Clearsight

I'm so nervous that weekend, it's hard to even breathe every time I think about going to work in two days.

So I try not to think. It's a solid tactic, when all else fails, I guess. I still don't like to resort purposeful to ignorance.

But I'm so tired. I'm exhausted, all the time--even little things are enough to wear me out. Like getting groceries, or making dinner, or reading a legal scroll for five minutes for work. It's like being sick, but no one other than Darkstalker sends you flowers and get-well-soon cards.

No one even notices.

I think it's just a being-with-an-egg thing. And it'll go away. This isn't permanent. But... right now it sure feels like it.

***

I'm terrified of what will go down at our weekly meeting with Queen Vigilance. In this wild, visceral way that I haven't been afraid of things in a long time. My heart is pounding. And it feels like I'm about to lose control, because maybe I am about to lose control--

Breathe.

But the visions are there, in the back of my mind, just like they always are. And I'm not going to be all right, and there's not time to breathe, because I'm going to fail them--going to let them fall apart, and it's all going to be my fault because I couldn't save them all--

Maybe I need to talk to someone. Maybe Darkstalker isn't the only one with problems.

I rub my temples.

"You okay?" Darkstalker stops me in the hallway.

My lungs feel like flimsy balloons about to explode.

Deep breaths. This fear can't hurt me.

Darkstalker places a talon on my back, understanding without words what's happening.

Think about Shadowhunter. Think about the futures where she doesn't kill anybody--where she goes exploring. Where she discovers the Lost Continent. How happy she can be. How much I love her already.

Think about all the future children we might have.

Think about Fathom. Think about talking on the beach, late at night on weekends about our feelings, for hours on end, in awe at how similar we are.

Think about Darkstalker. Think about how it feels in his wings. Think about how happy we were on our wedding. Think about his smile. Think about how much you love him. How much you always have loved him.

Think about the ocean. And the stars. Think about going on walks early in the night, when the sky is still stained that beautiful colour of teal around the edges, and no one is awake, and everything is still.

I try to fill myself up with memories. Good memories. Safe memories.

And it helps. It really does. But I still can't breathe.

***

I was expecting another round of yelling at each other--but Queen Vigilance doesn't look any more adversarial than she usually does, at least on the surface.

Has she read the article?

I mean, there's a good chance she doesn't even know about it, right? Allknowing doesn't work for a huge newspaper. Not many dragons should be reading it--not at first, anyway. Down some paths, maybe not ever.

I take a deep breath. "Good morning. Your Majesty."

The queen nods. "Over the course of the weekend, I saw it necessary to fire Professor Allknowing."

"Why?" Darkstalker frowns.

"We can't have the professor of seer training be conspiring against the state."

Queen Vigilance has this really irritating way of not telling you anything. She just pauses, in the middle of a really important sentence and gives you this look. Like she's so proud of herself for being so terrifying, and you should be running in shame at your feeble lack of intelligence, mere mortal. Or whatever. I think it's her way of asserting dominance over us.

Moons, though--couldn't she do something else? Is there really no other way to make herself feel powerful. I mean, really? 

I pause, turning the thought around my head. "Are you suggesting... I teach at school? I don't know how that would fit into my schedule, Your Majesty."

"You're the only seer fit for the job. And it's customary the queen's head seer should take the job."

"Clearsight is under a lot of stress, Your Majesty--" Darkstalker starts, placing his talon on mine. "And once the dragonet comes, we're going to have our hands full just raising our daughter. Clearsight is barely managing this job, and the kingdom needs her more than the next generation of seers do."

"I need a replacement, for when your time has passed--if your powers aren't hereditary, and if this dragonet has no chance of hatching under the same moons you did--"

She thinks she'll outlive us? She's like... a solid fifty years older. Probably more.

I'm not sure whether to find that concerning or just flat-out stupid. It's exactly like the queen to do something like that--assume she's immortal, when there's absolutely no reason she would be. Darkstalker says she's actually really paranoid, but even though I know he must be right, I still want to smack the queen sometimes.

Unless she thinks that when the time comes, she can make us magic her to live forever.

My stomach churns.

"I--if you were willing to give me a day off for teaching and marking, I could... consider it. Is there really no one else you could take for the job?" I cringe. Me, teach dragonets? How am I supposed to do that? Isn't there someone more qualified who could do it? "I'm not sure--"

"It has to be you."

"Okay, but you have to understand, Your Majesty," I say exasperatedly. "I can't do everything. I'm already working with you and helping run the kingdom--" doing most of the work of running the kingdom, I don't say "--and being a wife, soon-to-be a mom, handling the public relations of this kingdom and handling my position of head seer--I can't do all of this. There just aren't enough hours in the day."

"Then work faster. I'll give you the days off to teach. It's imperative we have the next generation of seers raised up to top-notch standards, which Allknowing clearly wasn't providing--otherwise there would be more of you, and far more sooner."

"I don't..." I pause. "My talent isn't by training. No one trained me. I don't know if it was how I hatched or what--but I was just... born this way."

I wish I could pause everything and ask Darkstalker what's going on in her mind right now. It would be really nice to know. I don't understand the queen.

"Wait," he says, looking me straight in the eye, waving his talons around in excitement. "I--I think I know. You know how much time you spend scratching out all those futures. But what if you could just--I could make a spell. Like, a bracelet or something. That copies out all the stuff you see in your head and enables you to study it, on paper, instantaneously. Like.. like a constant, up-to-date map of the future. Do you get what I mean?" He probably isn't aware the queen is in the room anymore, he's so excited. "You wouldn't have to copy it out. You wouldn't have to keep updating. You just would have to study it."

I pause. My jaw hangs open.

"I mean--yeah, I think--I want to look into it more thoroughly to make sure--"

Queen Vigilance isn't even listening to me.

"I want it done by tonight. The class will be yours to teach as of next week, provided we get approval by the council of education."

Ugh. School board. This is going to be the worst.

***

Darkstalker raises an eyebrow, sipping his steaming cup of coffee. (I don't think coffee even works on him anymore. Afterward, he still looks tired.) "Professor Clearsight, eh?"

I swat him with my wing. "Oh, shut up."

He laughs. "Maybe it's for the better. When Shadowhunter goes to school--you can look out for her."

Maybe he's right. She definitely does need someone watching out over her.

"Maybe." I smile at him, trying to share his optimism. Trying to ignore the constant squirm in my stomach, a sinkhole that never stops sucking, in and in and in...

"We should have a picnic to celebrate." He grins, draping a wing over my shoulder. "And then I'll get working on those designs. I think I'm going to call it a navigator, what do you think? I really like that name."

"I mean, yeah, I guess? I can kind of see that."

He laughs. "I can't believe we never thought of that before."

I look out the window, toward the stars, voice, shifting somewhere between hope and fear.

"There are lots of things we've never thought of before."

Hey guys, just a note--in this chapter, and a lot of other ones, Clearsight displays symptoms of general anxiety disorder, which is what I suffer from too. To be honest, part of why I love Legends: Darkstalker so much is how screwed up the characters are. How scared and stressed and sad and alone they feel, and how they fear for their future all the time. But also that they get to be happy, in the end. On bad days, sometimes I just reread those happy parts over and over until I feel better. So we can debate whether in canon Clearsight's anxiety is induced by her power, her situation, or a mental illness, and if so what that mental illness might be, and whether it continues to plague her for the rest of her life or leaves after she buries Darkstalker, and honestly I'm not going to criticize you for disagreeing with me about that. But my Clearsight will always have anxiety--will always have to deal with the quiet thrum of fear in the back of her head, the worry twisting everything into a catastrophe--and still manage to be badass and awesome and independent and capable and change the world and fall in love and have children and have a happy, full life not defined by that illness. That's really important to me. To be able to write a character I see myself in, struggling but in the end still managing to be happy, and maybe it's part of why I wrote this story in the first place, honestly. Anyway, I could write a whole essay about this, but I'm not going to--just wanted to explain that because it's just so important to me, and it comes up in this chapter a little.
-dragonwritesthings