Ecclesiastes 7:1

The only thing that had stopped the young girl turning her back to the crack in her blanket was the entanglement of her spines in the fibres of her covering. She could have pulled them free, but it would have meant having her temporary tent pool about her toes no doubt, and despite the dark space muffling much sound beyond her own raging heart and the gasp of her increasing rate of breath... So close, She didn’t like the way the blanket seemed to pull tighter, and tighter until...

There was an audible rattle to the girl as the blanket covering her finally pulled free. With her heart in her throat and her lungs full of air she froze, eyes squinting against the sudden light and lungs burning with her first intake of frigid air. Her mothers voice was washing over her, naming her Modesty. Her nose wrinkled, air leaving her lungs in a relieved whoosh, before her next intake of breath bought a sneeze. She did love the incensed air of the temple, it smelled like home, but the further perfumed oil was unexpected. Her eyes wanted to water but she did her best to shake it off, focusing instead on the words of the prayer they had been taught since the day they were born.

Relief flooded the girl when she got all the words right. Speaking to others may not yet be her forte but the prayer language she treated as her mother tongue. Those words came easier to her than the others.

But the formalities weren’t over yet. When the Empress herself came forward to offer them words, a face splitting grin came to her face, all upright ears and waving tail, which only increased when she noticed the fur around the other woman’s neck. They were the same! Her feet shifted impatiently as she waited for the formalities to be over. This really was eating into her usual play time, and small children always had energy to burn.

"speech".