Like a Gale Ripping the Branches Bare

(9:1:5)

“Domini Hafest, a word.”

He watched as his master’s aura stilled and grew sharp edges. To all outward appearances, the man’s smooth turn was perfectly casual, his eyebrows arching in mild curiosity, but Winds saw the simmer below the surface as Firalk approached. “Of course, Domini Firalk. It’s always a pleasure to speak with one’s elders.”

“Yes, indeed—”

|Winds.|

Winds turned slightly as a couple of the other Domini drifted over as well, to meet Feather’s calm, cool gaze. He flickered the glow of his eyes in greeting.

Hers passed carefully over him as she halted at his side, hands tucked in her billowing sleeves. |You seem dimmed.|

In the conversation between his master and the other councillors, Hafest cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t agree that our people are becoming increasingly restless?”

“They become increasingly restless because of our own divisions.” The other Domini folded his solid arms. “As you yourself would say, Seih Hestas is the greatest example of those divisions tearing our own cohesion apart.”

|I am fine,| Winds said at last. |It’s interesting that Firalk would throw Seih into the river after supporting him.|

|Mm. Yes. How has your master been treating you?|

He met her deep red eyes, their own glow only a faint spark in her irises. |I do as I am commanded. I am treated as I deserve.|

For a brief moment, there was something almost sad within them, reflected in a brief ripple from her muted aura. |Of course.|

They both turned their attention back to the Domini’s conversation, Hafest seemingly being bullied into using his own manor to host... he reviewed the last few seconds of what his senses had pulled in... an evenaste meeting between councillors.

“Yours is the only other manor fit enough for our number.”

“Is it, now?” Hafest was clearly speaking between clenched teeth. “And does this number also include Seih Hestas?”

“I’d like to have his input,” Domini Tambo put in casually.

|They appear to be performing a strange dominance display,| Feather commented. |Your master seems to be losing.|

|And I will bear the brunt of his ire.| Winds closed his eyes, still able to see them through his sense of life, though the context of the room they were in was lost. He could sense the spines of Hafest’s aura bristling. His master had never liked being tested.

“Well, I suppose I can’t say no, can I?” Hafest turned on his heel, gesturing dismissively. “You don’t give me much time, but unlike the rest of you, my house is up to the task.”

As Winds followed, he noted the way his master’s every step exuded the carefully hidden storm within, matching the one brewing outside.

|I will see you later, Feather.|

&&&

The metal of his master’s blade glittered under the Light stones in the ceiling, whipping past his head like an angry swooper.

Its owner’s aura matched the brooding sky gathered beyond the windows, the clouds’ underbelly heavy and threatening. There would be no mercy for anyone caught within the downpour when it arrived.

His sword clanged against the other’s, the resonance jarring unpleasantly up his arm, the two of them briefly locked together. Hafest’s lip curled, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Show some emotion, construct. Show me some fight.”

His eyes flickered as he deflected another blow, the speed of it straining at the restrictions placed upon him. If the other wanted him to show some fight, he should have taken away the restrictions upon him. Fighting against a novice was not a fight.

Whispers rose at the back of his mind, tingling through the channels of his conduits, flowing like breath through his frame. His instincts. His impulses. If he were to listen, he would not be much of a Divination at all.

He swung and twisted, his blade grating against Hafest’s, a flicker sparking in the depths of his eyes. What his master really wanted was desperation, not fight. Emotion.

A Divination should not show emotion.

He stared into steely grey eyes, watching every minute twitch of muscle, every flicker of aura. And he allowed his jaw to set, his expression to harden, the sweep of his sword wilder, louder, but lacking true force. A crash of lightning against lightning.

The man’s teeth bared, a spark in his own eyes. Like a predator spotting prey.

He shoved forward, and Winds shoved back, digging in without the full force of his true strength or weight. A young boy against a grown man, his muscles trembling and his teeth clenched, feet skidding against the padded floor, stumbling back with a rough push.

Unjust. A collection of angered echoes wisping through the false construct of his soul.

So it was. So it would always be.

The blade escaped his clumsy defence, the flat rapping against his shoulder mockingly, and he twitched back as any living being would at the sensation. As any human would. As his master had ordered.

The fitful glow in his eyes flared, the curl of his lip a foreign sensation, his fingers tightening around the grip of his sword. Its blade slashed back wildly, angrily. Creating space, creating room.

As he had before, Hafest rocked back, dancing aside, his own sword ready and waiting to leap into an opening, to take advantage of gaps that should not be there.

The instincts within his soul clamoured, the lunge he gave—wild and barely coordinated—nearly making them scream. The pieces of his self, the whole created from fragments.

And with his suicidal leap, he swept within his master’s guard, twisting and ramming his pommel up to crack into the man’s chin, the other rearing back in shock at the last moment.

The retaliating blow that struck the side of his head sent him to the floor.

A clatter bounced in his ears as his sword slipped from his fingers, his body instinctively rolling, the screaming whispers of his impressors threatening to override his orders. Move, they cried. Twist. Avoid the kick—

There was no avoiding it.

His head snapped back, a burst of jarring input crackling white-hot needles through his conduits. For half a moment his vision went blank, the light picked up by scalelets within his eyes making no sense, a blurring ripple of electric crackles and shades of heat and blobs of colours suffusing his senses.

He could have sworn he tasted the hue of the sky and heard the texture of the padded ground slam into his frame. Temporary synaesthesia.

“You would try to injure your master?”

Hafest’s anger smelled like sour, crackling fire as he came to rest. If he had truly wanted to, he could have killed the man with his bare hands. Hafest had asked him to fight.

Pointing that out wouldn’t help. It would only be seen as defiance.

Unjust. Unfair.

He simulated breathing hard, pushing air in and out through the cavity within his chest, arms wobbling as he pushed himself up. The uncoordinated stutters weren’t only for show—there was a worrying level of misfiring input and delays, the temporary synaesthesia fading but another concerning point towards him having sustained serious damage.

He shouldn’t have. After the last few sparring bouts over previous days, with Hafest’s tension increasing, though.... He’d begun noticing tiny issues, fading as his system repaired itself only to flare up again with a bad landing.

“I am sorry, my master. I will adjust my parameters to exclude similar moves.” He allowed his head to hang, not moving as the other’s sword hovered above him, fingers shifting slightly on its grip. Mimicking pained defeat wasn’t incredibly hard with his equilibrium refusing to stabilise. Any hint of perceived defiance could make his master’s temper flare, perhaps damaging him further.

“Calut.” Hafest clucked his tongue, swiping his sword away, and Winds sensed him turn. “Pick yourself up, then. If you can’t do anything useful, you may as well pick up some bread from that bakery for the evening’s preparations.”

His voice dropped into a hissing mutter about councillors and evenaste that Winds didn’t catch as he carefully moved to draw himself to his feet again.

Something was definitely off. He struggled to maintain proper footing as his sense of balance tilted, rapidly rerouting input from the gyroscopic mechanisms centred in his ears in an effort to recalibrate his faulty senses.

“And don’t dawdle.” Hafest fixed him with an intense stare as he straightened properly. “I expect you back within an hour.”

“Of course, sir.” The right periphery of his vision seemed off, too, flickering faintly and slightly darkened.

“Well? Off with you, then.”

He managed a dip of his head, ruthlessly forcing his limbs not to wobble in response to the ghostly sensation of tipping too far forward, and left.

Annoyingly, he clipped the edges of a few turns on his way into the main body of the manor, nearly falling as he exited the living area when the sleeve of his tunic caught at the vine twining around the extravagant frame. These new issues were worse than when his judgement of depth and angle had been compromised, he reflected with a soft hiss to himself.

|Winds?|

He refocused his vision to find Wisp watching him, her hands folded in her sleeves, flour scattered across the front of her cook’s tunic, and struggled to pull his frame upright instead of swaying like a dreamy ox chewing its cud. |I’m fine.|

|You are in need of repairs.| Her light-yellow eyes glowed in disapproval. |You should return to quarters and allow your systems to recover.|

|I have been commanded to go on an errand.| He blinked, attempting to clear that flickering spot and tempted to shake his head to see if it could rattle things back into place. |I must complete it.|

|Ah.| She bowed, wisps of pale yellow hair obscuring her face. |My mistake.|

|The master is buying bread for evenaste,| he informed her, moving past towards the exit. |Let me know if further items are required. I’ll be back soon.|

|Good.|

He managed to make his way out to the street and down the road, somehow, heading towards Lower Abode. As he went, he ruthlessly adjusted what he could, cutting off input to and from what seemed to be problem areas.

His vision cut out completely at one point, the shock of it nearly sending him stumbling into the back of a cart and forcing him to rely on the glowing impressions of life around him as he hastily readjusted.

He decided to leave the flicker in his eye for the moment. It was too distracting attempting to walk and initiate repairs.

The streets around him, though, didn’t bustle with the usual traffic, people hurrying under the dark sky, hoping to outrun the impending rain.

It was nice, in a way. The more muted nature of the world put less strain on the mess of his conduits and his central processing relay. He was vaguely tempted to cut his hearing, too, as he entered streets still possessing a fair amount of traffic, but dimmed it instead.

A part of him wished Hafest had designed him with longer legs or that he currently the capacity to move faster than a walk without the world turning on its head, as he picked up the pace for the final length of his journey.

It was a strange thing, to wish. To want something different.

He closed his eyes, managing a brief jog across the square, successfully navigating between hurrying citizens without bumping into anyone. The clatter of wagon wheels and heavy, clawed hooves still rattled through his head despite his efforts, relief washing over him as soon as he managed to slip in the door and—

Crashed into a customer coming out.

He found himself on the ground, struggling to focus on which direction was up even as his body automatically gathered up in a crouch, hand planted against the ground to steady him.

“You felled idiot! Watch where you’re going!”

A vaguely familiar voice cried out at him, radiating pain and frustration, and he pulled his vision into focus on the woman who had also ended up on the floor of the shop, her flowing tunic and long black hair dishevelled, her whole sense radiating agitated lightning flickers as she glared at him with grey eyes. The same woman he’d accidentally run once before.

The one with Seih Hestas.