Thomas nose wrinkled, Fallon's words covered in a thick taste, sour like vinegar. It always irritated him to find something he couldn't exactly place, but it wasn't something unexpected. Emotions were always difficult to name, he wondered if there would ever come a time he could read auras like he could read books. Still, at least he was getting something from under her cover.
"You've found me, out," Thomas said, walking towards the sweeping doors of the Vestibule. The metal gratings, impressive and grand, slid open silently at their approach. Thomas too, was silent. He hoped Fallon would catch on -- she seemed clever enough, like that Dasoma women he met last year. It wouldn't take long for them to reach the second and final gate, their steps echoing all along the pathway.
The chaparral of the testing grounds was indifferent to their arrival. It remained as always, quiet, eerie, and warm. It had never changed, not that Thomas spent much time outside the Citadel.
"You can't talk inside, not like this," he began, keeping a careful eye on her aura, his tendrils wrapping around her, looking for any break, anything that would give him a better sense of this stranger. This clue. "But I'm sure someone as intuitive as you has long since figured that out." He smiled slyly, only just then remembering himself -- he wasn't in the fortress anymore, they were equals out here. He needed to treat her like one.
"And yes, of course. No pedestal, no hierarchy outside," he sighed, "It's easy to forget, sometimes, y'know? How I use to treat people, how you're suppose to treat people. You spend so long here, especially animating, and you forget that people...," he paused, his eyes focused on the opaque blackness floating in front of him, "You just forget," he shrugged, not really knowing how to explain what the Citadel did to pulsers. Despite everything he'd heard about the nuit, Thomas had decided long ago it was this environment that turned them they way they were -- a nuit living in a normal town? They should be able to pass as human as anyone else.
A Sahovan nuit? Good luck.
"I have a problem. Do you remember that cylindrical golem in the Cestibule? The thing with the iron bars and blue gems?," Thomas asked, scanning for any sense of recoginition in her aura -- the warm, green that should spill from her head, an emerald waterfall that would cover her being. "It's not working anymore. One day it just stoped, no questions, no answers, and then the judgment was installed. I need to find out why this happened and who did it."
"I can answer any question you have -- or can at least try to, anyhow. Will you help me?"
"You've found me, out," Thomas said, walking towards the sweeping doors of the Vestibule. The metal gratings, impressive and grand, slid open silently at their approach. Thomas too, was silent. He hoped Fallon would catch on -- she seemed clever enough, like that Dasoma women he met last year. It wouldn't take long for them to reach the second and final gate, their steps echoing all along the pathway.
The chaparral of the testing grounds was indifferent to their arrival. It remained as always, quiet, eerie, and warm. It had never changed, not that Thomas spent much time outside the Citadel.
"You can't talk inside, not like this," he began, keeping a careful eye on her aura, his tendrils wrapping around her, looking for any break, anything that would give him a better sense of this stranger. This clue. "But I'm sure someone as intuitive as you has long since figured that out." He smiled slyly, only just then remembering himself -- he wasn't in the fortress anymore, they were equals out here. He needed to treat her like one.
"And yes, of course. No pedestal, no hierarchy outside," he sighed, "It's easy to forget, sometimes, y'know? How I use to treat people, how you're suppose to treat people. You spend so long here, especially animating, and you forget that people...," he paused, his eyes focused on the opaque blackness floating in front of him, "You just forget," he shrugged, not really knowing how to explain what the Citadel did to pulsers. Despite everything he'd heard about the nuit, Thomas had decided long ago it was this environment that turned them they way they were -- a nuit living in a normal town? They should be able to pass as human as anyone else.
A Sahovan nuit? Good luck.
"I have a problem. Do you remember that cylindrical golem in the Cestibule? The thing with the iron bars and blue gems?," Thomas asked, scanning for any sense of recoginition in her aura -- the warm, green that should spill from her head, an emerald waterfall that would cover her being. "It's not working anymore. One day it just stoped, no questions, no answers, and then the judgment was installed. I need to find out why this happened and who did it."
"I can answer any question you have -- or can at least try to, anyhow. Will you help me?"
