“Sorry for the wait, Renn… this is Harly.”

I stood from the bench as a woman a little taller than me, and surprisingly not wearing the robes of the church, stepped forward and past Mapple as to extend her hand in greeting.

“Rennalee… I’m glad to finally get a chance to meet you. It’s an honor,” Harly said as I took her hand and… hesitated for half a second before shaking it.

What had I just heard just now…? Something in her voice had been… familiar…? Or maybe strange? My ears under my hat had just twitched because of it.

No matter. I pushed the odd feeling aside as I nodded in greeting and finished shaking her hand. “No honor needed! I uh… I’m going to be honest, I expected someone in robes!” I said, deciding to not let whatever I’d heard in her voice bother me. It might have just been something akin to what Folz did, and something in her voice had simply set off my senses somehow in a weird way.

“Sometimes I wear them, but it’s a little warm today isn’t it?” Harly said, and I was glad to hear and notice that the weird feeling didn’t happen again.

Maybe it had just been happenstance…

“It is. I tried using it as an excuse to invite Mapple to take a bath with me, didn’t work out,” I said, teasing Mapple a little who had slowly started backing away as to escape.

She startled at being brought into the conversation, and gave me an annoyed look because of it as Harly glanced at her. “I’ve heard of your invitations to the baths, I had thought them silly rumors… though I’m not surprised Mapple is giving you the runaround on them. I dare say it might be best to simply give up, she’s not one for such skinship,” Harly said.

Mapple warily glanced at Harly in a way that told me she was annoyed that Harly spoke the truth, so I smirked. “I’ll keep trying. Maybe one day,” I said.

Harly chuckled at that, and I noted the sounds as she did. Her laughs were a little deep… I wonder what she was?

“Thank you Mapple… I appreciate you helping me,” I said before Harly could say more, as to give Mapple a way out finally. I had teased her enough.

Mapple again stood up a bit straighter, as if startled, and then gave me a quick nod. “Um… yes. Sure… I uh…” Mapple stepped back, and as if she was an awkward child wanting to slip away to go play with her friends she pointed behind her with a thumb. “I’ll… get going now.”

“Mhm. See you later Mapple,” I bid her farewell, but hadn’t even been able to say the full thing before she turned and hurried away.

Harly and I watched Mapple retreat down the hallway, leaving us alone… and then Harly softly sighed and shook her head as Mapple rounded the corner. “My aunt raised her, but she’s nothing like her at all,” Harly said.

“So you grew up together?” I asked, finding that very interesting. Mapple had seemed to be… somewhat comfortable around her, having come to get me to let me know that Harly wanted to meet me… but yet had retreated the moment she had brought her to me. Were they like sisters then?

“If you’re asking if we’re like sisters, then no. Sadly, because of how Mapple is, I can’t claim such a thing. I of course would like to say she’s my sister, not just in cloth but blood, but she’d sneer and snip at me if I did, so I only do it when the mood is right,” Harly said, sounding regretful as she did.

Ah… I nodded softly at that. “Family,” I said.

“Some would call it that, yes.”

Hm… so she wasn’t antagonistic with Mapple, but at the same time didn’t outright claim her as family? Even though they had both been raised by members of the original Singing Sisters…?

“How uh… how many are there? Of you? Descendants I mean, of the Singing Sisters?” I asked, deciding it was both a good time to ask and the right person to ask it to.

“Not as many as I’d like. There are two surviving… well, three surviving sisters. If we include the Chronicler in the group, though some don’t see her as one since she had been young and not an official member until later. As for us direct descendants… even if we included those like Mapple who were adopted, we still only number twenty. And a few of those are unaccounted for, we just keep including them in the living number out of hope,” Harly said. As she spoke she sounded a little sad, but had a soft smile on her face as she did.

And did that mean she, and many like her, didn’t see the Chronicler as a genuine sister? Of at least the Singing Sisters? That was… interesting. Vim too sometimes called her a fake, or something like it, but I had always typically interpreted his comments as his way of insulting the faith itself not the individual. Maybe I had misread those moments…

“Huh… I wonder if I’ve ever met any others and hadn’t realized it?” I wondered, choosing to focus on that instead of how they viewed the Chronicler’s standing. Twenty was a lot, at least when considering it was a number amongst the Society.

“Other than Mapple I’m not sure you would have.”

Probably not if most or all like Harly had been living on the other continent this whole time.

Still… I glanced Harly up and down a moment as she glanced at the nearby bench I’d been sitting at. I was not surprised that she looked younger than she was; since many of us did, but I was a little shocked to find that she neither had glowing eyes nor made me feel tingly. Mapple had called her a saint, but… it seems she wasn’t. Maybe Mapple had done so on purpose, as if to be rude. Maybe I shouldn’t bring it up.

“To be honest I had expected you to be saint, Renn,” Harly then said as she stepped over to the bench. I stood up a little straighter as she sat down, with a small but tired huff as she did.

Had she read my mind or something…? “Me? Why?” I asked as I went to join her. I sat next to her, but not so close that we would touch.

“For the obvious? But I suppose it makes sense. I don’t think even love could make Vim put aside his hate for saints,” Harly said with a happy tone.

I wanted to grumble at that, since Nory was to be a saint, but chose to not say anything. “I’ve come to learn Vim doesn’t truly hate saints, he just hates… their abilities,” I said instead.

“Hm… mother used to say he hated only divinity, maybe that’s what she meant,” Harly said with a nod.

Used to. So her mother was dead. I wonder if there was a family tree written down somewhere so I could know who was who? I’ll ask Vim for one later. “I’d be willing to vouch for that, yes,” I said. That summed up Vim’s hate towards faith and saints entirely. It wasn’t the ideologies, or the people, but the things they focused on. The source of it all.

The gods.

Harly nodded. “Well if anyone would know it’d be you. By the way, this might be rude to ask since we just met and all… but do you mind if I something a little personal?” she asked.

“Personal…?” I felt my tail coil around my left thigh in apprehension as she nodded.

“Where uh… where’ve you been? I mean… you’re my age right? Or near it? Before joining the Society! Where were you?” she asked, smiling a little sheepishly as she did.

Oh.

My stomach tightened and started to hurt a little as I tried to smile through the utter panic that suddenly filled me. “Well… I mean… I’d just been up north? I uh… spent a lot of time with people who were important to me, and stuff…” I spoke calmly, and was thankful the panic quickly diminished. I felt a little cold all of a sudden as I realized this was one of the first times anyone has actually asked me this so directly.

“I see…” Harly gave me a gentle frown as she nodded, and I knew she had likely noticed my initial panic. Hopefully she didn’t think anything too weird because of it…

Though even if she did, what did it matter?

I hated the fact I was supposed to have been here a lot earlier. It made me sick to my stomach. But… I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t change the past. And I didn’t really know if she was outright blaming me or… just curious…

“I’m… uh, I’ve been told it is kind of shocking it took as long as it did for me to encounter the Society. Especially since there were so many members and stuff up north near me,” I said. Even from the beginning, back when I had first been staying at the Sleepy Artist they had found it odd that it had taken as long as it had.

Harly quickly nodded. “Yeah…! Especially considering how many people went looking for you!”

I flinched. “Right…”

“Ah…” Harly obviously saw how that fact bothered me and coughed. “I uh… sorry,” Harly looked away and apologized, and sounded sincere as she did.

“It’s okay…” Maybe.

So they really had sent people to search for me. Once they realized I’d not shown up on time, per their prophecies…

Some of the journals had hinted at it, but I had been kind of hoping I had been misreading or just making assumptions. I had thought maybe just Celine and a few others had occasionally gone searching for me… but what if many dozens had done so? Over decades?

Just how had they not found me, I wonder? And how had I never encountered them?

Harly sighed as she leaned back and chuckled. “Sorry… I’ve been waiting to meet you for my whole life, I’m just a little… anxious? Maybe?” Harly crossed her arms and frowned as she closed her eyes, as if to deeply ponder her own feelings.

“I uh… I’m flattered, I think?” I said. That’s right, huh? She was a daughter of the saints. The original ones. She had likely even known Celine herself… maybe she was one of those who had known all this time of the prophecies concerning me and my arrival? If so…

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Hm… I’m not doing a very good job am I? Mother would probably put me to sleep and have me carted off right now if she was here!” Harly said with a laugh.

“Put you to sleep?”

Harly nodded and gestured lightly at the world around us. “Mother’s ability had been to either put people to sleep or force them to wake. Rather useless, all things considered, but she used it often on us children when we were being naughty,” she said.

Huh…! “Seems… an odd ability,” I said.

She nodded again. “Right…? Most make sense, I mean… telling lies from truth, seeing the future, healing and stuff… then you had my mother. Or my aunt See. Hers was weird too,” she said.

“See…? With a name like that I’d just assume she could see the future really good or something,” I said. I’d never even heard of her before.

Harly smirked and nodded. “I know, right? But no. She was blind. Born with no eyes, but was able to see around her as if she wasn’t. She got her name that way, but her ability kept plants from dying in her vicinity.”

“Plants…?” That sounded… nice actually?

“Yeah. It sounds good, at first, but plants just keep growing and growing so if you weren’t careful the whole area would get overrun around her. The gardens used to get constantly trimmed and maintained back then, because stuff grew too much. It honestly caused more problems than not, I think.”

Oh… “Still… at least it kind of makes sense, in a way. Keeping life… alive? Not sure the whole sleep thing makes sense, though,” I said.

Wonder if that had any relation to prophecies…? Since they had them when asleep. If so did that mean she could have helped Narli?

“I’ve heard of a few other odd ones too, like someone able to fly. Without wings. But in my opinion that doesn’t make much sense either, does it?”

“That I’d like. I was lucky enough to experience flying, so I’d be more than happy with that one,” I said, thinking of the time Sap had carried me to the Owl’s Nest. Miss Beak had also carried me through the skies, but Vim had wrapped me up so well I hadn’t really been able to enjoy it. Plus for whatever reason that event had been very chilling.

“Fly…? Ah, Lilly, right? I’ve not seen her in forever, how is she doing?” Harly then asked.

Oh? “Healthy. She recently had another daughter, so she’s busy with that.”

“Another daughter…? Huh…” Harly frowned in thought, in an odd way so I couldn’t help my curiosity.

“That’s odd to you?” I asked.

Her frown deepened. “No… not at all. It just… makes me wonder, is all.”

“Wonder…?” Wonder what?

“Why some of us get lucky and others don’t, I guess,” Harly said, her frown turning into a sad smile.

My tail twitched again, since I had heard that same… odd sound from before. In her voice. It was like a tiny little crack, a small almost unnoticeable dip in tone that disappeared as fast as it came. I wasn’t sure if it was just… something natural to her voice, that my ears picked up and alerted me to for some reason, or if something else was actually happening but it was definitely happening while she spoke.

Maybe I was just hearing a small scratchiness to her voice or something? I wonder what it could be? The worst part was even if I asked about it, to her or others, I doubted I’d be able to properly explain what I was even hearing… nor why I found it so alarming.

“Are you… talking of yourself, or…?” I asked carefully.

She nodded. “Yes. And a few others. Not to disparage Lilly!” Harly then quickly shook her hand at me, as if worried that I’d take her words wrongly. I hadn’t, not in that way, but now I kind of did since she was so quick to assume I had. “I’m glad for her, really…! I never had an issue with Lilly, unlike some of my other siblings. In fact she even saved my life once, so I actually owe her quite a bit…! I just… wonder sometimes, I guess… why some just seem to figure things out while others don’t.”

Figure things out…? “Well… she kind of lucked into it, I think, in a way,” I said. Did she not know how much Windle had fought, and sequentially given up, for Lilly’s affection? Maybe not? Since she had not even seemingly known that Lilly had children at all…?

Harly sighed at that. “So in other words I’m just really unlucky you mean.”

Oh. Great. She now looked, and sounded, really depressed. Not too much unlike how Crown had been when I had first arrived at the Owl’s Nest.

Maybe this topic, for Harly at least, was far more serious than I had thought…? Had I accidentally treaded into a conversation that hurt her? I of course couldn’t have known such a thing, having just met her here and now, but… that still made me feel bad…

And I couldn’t even lie and say I was in the same boat as her…! Since I was still pretending to be pregnant already!

Harly then huffed, rather loudly, and as she did so I again heard the odd… little tick of a sound in her voice.

Maybe it really had something to do with… whatever she was? Her bloodline? It almost sounded as if something was in her lungs, or something… For I only heard it when she breathed heavily, or spoke and said certain words.

“Oh well…! Sorry, things got a little awkward there,” Harly seemed to return to normal as she gave me a smile and nodded at me.

“Well… it’s okay,” I was about to say that I understood, but decided against it and just nodded back.

“Thanks. I hear you’re leaving soon?”

I nodded again. “Vim wants to leave as soon as possible, but I guess he keeps getting little requests here and there,” I said. This morning, after awkwardly trying to pretend I hadn’t just been talking to Renka before he had walked into the room, he had told me our departure had been put off another day because of requests. He hadn’t specified what any of them had been, most of them being small little things I guess, but there were enough to pile into a time consuming task.

Harly chuckled at that. “Sorry, I’m actually one of those… I uh, asked him to check the census with me,” Harly said.

Perking up at that, I frowned and nodded. “I see…?” She meant those maps, right? The Chronicler and Vim had shown me them a few times over the years, but I rarely got to see them anymore. Maybe I should go see them too before we leave…? I wonder if they were now fully updated with all our new members?

“Not going to ask?” she then asked.

“Hm?” Ask what?

“About why I’d asked for his help?”

“No? Why…? Do you need more help?” I asked. Wasn’t it something personal…? She hadn’t just outright said what it had been, so I had figured it was something private.

Harly studied me for a moment… and then gave me a relieved smile. “I see…”

You see what…? Why did it feel like we weren’t talking about the same things here…?

Maybe this whole conversation I’d been misunderstanding something…? If so I blame that weird little tic she had in her voice, it was distracting me.

Harly then sighed as she stood from the bench, and I almost reached out to grab her as to stop her from doing so. I kept myself in check though, since I wasn’t sure exactly what I even wanted from this conversation. She was the daughter of one of the original saints in the Society, Celine’s sister, but… did that really mean anything?

Either way, we had just started talking, hadn’t we!? “Um…”

“I know leaving on an awkward tone is bad, but I actually have an important meeting I need to get to. Do you mind if we continue this later?” Harly asked.

Important meeting…? Then why had she sent Mapple to find me, and not just wait until she had time…? “Um… sure?” I decided to just accept it.

“Thanks. I uh… I’m glad you’re here, Renn… and I look forward to getting to know you better. Truly! I also look forward to letting you meet everyone else too,” she said as she gave me a smile. One that I noted was real, but… maybe a little sad?

“Me too…?” I said, unsure of what else to say.

She nodded. “Mhm… later then!”

“Later…” I waved as she turned and stepped away. She picked up pace as she left, but didn’t outright hurry… nor did she look unsteady on her feet as she did.

Taking a deep breath, I sighed it out as I watched Harly round the corner down the hallway… and I wondered if I had insulted her, or if I had been rude or something.

“I had so many questions too,” I mumbled as I slowly stood. As I did I reached down into my pants as to readjust my tail. A few times during the conversation it had coiled and shifted, for one reason or another, and now it was a little out of place. I got it back around my thigh properly, where it was hidden and not visible under my clothes, and sighed again.

“Feels like I wasted time, or something,” I said as I went to leave.

I’d been trying to meet as many of the newcomers, or rather returnees, as possible before Vim and I left… but the last few I’d met, such as Harly or Saphra, had really just made me feel awkward and left me with more questions than answers.

“Hopefully it’s not me,” I whispered, as I spent a moment reliving the conversation I just now had with Harly. A few moments had felt as if I had been the one to say something weird, or slightly misplaced… such as when she had expressed her sorrow and concern over her… lack? Of children?

Was that even what she had meant…? I never even got any confirmation she had none, had I? Had I just assumed, wrongfully? Maybe I really had misunderstood…

Rounding a corner while a little lost in thought, I thankfully was grabbed before I walked straight into Vim. He gently held me by my upper arms, having grabbed me before I had bumped into him.

“Careful, Renn,” Vim warned.

I frowned up at him, though glad he was both here and had been kind enough to stop me. The last few times I’d walked into him like this had actually hurt, since it was like walking into a wall. “Vim… I think I just had a really awkward conversation,” I said.

“Hm…?” He gave me one of his smiles, the one that told me he had just found what I’d said or done amusing or cute… but I ignored it.

“With Harly. The daughter of…”

“One of the Saint’s daughters. Yes. I helped her earlier, she actually ran off with Mapple a little while ago. I kind of figured it was to meet you,” he said with a knowing nod.

Ah! So she had been with Vim just before coming to see me! “She had seemingly wanted to ask me a few questions but… kind of just stopped the conversation in the middle and ran off, I think I might have either insulted her or done something weird,” I said.

He frowned at that, and then released my arms. I shifted a little, and found it a little weird I hadn’t even noticed he had been holding onto me for as long as he had.

I must be really bothered to have not noticed his touch, usually I couldn’t do anything but focus on him during such moments…

“Harly suffers from a form of constant memory loss, Renn. If she had seemed odd, or if the conversation had gone oddly, then that is normal for her… or rather normal concerning her,” Vim then said.

“Wha…?” I shifted and glanced around, since it now felt like we were talking about something very important and private… and luckily I found we were still alone. We were a few floors up in the Cathedral near the living quarters of the members, so it was quiet.

He nodded. “She suffered a terrible injury to the head when young, and since then has trouble with remembering certain details. It’s… hard to explain, since it’s not a typical form of memory trauma. There’s not much rhyme or reason to what she remembers and what she doesn’t. Sometimes you can talk to her, and not even notice, then other times it’s so obvious it hurts. She can switch topics mid sentence sometimes, which is alarming if you’re not paying attention.”

Oh my gosh…! “But…” I spent a moment to reconsider our conversation just now and… yes, I could see it. Nothing had been blatantly obvious, but…

“Trust me when I say she meant no ill-will. To her you two had a normal, likely fruitful conversation. It’s just something you have to adjust when speaking with her, for her sake,” he said.

“I’d… noticed something odd. When she spoke, sometimes I thought I heard something weird. In her voice. Some kind of scratchy sound that made my ears itch. But I genuinely hadn’t noticed anything like that at all!” I said. Did that mean I wasn’t observant as I thought I was? Maybe I was stupid for not noticing then?

Vim simply shrugged. “She might have just not had any moments of forgetfulness during your conversation, Renn… but besides that, unless you have something serious to say, I’ve come to invite you. Someone has shown up that I’d like you to meet,” he said.

Hm? More new friends? “Who…?” I asked excitedly. Unlike those Mapple and the rest had brought me to, or to me, to meet I was willing to bet whoever Vim spoke of was… going to be a different. It was so absurdly rare for Vim to actually go out of his way to ensure I met someone, other than those I already knew and stuff. At least in this form. I wonder who it was?

He simply smiled and nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

Yes. And hopefully put that odd conversation that went nowhere behind me!

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