Llarasa smiled and stifled a laugh. "Not me, for all the curiosity I might have about the signs." She sat up straight in her chair and gestured to herself. "I was born under the sign of the warrior, as it happens. Every book I have read about it totes warrior children to have an edge in fighting and warring. I have never been the fighting type, so even if it did have an effect, I've never really experienced it."

Fendros and Llarasa both gave Monderyn expectant looks. He had to be encouraged back into the conversation by Fendros before his silence became awkward. "Why don't you tell Ahna your sign, Monderyn? It's probably affected you, right?"

"If you're talking about the time when I was sick with the rattles for a week when I was a child, I do not think it was my birthsign that saved my life," Monderyn said cynically.

Llarasa shook her head at her brother's stubbornness. "He was born under the lord," she said with her head angled down in Ahnasha's direction. "He tends to heal faster than most, and he doesn't like fire."

"I would rather you wouldn't say that, sister," Monderyn complained with one narrowed eye.

Llarasa chuckled, "Oh, come now. I know you haven't been afraid of fire since we were children."

Fendros remained smiling, but his eyes dimmed when the talk of fear of fire brought his mind to Rhazii. "Let's not pick on Monderyn, Llarasa. What can you tell us about the serpent?"

"Well, it's rather special compared to the other constellations," Llarasa placed her hands on the table again and returned to the book. "It tends to move around in a unique way, making it difficult to predict. Other signs line up with the seasons or other times in the year, this sign slithers around on its own. People, by chance, can be born under it rather than the regular sign for that time."

"What does it do?" Fendros asked.

Llarasa hummed again, this time unsure. "It is not very consistent. Certainly very strange. Some serpents, under desperate conditions, cause an attacking animal or person to be wracked with great pain, or be frozen in place. Others can -- again in desperate spots -- flush their entire bodies of toxins and magic and merely touch someone to hurt them, at the cost of becoming incredibly tired. Most of the time, it has something to do with harming someone for some kind of cost, and sometimes recovering from deadly conditions." Llarasa turned her head up to Ahnasha with thin lips. "Have you ever been in a situation where someone or some creature is too close and they freeze up for a moment when you have touched them? Or, maybe, you have recovered from a great injury or poison without apparent explanation?"