Chapter Text
“Granny… if you really can see the future, then you know about the bad things, too. Why don’t you ever warn people about it?” Shenette rocked back and forth, causing the old wooden boards of the porch to creak.
“I rarely see the bumps in the road, only the roads themselves,” she answered, putting her knitting down to look at her granddaughter. Her usually calm demeanor had been off for the past few days. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve read Karathael’s future more than once,” Shenette replied. “And she said that you saw Dakoral’s. She doesn’t end up marrying him, does she?”
“Why would you think that, dear?”
“Because Dakoral… hey! Don’t dodge the question.” She narrowed her eyes at the old woman, catching herself just before she spilled the smith’s secret. Granny Shorka had a careful way of using words that Shenette both admired and detested. “They don’t end up getting married, do they? Or if they do, it doesn’t last.”
Shorka searched Shenette’s eyes, answering without either confirming or denying her theory. “You’re wanting to know whether to warn her?”
The younger woman nodded. She’d been struggling with the guilt of knowing ever since her conversation with Dakoral, and she wasn’t sure where her duty lay as a friend.
“Absolutely not.”
“What!? Why not? She hates secrets. And this one is a doozy.”
“It’s not your secret.”
“It is now. Now that I know.”
Shorka picked up her needles again, causing the flecks of gold in the thick brown yarn to catch the sun. “You can only knit one loop at a time. If you try to skip ahead,” she used the needle to jump a few stitches, “or redo what’s already done,” she poked through a few rows up, “you end up with a mess.” Shorka pulled out the needle, destroying the entire row - and to Shenette’s horror, the loose yarn unraveled further and further back the more that Granny tugged on it. Just like that, five rows gone.
“So you’re saying that I should wait for it to happen on its own? And just… let it be a horrible surprise?”
“I’m saying, dear, that if you are right, and if your friend has three days’ worth of bliss before the young man breaks her heart, let her enjoy her three days.” Shorka’s needles were already back in motion, click-clacking as they spoke. “Use that time to prepare yourself to give her a soft spot to land. And maybe him, too,” she added with a shrug. “A decision being right, or even necessary, doesn’t mean it’s easy.”