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it was like a headache at the back of your eyes before the pain comes but when you know that the slightest move or exertion will bring it on its waiting there imbedded in you and then the waves of nausea come over you until you cant tolerate it any more and feel you have to do something anything cut yourself with a penknife pinch your skin until the nails break through but it comes in waves and then it retreats leaving you able to sit up and breathe again

tela had had it since she was a child before the tremors came she would feel them she tried to tell her nurse about it once only to find the womans eyes glaring at her with superstitious terror and that had put her off

perhaps if her mother had lived her father always seemed too distant too austere to approach with such things shed been so little when he walked into the lava and after that all her feelings were best hidden away when her uncles rule began

sabra listened silently saying nothing telas voice faltered her brown eyes looked deep into her friends looking for some hint of disbelief some instinctive moving away

at length she spoke you say you feel it every time

no not always i only know that when i feel it something is going to happen its hard to be sure when or where but when it comes i feel it feel the release

do you feel it more when its a bigger shock?

i think so yes not bigger but nearer sometimes its just half an hour or so before sometimes a full day

do you feel it now?

no not since the day we met

i think youd better tell them sappho and the others it might come in useful

theyll think im crazy

yes