Andrea Höst: In Arcadia [Touchstone: Extras]

"Gelezan," Haelin said.

Laura looked the word up to confirm that Gelezan was, indeed, the equivalent of a rural utopia.

"Yes. On Earth there is a painting—it’s about five hundred years old—of people standing in a rural landscape around a tomb. A monument to a dead person. And on it, in a rather old language, is carved what we translate as Even in Arcadia, there I am . There’s plenty of debate over what exactly this symbolises—the immortality of art or some such—but on the most basic level it is a reminder that death comes to even the best of places."

"Oh," Haelin said. The younger girl’s tone and expression were an unexpected mix of disappointment and frustration, and she sighed deeply before adding: "I wish you would hurry up. Dzo has been waiting so long."

" Haelin! " Allidi said, sharply.

"Well it’s true," Haelin retorted. "For years and years."

Laura, very confused, said: "We only met a few months ago, you know."

"But it’s been forever since you came to Muina," Haelin said. "And we’ve been waiting and waiting since long before that, ever since Dzo’s Sight told him, and, really, you are so very slow."

Laura didn’t feel slow. She felt like she was in freefall. It had been little more than a Taren year since she’d first met Gidds Selkie. Yet Haelin had said long before she came to Muina.

What in the world was going on?

Two calmly self-assured Sight Sight talents had been replaced by girls, one glowering at Laura, aggrieved, and the other entirely dismayed.

"She’s overstating," Allidi assured Laura, her own face pinched and anxious. "Dzo has—it’s the wrong way to put it."

"I—" Laura began, feeling very off-balance. Then she stopped, putting aside her reaction because Allidi looked like she was about to be ill. "Well, this is very confusing, but I gather you’re talking about something your own Sights have told you, Haelin? In which case, I suspect you owe your father an apology for telling me things private to him."

"I haven’t, really," Haelin protested, but she’d lost her head of steam, and any hint of her usual confidence.

For a moment Laura became very worried indeed, but neither of the girls gave a sense of being afraid of their father’s reaction. Instead they were behaving as if they’d knocked down some treasured family ornament, and were counting the pieces. Or, more to the point, they were worried they might have cost their father his romance.

Years and years?

"Go explain to Dzo," Allidi said, with a mix of stern command and unhappiness, and when Haelin reluctantly obeyed the older girl turned back to Laura, gathering some semblance of her usual poise to add: "I apologise for her, Tsa Devlin."

The exchange had given Laura a chance to try to put her thoughts into order, and while she couldn’t quite put aside a queasy roil of uncertainty, she had no intention of taking that out on this girl.

"I’d like it if you and your sister called me Laura," she said, firmly. "And, Allidi, I’m not someone who—" She hesitated, struggling to translate goes off half-cocked into Muinan, and settled for: "I’m not someone who often leaps before looking. Your father and I seem to be overdue for a conversation, but the simplest thing to do is to have that conversation." She smiled ruefully. "From my point of view, things have been quite fast, not slow at all. I don’t quite see why your sister finds that upsetting."

"It’s because…you see, it’s getting close to the snow season," Allidi haltingly explained, her cheeks flushed. "Haelin wanted to be living…in time for…"

"Winter?"

"The snow fight," Allidi said, with poorly stifled embarrassment.

Laura blinked, then tried not to look too amused. It had become a yearly tradition for Cass and the senior Setari squads to have a friends-and-family snowball fight. Like most semi-public things about Cass, it was widely reported on and imitated, and Laura could quite see how Allidi and Haelin could have built hopes of attending.

"I’ve been looking forward to that too. Whatever else happens, I’d be glad to have you two on my team." Laura laughed. "I suspect it would give me a distinct advantage."

Allidi did not stop looking upset, but she summoned a smile. "Thank you, Tsa Dev…thank you, Laura."

This was not how Laura had planned to get to know Gidds' daughters, but perhaps it was for the best.

"I begin to understand why there’s so much emphasis placed on Sights talent etiquette. It must be quite a challenge to grow up in a family where you can’t ever be fully private."

"Sights talents who aren’t family are harder," Allidi said, and then looked relieved. Gidds had arrived.

He walked a step behind Haelin, as self-contained and unhurried and intense as the first time she’d seen him, come to interview her on behalf of the Triplanetary. Could he really have arrived at that first meeting with an agenda?

"I’m sorry, Tsa Devlin," Haelin said, very subdued. "I was impolite."

"I’ll forgive you if you call me Laura," Laura said.

Haelin promptly agreed, but neither she nor Allidi looked entirely reassured. They might not have Place Sight, but evidently Sight Sight—or simple body language—told them that careless words were easier to forgive than forget.

As the two girls departed, Laura studied Gidds' face. Perhaps the tiniest hint of strain, but nothing more. Not that she’d expected that. Where, she wondered, did courtship slipups rank on the list of problems he’d had to deal with that week?

"We haven’t exactly had a lot of serious discussions," she said, deciding she wanted to tackle this head-on. "I’m willing to bet that I’m hung about with a few don’t go there signs, just like my workroom. But I —" She paused, then said carefully: "Haelin wasn’t very clear, but I took the impression that you saw me years ago—I guess it must have been on the log of Cass' visit home on her birthday—and your Sights told you I was the one for you. Or something."

Gidds sat down on the rock his daughters had used, and arranged his hands on his knees, meeting her eyes directly.

"Not quite accurate," he said, in that perfectly controlled voice. "When I watched that log, I saw a woman face an improbable vision of hope fulfilled, and accept that it was true. Not truly remarkable. But when you had been told your daughter could not return to you, that was a struggle for you, and then you said, very simply: Live well . That is what triggered my Sight. You in some manner pictured her doing that—a thousand possibilities in an instant. It left me breathless, wanting to know, to understand…not necessarily what you had been thinking, but you. One of the most powerful Sight Sight reactions I’ve ever experienced. There was attraction there, but in large part a Sight Sight talent’s overwhelming need to understand."

"Which itched for years?"

A sketch of a nod. "It helped that your daughter a number of time created projections of you, and that my role required me to review them. I did so thoroughly."

Laura, remembering how Cass had rewatched her own logs in order to ogle Kaoren, almost managed a smile.

Gidds' expression shifted faintly, no doubt in response to her flicker of amusement, but he went on steadily. "The second year was hardest. When arrangements were underway to bring you here, and meeting you became a real possibility. Sight Sight reactions can be very draining when they are stymied. I was there the day you arrived, but your attention was completely taken up by your family, and I had arranged assignments on Tare and Kolar for the first month, so that I could not be tempted to…hover."

Sensible of him to avoid creepy stalker territory. But still–