You are NOT CONVINCING HER that your parents will approve of this prophecy! You really really aren't!

Admiral, I request permission to inform Captain Eshiaf -

I will inform Captain Eshiaf. You...

She pauses.

Get me that complete summary, one copy to me and one copy to Their Majesties. And say nothing to anyone about this until we hear confirmation without my explicit permission.

Which is more Official Policy For Prophecies From Self-Proclaimed Prophets Who Have Not Been Officially Acknowledged As Such!

Yes, Admiral.

And, quietly, to Gyanto, I told you Fate was against this.

Yes, Admiral.

It's not that he disapproves, exactly, of rules against random people hijacking arbitrary chains of command by prophecying nonsense, it's just that this is an actual prophecy. (Nothing else would make Sesnai act so out-of-character. Gyanto knows his sister well enough to know when she's actually afraid, and this is not her normal acting.)

So you did. 

Dismissed.

And they will depart the Admiral's quarters, looking visibly annoyed but not saying anything to anyone anyway.

'Say nothing to anyone', really, as if that can stop Sesnai. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, after all.

(The Tyrant-reflexes take over, she is fated to be Doomed, how can she actually leak this without looking like she's leaking this - answer is of course Nairia, who hasn't been sworn to secrecy yet - quick message to her updating her; Sesnai accidentally told her that Aillis was at the center of the prophecy of doom the instant she woke before being sworn to secrecy, she needs to have leaked it before Sesnai can have ordered her to keep it secret, quick telepathic private message to her -)

Nairia, who has of course been delicately stirring the bubbling cauldron of rumour this whole time, sends a message acknowledging the secrecy order just a few minutes later. As to what may have happened in those few minutes, really, who can say?

Nairia is the best, yes.

And Rear Admiral Duchess Alarante Paizar informs her chief subordinate that there's an important update and he needs to cancel anything non-urgent he's doing to Be Interrupted And Listen.

It takes him but a moment to exit the conversation he's having and find a private place to take a call.

"Yes?"

"Her Royal Highness Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan," she says, voice not nearly as cynical as her thoughts, "and her brother His Royal Highness Gyantomerenti Adaitan, have informed me that there is a prophecy. The details of the prophecy are classified but relevant information has been added to the Emergency File." Which he will have access to if he finds himself in command. "The prophecy provides evidence for but not confidence in the belief that the Black Fleets will attack at an unknown time within the next several years, possibly within the next month. Do you have questions?" Before they get to "how do we rearrange our curriculum if we might be at war within a month?"

"The details are classified, you say, but is the—general tone of the thing—also meant to be a secret? Because I will have a much better chance at preparing these children to go to war within the month if I am allowed to let them know I'm trying to do that."

"The information that is not a secret," she says, "Is the information that cannot be kept secret, which is that Her Royal Highness woke up in a panic, stormed to His Royal Highness's quarters, collected him, and came to me. No one will be surprised if this means war is imminent."

"I see. I'll adjust plans accordingly. How close—I assume you cannot answer or do not know how close to us in particular the war will arrive, but I'm assuming it'll be plenty close because it seems better to prepare for the least convenient outcome. We will need to make significant changes to our curricula. Bring back the old system where faster students help teach slower ones for extra credit, maybe..."

And, as Sesnaiilaisa walks with her brother back to their rooms, she is keeping the faint smile that would naturally play over her face in check.

That was, by her calculation, around the thirty-fifth percentile of her perspective outcomes. Princess Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan hadn't realized that the rules intended to stop random people from going around claiming to be prophets could actually be used against her (because she hadn't thought about it since recovering her memories; a conscious note that any unreflected beliefs Sesnai possessed should be exposed to the Tyrant's analysis, because the majority of her life had not been spent in a friendly universe, not at all), but she had expected that some excuse would be raised to stop her enemy from being immediately removed from the ship. The only way in which it was actively worse for her than she had expected was that Tefano wouldn't be hearing the complete story yet, and she'd expected to be able to warn him faster. She might still be able to do that in secret, but it would give Caitebe plenty of time to worm her way into power before then...

After all, the purpose of it hadn't been to destroy her enemy. The purpose had been to spread the story.

The purpose had been to make Caitebe the enemy. And that purpose was accomplished.

So, really, it could have gone much worse.

Fate has not been averted. 

And Fate is civil war, and civil war is the end of Villarosa.

He can understand what could cause the fleets to turn on each other, and why; Gyan is heir to the throne, and that is not undeserved, for he is not as clever as his sister but he is wise, and far-seeing, and he understands all the cracks at the heart of the kingdom, all the hatreds of the counts and the secrets of the kings and the fragile state of the once-free worlds, all the ancient rivalries that shrewd and benevolent governance may bury but that only time and death can destroy.

The civil war needs not to occur. Aillis Caitebe may have reasonable objections to the royal administration, she may have better strategies for the war, she may have understandable grievances against the elves who ordered her father to his death - but all these are to be brought up after the Black Fleets have been permanently banished, not now while Villarosa faces an outside threat far greater than any it has ever known.

Caitebe needs to be guided away from that path. And by someone sensible and humane, before his wild sister starts hiring assassins, or worse, because if Sesnaiilaisa Adaitan decides the kingdom needs saving, she is not going to be averted by threats.

Gyantomerinti Adaitan sees his parents' thrones teetering, and he sighs, and puts on the face of duty, because it's always he who has to save the kingdom.

It is, at this juncture, not hard to find Aillis Caitebe. She's in the cafeteria just as it opens for breakfast, thanking the staff for her meal with a gentle smile.