Into Silence

“Well well well, I hear you had your tongue handed to you.”

Winds watched Domini Tambo head straight for his master as soon as the Ripple had reconfigured into its flattened form, returning the councillors to the upper floor.

“’Hear’ being the objective term, it seems, seeing as you weren’t present.” Hafest didn’t look at him, striding past Winds.

He fell into step behind him, throwing one last glance at where Domini Seih had been, his place long emptied after the earlier events that had transpired.

“Oh pip-locks, you just don’t like being shoved over by a lesser Domini.” Amusement danced in the other man’s voice, his strides just as long as Hafest’s. “It’s a kick in the mids to have a little challenge, isn’t it?”

“A little challenge, hm? Are you seeking to antagonise me, Domini Tambo?”

He recognised that dark ice in his master’s tone. As glacially calm and controlled as Hafest seemed, now, that would likely last only until they reached the manor, and be duly ironed out with a rough spar.

“I’m just noting how you were so woefully outmatched by a boy with a headache,” Tambo noted. “And at such a highly-attended meeting. Perhaps the public won’t take your side, for once.”

“Fortunately for all of us, Domini Seih’s ‘voices’ are a minority. Perhaps he’ll come to recognise this during his time away.”

It was a shame that the Domini had let his own emotions get so out of hand. Taking experiences was different for humans. Having to take them in directly tended to leave traces, impressions, on their souls. He wondered if it was similar to the whispers that guided him.

Or perhaps... it was more like having a different set of whispers invading your base set, since the experience impressors each Divination possessed could be more accurately likened to instincts....

“He’s created a bit of a stir already.” Tambo was a master of nonchalance. “Especially among the council. Firalk seems to be considering his words. Even Hand Lolyth admitted that he put into words the thoughts that many among the population are having.”

“Indeed. Luckily, in two weeks they will have forgotten about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do with my time, Domini Tambo.” The man lengthened his stride, Winds moving smoothly into a quick gait that wasn’t quite a jog to keep up.

“Of course, Domini Hafest Aeris.” Domini Tambo was the perfect definition of exaggerated, sombre politeness, his sweeping gesture of farewell bowing him neatly aside. If his aura hadn’t practically dripped with mocking sarcasm, a casual bystander might have really believed he was dipping to lick Hafest’s toes. “And do be kind to your Divinations. They’re expensive to replace.”

Narrowing his eyes, Winds glanced at him, catching a hint of a smirk in the other’s gaze. And a wink just before he turned, striding off towards some other corner of the atrium.

“If the idiot spent more time acting on his impressive depth of knowledge than collecting it, I might be tempted to take him seriously,” Hafest rumbled as they stepped into the hall. “As if he thinks he can influence how I spend my time.”

Winds kept silent, the edges of his master’s aura seething with a stormy tinge that trailed after him like hisses of billowing steam. It was not his place to question or put in his own thoughts, simply to do his master’s bidding. He had already gone too far, lately.

It was best to do as he was told, and never act unprompted.

&&&

Well, this was one way to stop wasting time sitting in on useless meetings. Two weeks of no interruptions, allowed to go about his duties. Bliss.

If he’d had less of a headache, and fewer soul twinges, he might have appreciated it more.

“...Is my master well?”

“Your master has been better,” Seih sighed, gazing up at the ceiling of the gondolier, his head resting against the seat’s back, arms folded. Voice hadn’t spoken the entire way there or back. It felt like the words were hours overdue, considering.

“...We are not heading back to your dwelling.”

“’Your’ dwelling,” he mused, half to himself, tracing the edge of a shadow flickering across the blank metal. “You don’t consider it yours, too?”

“Respectfully, my master did not answer the question.”

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the brief, odd feeling that something was trying to kick him out of his own body. “Your master’s not feeling much like answering questions, only asking them.”

Voice fell silent, seemingly accepting that as a dismissal, and a flicker of guilt lit in his chest. He hadn’t meant it like that—he was too drained to keep up a proper master-servant dynamic, anyway—but for a Divination.... “I’m sorry. I thought I’d pass by the incubatory to get a better idea of how things look in person.”

“I will inform Damor that you will be late, then.”

His eyes flicked open. “Dammit, forgot about that.” And resisted the urge to sigh as the words came out flavoured with an accent he’d never heard in-person, not counting Soulspace. “That’s... thanks. I appreciate that.”

He was lucky there was no one else in their little bubble. A perk of being a Domini, able to take the private transports. Talking with the scalelet tenders might be a wet ox’s tail to deal with, though.

At least I don’t feel the urge to strangle anyone. It could be worse.

Voice was staring at him, though. Moving his eyes to glance at him without turning his head, he raised an eyebrow at that dull silver stare. “Mm?”

While barely changing expression, the other’s stare somehow managed to grow even more intense. “You should not spend time going through experiences.”

He exhaled between his teeth, closing his eyes again as his stomach lifted in response to the gondolier starting to lower. “I never claimed to be good at hiding things, but is it blindingly obvious to everyone and the farmer’s canid what happened?”

“Your soul will be harmed if you make it a habit. Madness or imbalance is common.” The Divination’s tone was too stiff to be impersonal. “Splintering can occur, as well.”

Seih sat up as the gondolier glided to a halt, eyeing Voice for a long moment, the floor swaying beneath them. “You sound like you’ve seen it happen before.”

The other broke eye contact, rising with perfect, almost dead, smoothness, the light in his irises dimmed to more of a grey hue than silver. “Domini Kih spent too much time in others’ experiences.”

Ah. The previous Domini of Lower Abode. He remembered something about her being unfit for the job, but he’d never met her before or after he leapt into the role. There had been talk of her going mad, but he hadn’t.... “I see.”

His Divination led the way out of the gondolier, holding the door for him. “She was a kind person when she began.”

He paused, searching that expressionless face, a multitude of unspoken words trailing the end of that sentence. “...If it helps, I don’t plan to keep doing it.”

“So they all say.”

His eyebrows quirked in a half-frown, half-bemusement. “I wasn’t looking at those kind of experiences, if that’s what you’re thinking. There were some things about the events in Loh I needed to check, and the archiver was afraid of being traced if he let me hand them off to a Divination for copying. Believe me, if I could have, I would have done anything to avoid taking it myself.”

Voice gazed at him for another long moment. “Then take me with you next time.”

He frowned, stuck between moving off the platform and staying as the gondolier slid along the track into the unused, unscheduled line. “You can appear in Soulspace?”

“Of course.”

Then.... Something at the edge of his mind that had fallen by the wayside stepped forward and clicked into place. “I thought you only skimmed it, analysing the threads,” he said, barely hearing the words slipping past his own lips.

A Divination appearing in Soulspace....

“No, just as you can appear in Soulspace, so can we.”

He had to wonder, what would a Divination who appeared in Soulspace look like? Perhaps...

Perhaps like a soulwalker with blond hair and gold eyes.