. It was a comfort to sit with someone and quietly share our loss.

"I should go in before someone comes out to fetch me," I sighed. "I w...wish Tom were here. I could use a good hug right now. It's not that I hate anyone here, but I've just spent the last eight rotations with folks who aren't giant magic monsters. I forgot how uncomfortable it is to be surrounded by people so wide and so tall that I can't even return a hug properly. Just like I can't hug you because your neck is too thick." I patted his upper leg.

"I don't need hugs to know you care about me, Grandma," he said as he bonked me on the head with the underside of his beak. "We should go in before it gets too dark to see."

"Aren't you forgetting? I have Galt's eyes. I can see in the dark, and I know griffins have good night vision, too. What w...will drive me inside is the cold because it's been nippy out today, and it will be cold tonight. There's still ice on the river. Planting weather is late this year. I hope it doesn't screw up getting crops in the ground."

"Speaking of planting, Aylem liked your greenhouse idea. She was thinking of creating greenhouses and setting up out-of-work spoot slaves to tend them," Asgotl said. "If it looked like it would work here, she'll take it all over Foskos."

"Whole greenhouses? She can do that?" I was gobsmacked. That sort of magic felt pretty godlike to me. Aylem was really frightening if I allowed myself to think about it.

"Wow, she still scares you that much?"

"What? How did you know—"

"Emily, little winglet, you just tensed up. You're sitting against my chest and forelegs. I felt it, miss slow on the uptake."

"Blarg," I exhaled and forced myself to relax. "Yes, she still scares the crap right out of me. I don't w...want to be scared of her. I can see how much it upsets her, and she's so overpowered that it's in everyone's best interest to keep her emotional distress to a minimum. But back to greenhouses, she can really do that?"

"She said this morning that it was easier than creating an English-style fry-up breakfast every day while we were traveling to Mattamukmuk. I guess the complexity of food is much harder to create than making iron and glass."

"Huh? That's logically consistent."

"You know, you're the only person I know that would say 'logically consistent' rather than 'that makes sense,'" he teased. What an incorrigible griffin.

"Anyway," I drew the word out in an exaggerated way and elbowed him in the chest, "I think greenhouses w...won't help the immediate problem, which is getting enough food in the short term, especially with granaries destroyed in the two largest cities in Foskos. Say, w...why can't Aylem create enough grain to feed everyone?"

"She considered it, and Lisaykos threatened to use the Grace of Mugash on her if she tried. Food is too complex for her to make enough without exhausting herself. Don't forget she's preggers. We don't want her losing the babies."

"Well, effing flying tacos," I said in English.

"What you don't know is that High Priestess Ashansalt and a crew of her earthmages will be here tomorrow. They are bringing some seeds to experiment with for accelerating the growth of vegetables inside the greenhouse Aylem made this morning in the south garden."

W...wouldn't it be better to move it to the other side of the river? The shrine doesn't get as much sun because of the shadow cast by Snob Hill."

"No one thought of that, Grandma. You should mention it when we go in, which should be soon. I don't want you to get too cold."

"You're quite warm, you know, Blubber Brain," I snuggled a little further into the thick feathers of his chest, "and y...you give off a lot of heat."

"Well, I am a griffin. We run at a higher temperature than humans."

I sighed, "I don't want to go back in, though I know I must. Going back in means being a prophet again. I don't w...want to be a prophet. I want my life in my valley back."

"Emily, dear, I don't think you should go back to subsistence hunting and gathering," Asgotl pleaded. "Will you please stop denying that you were malnourished when you arrived here? You can't go back to that. One bad year of a fish die-off or a deer famine would have killed you. You were lucky, and you know it. I suspect the gods kept you alive because your survival defies belief."

"Adult brain and coping skills," I countered.

"A small and weak child's body, and everyone, including you, knows that your malnutrition harmed your development. It certainly affected your height, and I know you haven't menstruated yet. You're what? Sixteen, maybe seventeen now? Besides, weren't you lonely out there?"

"I wasn't going to stay that way. I w...was packed and ready to move to Inkalem when I had the accident with the glass furnace," I rebutted. "I could have made a good living there. I know more about mining than anybody, and I also know foundry casting, and I could have introduced iron. That w...was my plan. I was making glass to kill time before the trade fair in Uldlip started."

"What? You were going to leave the valley you want to return to?" Asgotl sounded vexed.

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"I had been discovered by Foskan Cosm. My mistake w...was not fleeing immediately once the cold weather broke. After you and Aylem intruded on my hot spring, I started packing and smoking fish and making a big stash of arrows for the trip to Inkalem, in case I had to w...walk."

"Merciful Mugash, that's just crazy, girlfriend!"

"Well, everyone thinks I'm already weirder than snake shoes." I snuggled in further, "I don't w...want to go back in. I don't want to go back to being everyone's prophet, but after everything that happened today, I can no longer deny that I'm stuck. I can't be a loner feral Coyn in the wilderness anymore. I can't pretend that this is just a temporary contract job w...with the gods that I can dump after the crystal at the White Shrine is destroyed. I can't pretend anymore that my health isn't fragile. I can't pretend I w...wasn't lonely in my valley. I can't deny that I've come to love my friends, even if they are scary giants with superpowers.

"I'm no longer the timid kid who fled to New York to escape my overbearing mother and indifferent father. I'm not the grief-stricken young w...war widow who married an abusive con man because I w...was desperate to find another man like Tom. I'm not the woman who barely found enough courage to escape that bastard. I finally managed to overcome my own timidity in the last two years to do the things I had to do, though it wasn't easy."

"Your greed helped you with that," Asgotl remarked.

"What!?"

"You have an unstoppable avarice for making things. You are so greedy to create stuff that you'll skip eating and sleeping. You'll even spend day after day with big scary Cosm to make paper and build bloomeries despite your fear. Oh, yes, Emily dearest, you are very greedy. Now, Grandma, you should go inside before I start getting chilled. Besides, I want my dinner."

"But I want to stay out here and pretend I'm not a prophet for a while longer. You know what really scares me?"

"What scares you, little winglet?"

"That all the growing up I did after Tom died and all this prophet nonsense w...will drive Tom away. He already thinks I need to stop living with my Cosm family so I can spend most of my time with Coyn. After what's happened in the last rotation, I don't think I can do that. I love Lisaykos like the big sister I never had and Kayseo is the little sister I always w...wanted. Usruldes is what I wish my brothers had been like, though Michael came close. But Michael never helped me escape and run off to do mischief like Usruldes did. Usruldes and Oyyeth make me feel safe, loved, and part of their family, and I adore Fed and Troy. I don't w...want to give all that up. If anything, I want to spend more time w...with these people because I now realize I love them. I feel like I have nothing in common with Foskan Coyn."

"Oh, like you have nothing in common with your fellow-Coyn mekaner buddies in Omexkel? Right." Asgotl drew out that last word for emphasis.

"Quit pushing me off the tow road with facts, lard lump," I elbowed him again. "Most Coyn slaves aren't like that. I just can't see myself having meaningful friendships w...with people who weed the fields or clean houses every day, who can't even read or do basic math. Their w...world is so narrow. It w...would be too hard for an introvert like me."

"I think you're not giving people like Gerta or Eddo enough credit. And I note you had so much in common with the gals you grew up with, who had no interests outside of playing with dolls, make-up, and clothes, and chasing boys back on Earth; or guys who thought women were only good for birthing and raising children, and nothing else," he slathered the sarcasm on thick. "Admit it, Tom believed in your becoming an engineer. How many guys were like that back in the 1960s? He always believed in you, and he married you despite knowing you were ten times smarter than he was, at least in book learning."

"Since when did y...you hire yourself as my therapist, Blubber Brain?"

"This is part of the job the gods gave me, Grandma," he stated in a solemn voice I had never heard him use before. "You are my prophet, and my job is to keep you from self-destructing. And today, you are in danger of that. You're so stressed that your stutter is back.

"Today, despite your innate timidity, you used your authority as a prophet with malice of forethought and without constraint. You've never done that before, Grandma. It's a first for you. You are also grieving the loss of one of your Cosm family. You were attacked, not once but twice. You passed a sentence of capital punishment, and we all know how badly that affects a softy like you. You had a flashback, winglet, and that's never good because I guarantee you'll have a nightmare tonight. You usually do after a flashback."

"I wouldn't have any nightmares if I could sleep in Tom's arms tonight," I stated, "or at least, I'd be with someone who w...w...ould wake me up and then hold me as I balled my eyes out." I started sobbing, something I rarely do, "I just found him, dammit, and I don't w...want to lose him again. I'm so afraid he will leave me. I'm short. My boobs are a joke, and I know he's a boob man, and he's put off by the whole prophet thing. He always w...wanted a family, and I'm afraid I'm so damaged that I w...won't be able to have kids, and—"

"I think it's time we took someone inside," Usruldes' voice said from the direction of the belfry.

"I'll agree with that," Asgotl said.

"But first, I think someone needs a hug," Tom said.

"Tom?" I couldn't believe my ears as I scrambled to my feet. "Tom? W...wha...what are y...you doing here? W...why aren't y...you—"

"Hush," Tom said. He gathered me into the softness of his sheepskin coat and rocked me from side to side in his arms. "You're so upset you can't even talk straight, Mouse. You must have had an awful day. So, I take it I'm not sleeping on the couch tonight?"

"Couch? There's no couch in Emily's bedroom," a bemused Usruldes cut in.

"Shut it, big guy," Tom said in a friendly voice. "It's an earth saying that obviously doesn't translate well. And now, I believe I want to take my girl, feed her some dinner, and put her in bed."

"Irhessa?" I heard Lord Katsa's voice, which was full of curiosity as she greeted Usruldes by his birth name. "Brother, what are you doing here? Mother and I both felt you arrive, and then you came up here, and ... Oh! Greetings, Revered One."

"Welladay, Revered One," Tom replied. "Maybe we should have this conversation after I take care of my Emily."

There was enough of a pause that I was sure Usruldes and Katsa were mindcasting at each other.

"Yes, Revered One," Katsa said after a long moment. "I suggest we should help the two of you down. I can take the Revered Tom, and you can take the Blessed Emily, brother."

I lifted my head from where I had buried it in Tom's chest, "I believe Tom and I should have some say in this."

"Great One, it is now too dark to safely take the step stairs," Usruldes nagged.

"I can see in the dark," I reminded him.

"Tom can't," he pointed out.

"I can take him through the trap door," I said, just to needle him.

"No, you won't, or I'll have it nailed shut," Usruldes reacted just as I had predicted.

"Wait," Tom interjected. "The two of you want to carry us and do that flying thing, yes? Like you did to get me up here, Irhessa?"

"That's correct," Usruldes replied. "It's fast and it's safe."

Tom turned back to me. "I suppose you have gotten used to this," he accused.

"I think it's more like I've become resigned to it," I heaved a dramatic sigh for effect. "It's not like I can resist any of these folks."

"Well, there is that," Tom agreed.

"Tom," I hugged him, "What has happened? Why are you here?"

"Vassu appeared in person at Sils'chk and told me to head for Aybhas without delay."

"She what?"

"Vassu said she had a message for Tom from Galt, Great One," Usruldes knelt beside us. "She said Aybhas was burning, terrible things were happening, and you needed Tom. So here we are. We got on Cadrees and Spot and flew through the night. What I can see of the city with clairvoyance is disturbing."

"A lot has happened," I suddenly felt weary. "We should go in."

"Finally," Asgotl humphed.