I've Wondered at Your Ghost

(10:2:2)

“This is an insufficient size for that price.” Winds stared unblinkingly.

The man he’d had to reluctantly fall back on when the vendor he usually dealt with had seemingly disappeared from the market twitched and bobbed his head, wringing his hands with a smile as oily as the aurum tucked away in Winds’ tunic pouch. “Well-er, well it’s hard to find a decent supplier to the city these days. Lot of the rustic folk are all disgruntled with the rich types, you see. And the fields have been cursed by the damnable blight caused by Dragon’s Crown. Terrible crops this year.”

He turned to leave. There was nothing for him here. “Your information is false. There is no blight, only a smaller yield this season. And whether or not the farmers are disgruntled, they’re still selling to the vendors, since they require money. Which, apparently, you also think you deserve more than your fair share of.”

“Ah-ah half price!”

“I would not offer two wet-chips for those.”

The vendor called after him, obviously desperate to wring all the money he could from a pouch as deep as his master’s. Hafest could afford it, and wouldn’t even notice the change, but it was deeply offensive to think that he would waste so much just because he could. The whispers of his impressors agreed with that.

Unfortunately, the season for tup-roots seemed to be coming to a premature end due to the lower yield and an anxious populace desperate to stock up on long-lasting staples. But if he had no other choice in the end, he could probably drag a decent deal out of the man.

“Oh, Winds!”

He glanced around as the call of his name above the bustle of the crowd jarred his steps out of rhythm. Who would call for him? The voice was familiar—

He recognised her instantly. The woman from the bakery he occasionally went to for other errands. Celaph.

“I just spotted you in the crowd. You must be out on an errand for your master, I suppose. Are you having trouble finding tups, too, dear?”

He pulsed the glow of his eyes in greeting. Her sympathy was unnecessary, but welcome. “Yes.”

She shook her head. “I’ve had a wet ox’s tail of a time with it, too. All this demand is terrible. But I did find a woman and her husband selling a good-quality load for a good price just down the street, past old Vancal’s string and meat shop. It’s a bit hidden out of the way. I think they must be growing and carting them up here to sell, themselves.”

That was useful. He had no idea why she always went out of her way to be friendly to a Divination, but her friendliness extended to anything human-shaped, it seemed. “Thank you.”

“Oh that’s alright, deary. If you can’t find it just ask Vancal. He should know where it is.”

He turned to leave, dipping his head slightly both in response to her little wave and as a silent gesture of gratitude.

It was nice to have connections, in any case.

(10:1:6)

|If you move, you doom yourself and everyone with you. If you stand by and do nothing, the world decays and is destroyed anyway.|

Seih rested his head on his palm, idly drumming fingers against his temple, watching the way the ethereal light sparkled off bottles and glasses. They were discussing the unconfirmed prophecy again, talking in ever-widening circles. It was a debate based on hypotheticals, like most of them were, and almost exactly like the kind of discussions the Ripple fell into when they began meandering around this topic.

He closed his eyes. |We don’t know that. We don’t know if that’s what it meant when it said the world would be torn asunder by our own hands.|

|What else could it possibly mean? Has it said something else the people of Firemount aren’t telling us about?|

|I thought you’d sworn off getting into debates,| Pallis muttered.

He idly tapped his finger against the side of his wood-carved... mug, was it? |Must be the mead.| Without turning, he replied to the one who’d asked the question, |No, there’s been no news from the Light Scale, or from the inquiry into whether its pulses were interpreted accurately.|

|I hear Firemount’s rulers dismissed the whole thing.|

He hummed. |Some of them think it’s nothing. Others think that panicking will lead to chewing our own feet and tearing ourselves apart.|

|Like the concept of Devalle’s Idea,| a different voice noted. |Once the thought is spoken, it fulfils itself, whether or not it was a true prophecy to begin with.|

He turned, frowning. All the time he’d been listening, he hadn’t heard that soulwalker speak. Casting his eyes over the rest of the bustling patronage under the curling vines hanging from the high wooden beams, he couldn’t spot him or her, either.

|It’s a concept that’s been brought up,| he hedged. |And it’s a decent point, but it doesn’t excuse the complete lack of action.|

One of those in centre stage hummed. |How so?|

He resigned himself to plodding out the points he’d been trying to push through the council’s collective swamp for weeks, yet again, to a different audience. |For one, they could allay the uncertainty by fortifying the Light relays connected to the Scale. Some semblance of action would help people feel safer.|

|What if the shield of Light proved ineffective against an incursion? Loh possesses shrines to Light in every village, as is tradition. Yet their attackers are undeterred.|

He narrowed his eyes. It had been that other voice again. |You have proof?|

Promptly, a window seemed to open above the heads of everyone in the room, dark blocky silhouettes and an orange glow resolving into the smoking, shattered ruins of a village. What had once been a village. It seared itself into his vision, his hand locking around his mug.

That’s....

|This is an imprint taken by the Divination tending the shrine of Little Branch, from last night. There has been no contact since.|

He could almost smell the smoke, a flicker poking at the corners of his mind that he reflexively shoved away. Half-remembered dreams....

He turned his gaze across the room, and saw a pair of golden eyes gazing steadily back, even as a buzz erupted through those paying attention to centre stage.

|Little Branch is only a few rivers away,| Pallis muttered from next to him, uneasy. |I hadn’t... I didn’t know they were getting that close.|

|Seih, lad, you look like a Driller’s dug a hole in your yard.|

With an effort, he unstuck his fingers from his mug, casting Blassin a brief glance and shoving away from the bar. |I’m not the only one.|

He had to speak to the strange soulwalker. Somehow, somehow they knew these things. Maybe they knew what was really going on, or had more information. He turned back to the crowd, already striding towards where they’d just been.

And spotted a jarring gap, instead.

Where—

He came to a disoriented stop, craning his neck as he turned, trying to spot golden eyes or blond hair. Nothing.

He’d left.