it'll be all right, I can be your guide

And there, right on cue, is the feeling of dumbness. It's fine though. Can't go through life never doing anything you feel dumb about, that's no way to live.

"I'm going to free the scavengers one day," she explains in an undertone, glancing around furtively even though she can already tell no one is listening and even though it can only make her look more suspicious. The instinct to glance around furtively when saying secret things is just too strong. "As soon as I figure out the best way to do it."

"Why?" Clearsight asks.

"Because they're sad," she says, watching the sleepy scavenger finish stretching and get up. "I can feel it. They don't like being trapped in here. They like being together, but they'd rather be free."

"You can feel it?" Clearsight repeats back to her, tilting her head in thought. "Like, real emotions?"

She nods firmly. "Small and muddled but very powerful. I feel it all the time when I'm in here. Poor little things."

Turning that over in her mind, Clearsight watches as the newly awake scavenger trips over the sleeping one on the way to get herself some water. The sleeping one wakes up, making quite a few squawking and screeching noises, and Clearsight observes the two of them stomping back and forth and squeaking at each other, almost as though they're having a real conversation. Then a lull, and the first scavenger goes and gets a piece of fruit, bringing it back to share with the second.

"That looked like a peace offering," Clearsight says.

"Exactly! That was exactly her feeling," Listener says enthusiastically. "Their feelings are crazy similar to ours. I need to ask some other mind readers if they've noticed it, too. Or maybe there are scrolls about it in the library. I don't think we've had many captive ones before, so maybe I'm making an awesome new discovery."

"All right, I'll help," Clearsight says, on sudden impulse. "Free them, that is. Whenever you're ready, just let me know." Clearsight can't remember the last time she did something that wasn't carefully chosen to make sure the right things came to pass. For the first time in a long time, she can do something that doesn't have any impact on anything of import, and with the chance to do something on her own, for herself, for her new friend, without having to worry about the end of her tribe... she feels a little rush, thinking about the freedom of it.

Except... is that a small glimmer of darkness along that one path? And that other one? Maybe she should look into this a more closely...

Listener grins at her and gives her a friendly tail-bump. Conspiracy successfully founded!! Awesome!

Clearsight feels fluttery on the inside at the smile and tail bump, full of an unfamiliar feeling.

Happiness?

Maybe things are going to be ok.

Meanwhile, a familiar brain approaches from across the room. As usual, she is a mostly-wordless experience of light and colour and sound, swirling with strange echoes of other people's thoughts.

Auuugh whyyyyy.

"Uh-oh," she whispers to Clearsight. "Here comes Weirdout."

Clearsight turns, wondering why someone would name their dragonet such a thing, only to see Darkstalker's sister coming towards them, staring right at Clearsight with her pale blue eyes.

"She's four," Listener whispers, "but she's with us because whenever someone asks her what two plus two is, she says something like 'Archaeology?' or 'Lavender?' and no one knows what to do with her."

"Isn't her name Whiteout?" Clearsight asks, confused by the way Listener is reacting.

"Yes," she says, still trying to keep her voice down, "but she's super weird."

She drifts to a halt directly in front of Clearsight; she's noticed Listener, but not who she is or what she's thinking, only that there is a dragon there to step around.

"Hi," she says, standing perfectly still and staring intently at Clearsight's left shoulder.

Okay, admittedly that is in fact somewhat weird, though Clearsight has seen it all before, and so her behavior is less of a surprise to Clearsight.

It is unsettling though. She has the same powers as her brother (though very very different), and Clearsight knows that Whiteout is reading her, in her own inscrutable way.

This moment doesn't seem to have a great effect on the timeline, though, at least as far as Clearsight can see, though the immediate future around her is strangely muddled (as it usually is). But further in the future, whatever she says here (at least with the possibilities she's considering) have very little impact.

"Hello," Clearsight responds.

"You're the dragon my brother's been waiting for," she says, hardly moving at all even to speak. "I'm glad you're here." She tilts her head fractionally to one side. "Were you doing something important?"

Doing something important? With Listener? If she says yes, what happens? Or no? She can't tell when she looks directly ahead, but in both cases, things get worse. Or sometimes worse? Sometimes Whiteout is distant and doesn't talk to her, other times, she's less distant? What changed? Where did all these potential worse futures come from?

She flickers back and forth between the possibilities again and again, trying to figure out what to do, until...

"Sorry, what do you mean by important?" she asks, and things settle the way she remembers. She was always going to ask for clarification, she just couldn't see it.

Whiteout peers at her like she's trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

"No," she says slowly, picking her way uncertainly through the sentences ahead, "not now. Before now. When you weren't here. Were you doing something important, to take so long?"

Oh. Oh! What should she say? Interactions with Whiteout are always confusing in the visions. She probably won't like it if Clearsight tells her what she was doing, it's probably best to equivocate about the tru-

Okay, nope, equivocating about this to Whiteout is a bad idea.

"Yes," she says, very carefully, checking each word and phrase. "I was, making sure I could make things turn out right."

She nods, relaxing slightly from her intense stillness. "Very sensible. That's all right, then."

Very gravely, like a diplomat greeting a foreign queen in a time of crisis, she says, "I hope we can be friends."

"I hope so too," she says, barely catching herself before she says things without checking, but it turns out all right and she says it anyways. Futures where she's at odds with Whiteout never turn out as well (though it's always hard to figure out why).