The crying had turned to terrified shrieking and Qamala turned toward the source, scrambling through fog and brambles to find and comfort that child while demonic laughter peeled like thunder in the heavens....

Qamala stumbled out of her family's teleport station, violet eyes only half-tracking the entry foyer around her. She crashed into a low table, shattering the delicate crystal sculpture of dancing snowflakes into irreparable pieces.

An evil, psychotically leering male face loomed over her, as if she too were a child once more, threatening her in a way she'd never been threatened in her entire life... Qamala cried out in fear, and as she did so she saw the child, kneeling and sobbing in mindless terror...

Her mother's voice in her mind briefly cut through the vision. "Qamala?"

"No! You can't have her! You can't!

"Qamala??" That wasn't in her mind, that was in her ears. Qamala cursed to herself -- Mother's unhelpful help was the last thing she wanted at the moment... it was so much clearer this time...

She burst through the fog and brambles into a vast, open plain. The child was gone, though it was still somewhere, crying... or was that her mother? Qamala looked up in time to see the giant form of the raptor, sweeping downward with impossible speed... talons outstretched, there was the callot, why did it not run? Was it paralyzed, held immobile? Or was it turning to face the...

"Qamala!" Her mother's arms were on her arms, shaking her daughter, the fear of the vision somehow infecting her voice. "Qamala! Can you hear me? Child, talk to me!"

Violet eyes blinked, the images of her prophetic vision dissolving into her mother's beautiful, concerned face. "Oh no... no...! I lost it! There was so much new this time, Mother, and I lost it!"

Priyash Indira-Sotiris' dark eyes narrowed. "The vision. Again? I thought I told you to tell me the moment you felt one coming over you?"

"I wasn't exactly here when it happened," Qamala said, temper rising. "And I don't want anyone to chase them away! Paulos says they are important!"

"Paulos," her mother began, fear giving way to exasperation, "isn't your mother!"

"No, he isn't!" Qamala shouted, shaking in both prophetic aftermath and anger. "He actually believes in me! I need to talk to him..."

"No." Priyash's voice had a note of finality to it -- one she really should have known better than to use with her wayward daughter. "We are going to call Lakeshme, as we should have done the moment these things began happening to you."

Qamala's hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms in her attempt to contain her fury. "Unless you're going to stop me--" She gasped abruptly; her mother's greater telepathic gifts had stopped her from reaching out to her uncle, dampening the girl's barely nascent abilities. Fury exploded in her mind and without further thought, she raised her hands and threw a SunFlash directly into her mother's eyes. Priyash cried out -- unhurt, but certainly startled and off-balance enough to drop her telepathic dampening.

That was all Qamala was waiting for. "PAULOS!" She shrieked his name mentally, backing away from her mother, fighting back tears of anger and sorrow. "I need your help! Please!"

"Loulloudi please," Paulos patient voice sounded in her mind. "You are very powerful, girl. That hurts my old ears." There was a heartbeat's pause. "Now, what is it?"

"I had another vision, so much stronger this time! She tried to stop me from calling you!" Qamala's mental voice was still panicky, she was still stumbling away from her mother, whose eyes were shining like twin suns. "She used her mind to try to stop me, Paulos I... blinded her, I attacked her, I'm so sorry but she wouldn't listen... I tried to reach out for you and she stopped me!"

"Deep breaths, Qamala," He advised. That soothing energy of eons of wisdom she had trusted as a girl poured through the link freely. "Go comfort your mother. She means you no harm. And do as she says and fear nothing until I get there."

Her assent was immediate and wordless, ending with an incoherent please hurry before she closed down the link. Shaking so badly she could barely stand, she moved to her mother's side, relieved to see the light fading already. "Mother... I'm so sorry, mother... I can never think straight after a vision, and you startled me and... please, I ask your forgiveness."

Priyash straightened, blinking the sight back into her eyes. "No child I have ever birthed and raised has ever attacked me, until now," she said, her skin darkening as she fought her rising anger. "Is this Paulos' legacy, that you would use your gifts against--"

The words were abruptly cut off, but Qamala could tell it wasn't from the freshet of tears the words had evoked in her daughter's eyes. Some other entity was in telepathic communication with her mother, a conversation to which Qamala was not privy. "It wasn't Paulos' fault, mother. Or his responsibility. It was mine, and mine alone."

Her mother's skin slowly returned to its normal color as the Magellen female forced herself to breathe slowly, calmly. "Lakeshme reminds me that I attacked you first, using my greater telepathy to deprive an adult Magellen of her free will. And so I must apologize, Qamala, and ask your forgiveness."

Lakeshme was an "aunt" to Qamala much in the same way Paulos was an "uncle" -- "friend of the family" was a more accurate term, if much longer to speak/think. Lakeshme was who mother turned to for guidance much as her daughter had turned to Paulos -- much to her mother's disappointment and dismay.

"It's..." Qamala didn't know what to say. It wasn't all right, none of what had just happened, but she didn't know how to make it right, either. "I'll forgive you if you forgive me, mother. Paulos says you didn't mean to harm me -- and if I hadn't been so caught up in the prophecy's aftermath, I'd have seen that for myself."

Qamala felt Paulos presence before he reached the door. In point of fact, everyone in the door yard felt his presence. In part it was because he was who he was. In part it was a courtesy, because it was certainly within his power to withhold his aura of power if he chose to -- and he usually did make that choice.

"May I come in Priyash?" He asked politely from the door, his presence fading back to that of a frail old man.

Qamala didn't run to him and throw herself into his arms -- she was no longer a youngling and such displays were supposed to be long behind her. Still, it was an effort, and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly, feeling bruised and battered inside.

Her mother's dark eyes flashed at Paulos' greeting, but she nodded. Her mate was still away, working at his assigned tasks, and he would not appreciate her turning away the Magellen he considered "friend."

"On behalf of Andreas Sotiris and in his absence, be welcome in our home."

"Thank you," he said simply, stepping across the threshhold. "You have taken Lakeshme's advice, I see," he murmured, taking a seat at the dining room table. "Come here Qamala, he beckoned her to him. "Let me see your vision. Did you see the raptor again?"

"If you will excuse me, I will bring refreshment," Priyash said formally, gathering her dignity to exit with all the grace she could manage -- a considerable amount.

Qamala nodded, moving to Paulos' chair to kneel beside him. "I did, uncle. Outrageously large and the callot was so small, but it turned to face the raptor's dive. I... was interrupted before I could see what else happened."

"Relax for me," he murmured, his hand already gently on top of her silver tresses. "Let me in... " He murmured softly. "Let's take this journey together this time... "

It was all there, just as it was before. The screaming child, the god like sound of maniacal laughter pressing ever closer, the leather winged bird swooping down, imponderably large. Paulos pulled her to the very end of the vision, somehow making the last fleeting seconds clearer so they could see the fading memory... The callot turn and fearlessly look up into the face of the diving...

But it was gone. There was no more. Paulos removed his hand from her head and sat back quietly, lost in his own thoughts.

Relieved to have shared it with him at last, Qamala laid her head in his lap, finding it easier somehow to pull the shreds of newly-won maturity and self-control together. "I wish I understood it more clearly," she told him softly. "I break through the fog and brambles to lose the child, and the raptor swoops down upon its prey and I'm helpless to stop or change any of it. I really, really want to know what it means."

"Yes, what does it mean, Paulos?" Priyash asked, carrying in a tray of bread and fruits. Her tone indicated she didn't really believe he was capable of formulating any answer, let alone the correct one, but she would humor her daughter's wishes -- and her mate's life-long friend -- nonetheless.

He smiled at Priyash, but spoke to Qamala. "It means, it's time. And you cannot change it, I cannot change it, nor or your father or your mother. The raptor is coming. Every time it gets closer and closer to that little callot. And every time the callot seems to shrink, while the raptor gets bigger and comes ever closer -- to you, dear Qamala." He pointed a long finger at her. "To you. You are the callot. The raptor is your power. Your power is embodied in your calling. Your calling is the child and the maniacal man. You cannot see the end, my dear, because you have not chosen one yet. You cannot see your calling because you have not yet embraced it. So of course, the Universe conspires to keep you from seeing what happens when the raptor swoops down on the little callot, and from finding the child."

Qamala sighed, and lowered her gaze to where her hands rested on her thighs. Before she could speak, however, her mother did.

"Her calling." Priyash knelt, pressing warm bread with butter and honey into her daughter's hands with a look that simultaneously forgave her daughter and thanked her for her forgiveness, too. Then she stood and regarded Paulos, and if there was no love in her eyes she was at least curbing her dislike.

"Just what is her calling, Paulos? Are you still urging her to leave Eden to chase after these... dreams of hers?"

"Leave?" Paulos looked up, an eyebrow arching. "Yes of course she must leave. The elders have just been waiting. It has never been a question of if, simply a matter of when. And when, it would seem, is now. Qamala child: You must leave before the raptor strikes. Hours, days... Your instincts will tell you. Follow them. Where you must go has already been revealed. I will take you there when you are ready."

"Where?" The question hurled itself from her lips before her mother could object. "Where must I go, Paulos?"

"Durakaan," he said simply. "Where a ship awaits you. You must be on the ship."

"And how do you know this?" Priyash wanted to know.

"It was revealed, but not to me," he admitted. "I am just facilitating."

"He said it was the Elders who knew," Qamala said quietly. "If you can't let yourself believe him, then you can verify it through Laksheme, who probably also knows, or can find out." Her irises were pale in the indoor lighting, like lilacs washed in rain as she turned her face up to his. "I'm ready, uncle. I need to pack, maybe rest awhile first. Will you be taking me to Durakaan?"

"To Patria Regiae, yes," he smiled and stood up. "Let me know when you are ready."

Qamala nodded quietly and without looking at her mother, arose to go to her rooms to pack.

He turned to Priyash. "Andreas has been kept apprised," he said softly. Despite Priyash's obvious dislike of him, Paulos had never answered her judgment of him with those of his own. "I will let him know of this latest develpment myself, however. I expect he will at least be in contact, if it does not bring him home briefly to see his daughter away."

Priyash's chin came up at that. She was a stunningly beautiful Magellen in spite of her anger. Or, perhaps, because of it. "I have kept my mate informed of all events in our household during his absence," she said. "I suppose I should have known that you would be giving him a different version. It explains his lack of overt concern for our daughter's welfare."

"No Priyash," Paulos correct gently, a soft smile on his aging lips. "I have not been in contact with Andreas -- at least, not about Qamala. At this point in your daughter's journey, I expect Lakeshme will probably be a bit more forth coming about some things than she has in the past. Exactly whom has told Andreas what will likely be one of those things. But out of friendship, I have requested to be the one to tell him of this. It is, after all, an important rite of passage."

"She is too young," Priyash hissed, her skin darkening one shade. "Too young to be meddling with the mortal races, Paulos! You were too young when you did so, and you were over ten times her age! Almost twenty!"

Paulos sighed and went back outside, into the sunshine. "Will she ever be old enough to satisfy you, Priyash? Or, perhaps more importantly," he turned to regard her, his gentleness an odd juxtaposition to his usual rather flamboyantly powerful demeanor. "Do you really think you can save her by chaining her up on Eden? That which you resist, Priyash... That which you resist... "