13: A New Feeling

It was only a moment, but it was an important one, and it took Alexa a moment to pin down what the feeling was associated with it. So often she was the centre, or the cause, or associated with the situations that occurred. So often they were things directly related to her own responsibilities and concerns. But this vision, this memory, this… whatever it was that had happened - she was not involved. She was not the crux of it. She was not the reason. In this, Sanjuio Donadieu was a bystander sipping tea and discussing a curiosity rather than the meaning of her own existence. 

La Chanson had not been involved. She had not heard L’Autre either. There had been no Genofeva, no rapids to navigate, no screeching strings or ticking clocks or unbalance at all beyond Lucas Edgewater Snr’s apparent crossing of planes to make friends with Fulxithii. They had said he’d disappeared. If his ship returned, had it returned without him? Was it even his ship here? If he had been a poor guest, what - exactly - had he done? Was he something to do with the reason the Fulxithii were here beyond the dragon they fled?

Alexa mentally kicked herself. She’d wanted to speak with other Fulxithii - she’d wanted to know what they called themselves - what it was they said their name was, before the Progress effectively replaced it. Kazsra had a way of either not saying or not knowing just the right information - Alexandrie knew everything she could about her famille - though maybe that wasn’t helpful anymore either. 

The desire for knowledge tugged her mind to Genofeva. What was the Truth? Why were so many of them seeing and hearing things - how had such a strange group of people been brought together? A half elf with sentient music, a noble thief with extra time and knowledge of a language before it was possible, a boy/dragon with a reversing clock spanning centuries and a bird whose life spanned two planes of existence. 

And she had yet to tell Genofeva what she wanted (if anything). La Chanson said not to make a deal with her - not to learn from her. What was so bad about learning? What was so bad about learning from her? If Alexandrie’s enemies’ greatest weakness was honesty, was there some way to use that against her? The priestess seemed intent to teach her something. What? Did it matter if she was going to refuse it anyway? 

Was she going to refuse? 

If she did, would Genofeva return to assassination attempts? 

That the half elf could spend a moment considering this rather than the vision brought on that feeling again, and she focused on it while the others discussed the vision. 

It was small, a kernel of emotion that sprouted from her stomach and spread insidiously through her body. It was cool though, not hot like the tea in her hands or the steam billowing from the mouths of the beasts pulling them. It had been so long since she’d felt it this strongly, she hadn’t thought she could. 

Relief. 

The situation was complicated, dangerous, frightening. Kazsra had fallen from the sky, which she seemed to think was unnatural. 

But she, Alexandrie, was not the cause. She was not the effect. She could look at this from the outside, take some reprieve from the constant circular thoughts of her own circumstance and -

And possibly even help people she cared about. 

A novel experience.
Youth meant nothing when no one knew anything. 

Right?