A Perfect Nothing Of A Talent

20251102

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“As winter rises, loam devours riches.”
Tiffany sat back and frowned at her latest prophecy. Silently cursing, far from the first time, this power she’d been born with.
Thing is, even more than other magics, foresight always had drawbacks. Some people found themselves never believed. Some found their prophecies came too late to be helpful.
Tiffany was cursed with an overflow of prophecies, such that she couldn’t tell which ones were important and almost never figured out what any given riddle meant in time.
Hm. “Loam devours riches…” This could be foretelling a landslide. Or blight causing crop failure. But… it could also just be a warning that one of her neighbours had stored root veggies wrong and they were going to mould.
Uggggh. Tiff sighed and put the kettle on.
Then, just as the water boiled, her hand tingled. Another prophecy. She gritted her teeth and fought back the impulse long enough to set tea brewing, then grabbed a new piece of paper.
“Clarity knocks”.
Huh. More like a fortune cookie than a riddle. But that happened sometimes.
Tiff shrugged and pinned it up. Hoping it wasn’t foretelling anything significant, because there’s no way she’d figure it out before-
A soft, shy tapping at the door made her pause.
Hm. Well. While the two things weren’t necessarily connected, it did make her hurry to answer.
On her doorstep was a rumpled young man, perhaps her age, wearing dusty travelling clothes, slightly lopsided spectacles, and a perpetually apologetic face.
“Ah, ah, hello.” He stammered, holding out a rumpled letter like a shield. “I’m, I’m looking for the Prophet Tiffany?”
“Speaking.” Tiff said, trying hard not to seem intimidating, which wasn’t something she’d ever had to work at before; she wasn’t sure how to go about it, other than smiling and putting on a soothing voice, like he was a wild animal.
This did cause him to sigh in relief, the quavering of his outstretched hand smoothing out enough that she could easily accept the letter. “I’m Clarence. I, um, I was studying under Sage Doreen? In, in Southport. But, um, for my journeyship she thought I ought to ask to help you?”
“Help me?” Tiff unfolded the letter to find a missive in crisp, faintly familiar handwriting.
Oh, that’s right, she’d met Doreen at the cider festival a few years back and they’d exchanged a handful of letters since. Professional consultation, mostly.
“Well, you’d better come in, and I’ll put the kettle back on.”
“Oh, ah, you needn’t…”
After far too much coaxing Tiff finally got her guest inside and seated and served with refreshments, and could turn her attention to the letter. Let’s see…
From what she could make out (Doreen, bless her, was one of those people for whom academic speech was like breathing and so genuinely couldn’t tell when she was being impenetrable), Clarence had some manner of… sorting magic? Which should… help? At least, Tiff hoped that “synergise with a high incident of efficiency” meant something helpful.
“Ahhh… well, if you’re here to help, you’re welcome.” Tiff offered.
Not entirely enthusiastically; this was a small hut, and only set up for one person, and she hadn’t had a roommate since moving out of the family home.
Looking around at the space, which was filled with scrawled prophecies and every newspaper she could get delivered out here (vital for trying to figure out what warnings she was receiving), she apologetically added “Though, um, I’m afraid there’s no guest bed or anything.”
“Oh, that’s fine, it’s fine!” Clarence assured her hastily, waving his hands (almost knocking his mug over). “This couch is perfectly comfortable. I’ll just, um, do you mind if, if I move some things around?”
“Nothing in my bedroom.” Tiff said firmly, pointing to the door in question. “But otherwise, sure.”
“Right. Thank you. I’ll, I’ll stay out of your way…”
That shouldn’t be hard; Tiffany’s days were largely spent at her desk, jotting down prophecies as they struck and looking through newspapers and reports to try and puzzle out what they meant.
So she took her tea and sat down and tried to ignore the awkwardness. How did the man make rustling papers sound apologetic? Perhaps that was another supernatural talent…
Tiff gave up on being able to concentrate on her work and started writing a letter to Doreen, politely asking for the “small words, such that Gareth can understand, please do get him to read before sending” version of the letter.
“W-would you like another cup of tea? I mean, do you mind if I put tea on? It, it’s just, I just finished mine and I wondered if…”
“Tea would be grand.” Tiff said soothingly. Taking advantage of having her back to him to roll her eyes. “Thanks.”
When she turned to hand over her mug, she found the haphazard layers of scribbled notes and clipped articles which had covered the walls were now lined up in neat pairs and clusters. Actually, most of them were in a towering stack next to the fireplace.
“What’s…” Tiff blinked, taken aback. “Oh. You meant… move the papers around? I thought you meant clearing space to sleep.”
“Oh!” Clarence looked horrified. “I’m, I’m so sorry!! I, I just, I’m meant to be helping you and they were really bothering me, so I, I…”
“It’s fine?”
After all, it wasn’t like she’d had a system he’d disturbed.
Pointing at the stack on the floor, Tiff asked “Did you run out of space?”
“What?” Clarence looked confused. “Oh. No. Those are all… past? They, um, they can be thrown away. O-or put in long-term filing, I don’t know if…”
“What makes you-” Tiff began, baffled, then everything clicked. “Wait. Wait-wait-wait. You can just… tell? If something has a deadline, and if that deadline’s passed?”
“Y-yes. And importance. And whether papers go together. It’s a nothing talent, I know-” Clarence faltered as he found himself wrapped in a tight hug, Tiffany gleefully squealing down his ear.
“This is perfect!”

Prompt was “Begin your story with a prophecy from a fantasy world.”