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The bridge is a tumultuous riot of noises and colors and scents. It is the opposite of the Navigator's Sanctum and her old apartments on Eurac V in every way possible, and the cacophony strains her senses severely. Nevertheless, Cassia proceeds.
Her walk across the bridge is difficult for the aforementioned reason and for the stares the crew give her both. They are not used to people like her, but that is not so surprising. People of a stature as refined as hers are, after all, quite rare. But the unpleasantness of their heavy, implacable gazes and weighty colors drives her to hurry to her destination.
The Lord Captain, from what little time she'd had to speak with them, had seemed kind and accommodating. Their promise to do anything they could to facilitate her adjustment to her new life aboard the Sanguine Wind had struck her as completely genuine, which is why she's willing to brave the clamor of the bridge. A question has been nagging at her about the Lord Captain since their first meeting, and she hopes receiving an answer might put at least this one consternation of hers to rest.
The guards' colors change with her approach, shifting to a gritty olive apprehension tinged with sallow yellow agitation. It is good that they respect her position, if not her person, enough to fear her but she would hope that the men who guard the quarters of the Lord Captain would be made of sterner stuff. They ought to have long ago made peace with their duty to die for them.
The guard on the left speaks. “Lady Navigator,” he addresses her, his bow appropriately low and servile. “The Lord Captain said to be expecting you. I've been instructed to send you right up.”
She graces him with a nod – slight, as befits a gesture from one of her class to one of his – to indicate that she has understood him, and proceeds onto the lift.
“Now miss, you make sure you hold on right tight to the railing there. Machine spirit's been acting up all day and we got to make sure none of you toffs get banged around.” The guard on the right, a younger, rougher, less experienced sort, attempts to command her. It is far too familiar, and his partner knows it, his colors flitting to shame and fear, blue-black and rancid chartreuse. She watches coldly, and waits for the necessary apologies.
She does not need to wait long. The older guard starts bowing nearly as soon as the younger one has finished speaking, low and fast as though he might blow the words away like a bad odor. He kicks the younger man in the shin, and he joins the display as well, mumbling sorry, sorry all the while as his colors melt and run with panic.
“He didn’t mean anything by it, Lady Navigator, I swear it,” the older guard says, his words coming thick and heavy, gouts of rancid fear gusting wide. She flinches back as they try to lick at her skin, but it only seems to drive them further, higher. Her eyes ache with the intensity of it. “He’ll have whatever punishment you deem fitting and be happy for it,” he promises, a deference to her high station on this ship, a scramble to appease.
Cassia searches her knowledge of story and law, searching for a punishment that is severe enough for the crime but will not step upon the Lord Captain’s toes. A simple servant may be replaced with ease, but a guard trained well enough to guard one’s own quarters is an investment. “Have him flogged,” she says, mind leaping to what had been her Uncle Theobald’s favored punishment for a guardsman’s minor infractions.
The guards’ faces run blank, but she has been gifted with sight beyond that of ordinary men and can see the wave of sucking grey despair that crests over all their other colors. She is not sure why the reaction is so strong – while it is not pleasant, it is certainly an appropriate punishment. Perhaps they had hoped she would be soft, as gentle as her voice and her manners, ridiculous as that sounds. She was born to be the Novator of House Orsellio, and she has long been present while her guardians settled punishments upon transgressors. The guards murmur their acknowledgements with downcast eyes as they return to the controls.
The lift rises smoothly upward, and within moments she finds herself alighting in the Lord Captain's antechamber, greeted by a maid with a broad smile and deep bow. “Lady Navigator! I'll let the Lord Captain know you've arrived.” Her colors are vivid and excitable, all sunny yellows and warm oranges that put her in mind of the exotic, excitable bird she’d once owned. It had shrilled at her in the same neurotic way. The maid bustles off.
Another maid in the antechamber is engaged in dusting or some other, similar peasantly pursuit. She is humming a tune under her breath as she works, and her sense of melody is poor. It grates on Cassia's eardrums. She does not know why this has been allowed. “Be quiet,” she tells the girl, whose colors mute and crumble with her voice.
“The Lord Captain is ready to receive you.” The first maid returns, voice still shrill, colors still ever so violently vivid, so cluttering of her sphere of vision. Her eyes ache from the strain, her head from the cacophony. She takes deep breaths to center herself, steady herself against the onslaught. She is still so unused to the great crush of humanity aboard a voidship.
The maid mistakes her pause for confusion. “Just through there, milady,” she says, gesturing at the only other door in the antechamber. “And the Lord Captain’s got a nice, light day today, so they’re in a top mood and you won’t have any interruptions, either.” The woman gives her what she imagines is supposed to be an encouraging smile.
She does not understand why the servants on this ship are unfailingly, constituently chatty. Not a one of them seems to respect or even comprehend the idea of discretion, let alone proper silence. How she longs for the company of her own servants, mutes one and all! She cannot understand why even the personal servants aboard the Sanguine Wind have been allowed to keep their tongues when there is no real argument for them requiring the things. Perhaps it is a quirk of the von Valancius line. A rogue trader house might, after all, select for those who enjoyed noise and chaos with nearly as much precision as her own house selected for those with warp sight.
She takes one more breath and, steadied at last, heads for the Lord Captain’s study. She does not bother to acknowledge the maid’s ridiculous chatter.
The Lord Captain’s study is fittingly grand. Everywhere she looks there are fine artifacts of mysterious provenance, intricate fabrics, and wood, real wood hewn from real trees with all the knots and flaws in the grain that implies. The Lord Captain’s desk, behind which they currently sit, appears to be made of a single, thick slab of a wood she cannot name, intricate carvings decorating its forward face. Her home on Eurac V is – was – as fine as a noble house could hope to be, and even it could not have boasted this desk’s like, not when the expert carvings were so clearly done by man, not machine. One wall of the study is lined with books – real paper books, not data-slates – a true treasure trove, even for a voidship as grand as this. The large window behind the desk frames the room in starlight to great advantage. All together it makes a most splendid impression.
Even among such luxury the Lord Captain cuts a striking figure. Their clothes are regal, their bearing refined, but it is their demeanor that captivates her so. There is a sort of refined elegance, a gentle nobility in their face and gaze that instantly sets her at ease. They had been quite kind to her, during and after her hasty departure from the station that had been her home for more than half her life. They had welcomed what few of her servants and men-at-arms that still survived aboard their ship, and graciously provided the services of their own men in packing her most precious relics. They had been considerate and genteel at every turn, assuring her with genuine warmth that exceeded the bounds of what politeness dictated must be offered to a noble guest that she was most welcome to come to them with any questions or requests.
That is why she has come here this day. She has spoken to them other times on subject matters strictly relating to the ship, the Immaterium, and her navigation of it; for the first time she seeks to ask a question beyond those necessary communiques.
She has been seeing people’s colors all her life, and never has she seen so unusual a set as the Lord Captain’s. There is something of Idira’s in it, in the darting, leaping colors that never stand still, will never let her pin them to the world’s canvas. But Idira’s colors change with neither rhyme nor reason – they are chaos themselves, unknowable and untamable. The Lord Captain’s colors, on the other hand, keep a somewhat constant backdrop that shifts only slowly, in the manner she is accustomed to. Atop that surface, however, dash tiny flashes of other colors, visible only for a single swift moment before vanishing once more. They remind her of nothing so much as a hololith she had once seen of fish in a tropical ocean, the exotic creatures blazing into existence in bursts of swirling fins and color before hurrying back out of her vision just as quickly as they had come. The colors are not constant, which confuses her only further. Sometimes a great many little fish flash and gambol about them, displaying every possible color, while at other times they are accompanied only by a few that wear only the same limited set of hues.
She wants to understand. She has seen so very many things new to her in so short a time, and understood so very few of them. Here, at least, an answer ought to be well within her reach. She also, she admits, hopes to speak a little to the Lord Captain on a topic besides the voidship. She has lacked for company for a long while, and who in a situation such as hers would not be a little captivated by such a gallant rescuer?
But manners must come first. She would never be so rude as to appear in a person’s study and start interrogating them without so much as a by your leave! She stops at the foot of the steps that lead to their desk and gives them a light bow. “I trust you find yourself well, Lord Captain? I hope you did not encounter too much to trouble down on the prison planetoid?”
Their backing colors today are warm, happy oranges, though ever-tinged at the edges with blackened worry. They are how she knows that their smile at the sight of her is genuine. Only a few fish leap through their colors, most dull, some vibrant. “I am well indeed, Lady Navigator, and I hope that you are also keeping well. We ran into some… disturbing manifestations of chaos down on Rykadi Philia, but fortunately we were able to ensure their destruction. And happily, it appears that our esteemed guest will make a full recovery in time. Have you been finding the ship to your satisfaction?”
“Oh yes, Lord Captain, everything has been most satisfactory. My quarters are more than sufficient, and your servants and officers most accommodating.” Accommodating, but awkward, distant. They ensured she had exactly what she wanted of them, then fled. That she had been prepared for – she had been warned that the unenlightened would flinch from her, had hardened her heart so it might turn their barbs. She is quite convinced that she can barely feel the stings now, and the Lord Captain’s evident pleasure at her presence does much to help soothe those scratches that smarted still. That is all as she had expected, and perhaps even better, since many within the Lord Captain’s personal retinue are even properly friendly toward her. What she had not been prepared for was the dreadful forwardness displayed by so many individuals on this voidship. A frown tugs at the corners of her mouth. The endless questions, the odd attempts at what she thought might be reassurance (from a servant!), the constant, unending chatter. “Though they have perhaps displayed a tendency toward overfamiliarity.”
Their colors flash an unsightly rainbow as shame, fear, disgust, and anger make war for limited territory, and their colorful fish must leap through poisoned waters. While she will allow that it is certainly never pleasant for the master of the house to have their household criticized so, Cassia is taken aback at the scale of their reaction. It shows even on their face – while the Lord Captain seems to not be overly fond of eye contact, they do not usually avert their gaze from her person so dramatically as they do now, mouth pressed flat. Whatever it is that had so afflicted them quickly passes, however, and their eyes and colors revert to their original states, though she would swear that their previously sunny hues are somewhat dimmer now. “My apologies,” they respond, dipping their head in contrition.
The conversation stalls for a moment, some awkwardness hanging in the air between them. The Lord Captain offers her no promises of punishment; she is not sure what to say in their absence but unwilling to demand them from a host who has already offered her so much. Their eyes dart to her and then away and back again, and their hues start to shade into the awkward and uncertain, muddy browns and pastel greys that haven’t quite yet decided what they want to be. She too sends her two normal eyes searching around the room in the service of making polite conversation, unwilling to simply blurt her most pressing question into the atmosphere of unease like some uncouth ruffian.
As on so many occasions previous, books come to her rescue. Her eyes land on the library she had been admiring earlier, each book in the collection beautifully bound and pressed in the deep blue leather of some xenos beast, every spine decorated invitingly in gold. They practically beg one to pull them from the shelves and rifle through their pages for ancient wisdom and dashing tales alike. “Your library is lovely.”
They follow her gaze. “Thank you, though I can hardly take personal credit for the state of it.” They smile at her again, a little crooked, as though telling her a joke or letting her in on a secret. It is so free of artifice that Cassia cannot help but be charmed by it, to imagine tracing out its angles with her brush. That last errant and unexpected thought brings a flush to her cheeks, but the Lord Captain, to her relief, appears oblivious. “As you know, I am only recently made Lord Captain. By rights all credit ought to go to my predecessor, though I shan’t complain if you insist upon giving it to me anyway.”
That draws a giggle from her, which only broadens their smile. She feels so light and airy in this moment, as though she might walk on water though nothing more than the buoyancy of her heart. “Then I insist you consider the praise all yours.” They are bantering, the two of them! “Even from this distance I find myself tempted to pluck a book and start reading, so do please forgive me any distraction! Are you fond of books, Lord Captain?”
“I am.” The Lord Captain veritably beams at her in response to her query. In their voice and colors she finds a shy eagerness she has come to know well over the past weeks – the delicate hope that one might, perhaps, have found a kindred spirit. “I have had a great fondness for them ever since my youth.”
How fortuitous that they should share a hobby! The thought of it sets her heart to fluttering, already anticipating what refined conversation they will have over her favorite historical tomes. “I’ve read a great many books, and I do love them so! Perhaps we might someday discuss our reading together, Lord Captain?”
“I would like that very much.” Their smile is so bright as to be dazzling. “And please, you may call me Malakai.”
She understands their offer immediately, knows they are telling her that here, in the privacy of their study, they need not only be Lord Captain and Lady Navigator to one another. That is not so unexpected, for she knows many navigators of her house count their ship’s captain among their closest friends. But even so it is too much – they have known one another only a fortnight. And for all she wants to be bold, she cannot bring herself to step so hastily outside the bounds of propriety, not when it would be so large a step as this one. “Oh! I could never!” she tells them, then blushes crimson. “That is to say, Lord Captain, that I could never be so forward as to call you by nothing but your given name. Not that I am implying that it was inappropriate of you to ask! I simply meant that – oh, this is coming out all wrong.”
This last portion she speaks directly to the rich, red carpet that adorns the floor of their study. How she wishes she could bury her face in her hands! Anything to avoid having to look the Lord Captain in the eye after that dreadful little episode of blithering. Words have never come easily to her, this is true, but she does not know what it is about their personage in particular that has left her so often tongue-tied!
“I believe I understand what you are trying to say,” the Lord Captain tells her, tone even. She looks up in relief to find that while she cannot quite claim it a smile, there is still a hint of curve to their lips. “And I promise I take no offence. Instead, allow me to beg your forgiveness for asking. I have been – had been – simply ‘Malakai’ for so long that it feels passing strange to hear it no longer.”
They are young for their position, just as she is young for hers. But she, at least, has been raised to her position, and knows well the burden of expectation. From what few rumors as have reached her ears since her hurried embarkation, the current Lord Captain is only a distant relation to the late Lady Theodora and held no expectation of ascension to the Lord Captaincy. Indeed, if the gossipmongers are to be believed then they inherited the Sanguine Wind within mere hours of stepping aboard. How swiftly and dramatically their circumstances turned! How quickly their life changed in its entirety, for not even the grandest of lords can claim wealth and authority to rival that of a Rogue Trader. “Such trouble is common among people of our rank.” It strikes her then, suddenly, that they seem very lonely in the same way that she is sometimes lonely – with the sort of feeling that grips one’s soul when one stands entirely alone in a room full of people. “Perhaps… perhaps Lord Malakai might suit?” Truthfully, she is not sure if ‘Lord’ is an appropriate form of address for the intimates of a Rogue Trader, but she suggests it anyway. It is a respectable enough address, and lets them keep their name and them both keep some semblance of propriety. More importantly, it is a gesture, an indication that she has understood their intent and that she, too, wishes for them to be something more.
Their smile grows brittle, rigid. Their colors braid themselves tight around their body, all the better to minimize and hide swarming the navy sadness and rusty guilt. “Please do not worry about it, Lady Orsellio.”
Oh, she is bungling this terribly. She searches for the words to reassure them, to explain that this is not born of appeasement. Unfortunately, she can think of no guide but Fiatrici’s impassioned speech to her lover Rantonio in The Admiral’s Wife. It had been one of the few romance novels that her uncles had allowed aboard Eurac V, and for a time she had read it near monthly. It is not quite as good a match for her current situation as she would hope, but she is determined to be adaptable. “My lord, you ask nothing of me that I would not willingly give. Impugn not my honor, doubt not my claims. Believe that my mind and motives are mine own, and that it is my desire alone that drives me here before you to speak these words.”
Two brilliant spots of color appear high on their cheeks. “Ah… well then. I, um,” they stammer, suddenly very interested in turning their rings about their fingers. “I shall consider it a most delightful compromise.” Their dark eyes are warm from where they peer up at her beneath their lashes.
Cassia nearly beams with delight. Her improvisation has worked perfectly! The sun has risen back into their colors, all yellows and oranges with blushing hints of pink, and they warm her nearly as well as a proper star.
“And I am glad of it,” they continue. They pause and take a deep breath before continuing, cheeks still charmingly flushed, “For I must confess that I am not used to hearing such formal address, especially from someone I might hope to… to call ‘friend.’”
She is elated at the prospect – how could she not be, when such hope and fondness infuse their speech? And she has longed for a true friend of the sort found in every story since she was but a child. Yet the word leaves her somehow dissatisfied, leaves some tiny hollow in her chest unfilled, as though she had hoped, somehow, for more.
“If we are to be friends, then I ought to be Lady Cassia to you as well,” she says at last, shaking off whatever gloom had settled in her chest.
“Then Lady Cassia you shall be.”
They smile at one another for a few moments, both content to bask in the knowledge that their time on this voidship need not be so lonely as they once feared. Lord Malakai is the first to break the silence. “I apologize, Lady Cassia, for I fear we have drifted quite off course. I assume you held some reason in mind when you set this appointment? I do not wish to waste all your time on personal matters when you have something more important to speak of.”
She almost wants to tease, wants ask if that means they are happy to waste a little of her time on personal matters. That is what friends do, is it not? She thinks they would laugh, really laugh, the surprised and happy sort that made their eyes crinkle up at the corners. She has seen them joke with Idira, try to get Seneschal Werserian to crack a smile. She is certain they would tease her back.
But that is still yet a few steps too bold for her, the path forward still unclear in her sight. Dreams laid aside, she turns instead to the main purpose of her visit. “Lord Malakai,” she begins, with a touch of nerves, “if you don’t mind, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” they say, and she detects no hint of wariness in their voice as they gesture for her to continue.
“I have spoken a little before of my Sight, and the insight it gives me into the souls of men, yes?” She pauses for their affirmation, and they nod encouragingly. “While everyone’s colors are different, there are still… commonalities, if you will, between people. The colors reveal an individual’s nature, and while they may shift and change to reflect their emotions, they are still a whole, undivided thing.” She waits another moment, and they nod once more. “Idira’s colors are buried under a swirling storm of chaos, but that too is linked to her nature. Do you see?”
“I believe so,” they say, though she detects more than a hint of confusion in her tone. They do not understand why she is telling them all of this, which she supposes is more than fair. They do not have her eyes to see, and perhaps her question will come to naught.
“But your colors, Lord Cap– Lord Malakai, they make no sense at all. I’ve never seen their like before.” They now wear a look of open confusion, and look poised to ask questions, to pry forth clarifications, but she continues on. “They’re not exactly like Idira’s,” she explains, “because her own colors are hidden by the tumult, and I can still see yours. Yet dashes of other colors flit atop yours, like… oh, did you ever keep an aquarium as a child? They dart about just as tropical fish do. Sometimes there are many, sometimes there are few, and sometimes, though I am hardly sure of my own observations, they seem to reflect the people that surround you? Lord Malakai, have you even a guess at what it is that enlivens your colors so?”
It is though they have deflated with every word she has uttered, now dwarfed entirely by their desk and chair where previously they had only emphasized their stature. Their fish, which are few in number this day, swim in blue-black shame; their colors resemble nothing so much as an aging, painful bruise. Their mouth is tight, their eyes downcast; they fiddle with their voluminous sleeves, twisting and untwisting the edges as the silence stretches on.
“Ah. Did… did no one inform you?” As they speak to her, their gaze remains firmly fixed upon their desk. Though their words are quiet enough that she is not entirely certain they are truly meant for her. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t have.”
Lord Malakai sits up, stiffly. They lift their chin and stop fidgeting with their sleeves, interlacing their fingers and settling them neatly upon the desk. They even turn their eyes upon her, though she notes that as close as it comes, she can never quite align her two uncovered eyes with theirs. They have mostly smoothed the upset from their face as well, though she sees it clearly still in their colors. It is with their assistance that she spots the tension in their eyes and the bloodless press of their lips, indicators that they are not so sanguine as they appear.
“I am afraid there has been some miscommunication, Lady Orsellio. I can explain the strange behavior of the colors you see around me with ease – I am a sanctioned psyker, and their behavior is simply a reflection of my curse.”
Flickers of fuchsia shock splash across their colors, bright against their stormy dark; Cassia realizes with a start that the surprise is her own. “But Idira is a psyker, and her colors are not the same as yours at all. Nor do they match the colors of the Astropaths. And why would that lead you to reflect those around you? I cannot make any sense of it!”
And it truly makes no sense – psykers, even sanctioned ones, are known to be nervous, jittery, barely in control at the best of times and liable to be set off by nearly any manifestation of the warp. But Lord Malakai had been exposed to her in the grips of her despair on Eurac V and managed perfectly well, when even her own guardians had fallen under her sway. They do not speak like Idira to voices that are not there, and she has not heard tell of their powers summoning any daemons to the decks. They are too calm, too ordinary, and nothing like she expected.
“I am considered a telepath, named so because my curse compels me to experience the thoughts and feelings of others.” Their tone is measured and even, with the practiced cadence of well-worn recitation. “With what mean understanding I have of your gifts, my lady, it seems quite understandable that my colors would reflect that part of my nature as well.”
“But how can you be a psyker?” She presses her question once more, further. They bear a poor resemblance to the portrait painted for her by her books; she wishes to understand why. “You don’t seem to do things like set people aflame when you’re angry or drown them in their worst memories when you’re unhappy. Even when exposed directly to the energies of the warp, you summoned no daemons. Aren’t your sort supposed to be more unstable?”
They keep the same even tone, but she feels in it a distant note, and thinks that even though their body has not moved, they seem somehow very far away. “I trained for many years to master and control my powers. There is no need to fear – I have them well in hand.” They pause for a moment, mouth twisting, unsure. “I realize that it,” here their composure begins to falter, as they stutter over their words and a dirty yellow froth forms atop their colors, “that it is unusual for someone of my position to be a psyker. I was not aware that you had not been informed, and I apologize for any… if this knowledge causes distress or regret.”
It certainly is unusual. She was taught that psykers belong in service, in the guard or aboard ships in choirs. They are tools; they do not rule. She had heard Lord Captain Theodora described as willful, and it must certainly be true for her to have requisitioned a psyker as her heir. She must have wanted them very badly, to overlook such a thing. She wants to ask if they know why she chose them specifically, but something tells her she will not get an answer. Their proper bearing is stretched thin, taut over an empty hollow within. They are unhappy to be having this conversation, and feel guilty, she realizes as she watches their colors, at the thought that they may have deceived her.
Cassia sees that she now stands at a crossroads. Sometimes, as she paints her way through the warp, she comes across a moment where she might go one way or the other, draw her brush left or right with equal ease. Either way may take her to her destination, but the painting will be different all the same. She can near see the strokes upon the canvas she might make now, how the paths might diverge. She might go right, as is good and proper, inform the Lord Captain that she was not aware of their nature, and make a strategic retreat. Put the appropriate amount of distance between the heir to the Novator’s throne and one afflicted with psykerism. Lose her newest (and only, if truth be told) friend.
Or sweep her brush left, wide. Tell Lord Malakai that while she is surprised, she does not mind. It is justifiable enough; whatever else they may be, they are foremost the head of the von Valancius dynasty. For people of their stature, rules may be bent, broken, if they even need be applied at all. Not to mention that they do not seem particularly unstable or dangerous, at least not to her senses. They have been nothing but courteous, and shown only the greatest decorum. And she has never met anyone as pretty or charming before, and badly wants them to smile at her again, and is so tired of being lonely besides.
No others of her generation were born Sighted, so she has had no one to commiserate with on the trials and tribulations of knowing the contents of hearts and souls of men. But they would know, she thinks. They would understand the frustrations of it, the beauties of it.
She takes a deep breath and makes her choice. “I was not afeared, only surprised! You are nothing like I was told a psyker would be.”
They nod awkwardly, hesitantly, as though deciding whether or not to believe her. Their expression is one of hope, ill-fitting, unexpected hope, but hope all the same.
“In fact, Lord Malakai, it sounds as though you and I are privy to many of the same facets of men’s souls. Our perceptions differ substantially, of course, but we both perceive an individual’s innermost thoughts and feelings. I have never met another person with such similar experiences to myself!”
“I… suppose that makes sense,” they answer cautiously, but she is pleased to hear a little bit of their old spirit in their voice.
She plunges forward, curious to know if great crowds of people are as much as a trial for them as they are for her. “Do you find the bridge overwhelming as well? How do you stand it?”
“At times yes, but long years of practice have allowed me to dull the voices down to a distant roar so that they might flow over me like a stream.” They give her a look of understanding sympathy, and continue, “It has gotten easier with time. At first I took to my bed every evening exhausted from the sheer effort of withstanding it, but I’ve slowly become accustomed and find that these days that it has become far easier to ignore it.” Their lips twist ruefully. “Even when certain individuals insist upon being awfully loud about it.”
A certain levity crosses their features, and this is what Cassia imagines it feels like when clouds part to reveal a sun. “Ah, you must know this already, so I do not have to feel bad for gossiping. Have you noticed that one of the Minor Factotums is quite besotted with Vox Master Vigdis?”
She bursts into giggles – she cannot help it. There’s something oddly charming about the dutiful, proper Lord Captain having a weakness for gossip and no one to share it with. “I don’t know how anyone could be unaware of it, what with the fluffy pink clouds she is trailing around! Even I know it, when I have barely set foot upon the bridge since I boarded.”
They laugh too. “Oh Emperor, I am so glad to be able to tell someone!”
“I as well! I sometimes got the sense that my uncles did not appreciate having their emotions shared aloud… but there cannot be any harm in the telling if you already know about them,” she reasons. It is hard, sometimes, to know what may be said and what ought to be kept to herself. Too many times she has said some innocuous, obvious thing only to be met with recriminations. But they will always know, and so will not despair to hear it! She beams at the thought, and at the companionship it implies. “Truly, Lord Malakai, I am glad to have met someone with whom I have so much in common.”
“As am I,” they respond, their smile widening, becoming more genuine. “You know, I too spent some of my youth on a voidstation.”
She has never before met someone who shared the circumstances of her upbringing, though if she must be honest, she has met precious few people in total. And now she has met someone who understands! How station life breeds distance, isolation. How it leads to having more books than friends, how most of the people around her were nothing but servants, barely fit to speak to at all. “Then you understand why it gladdens my heart so to meet a kindred spirit. Life aboard the station could be so lonely, with only me and the servants aboard! I had my guardians, at least, but they were not the same as having a friend.”
They pause a long moment, carefully straightening the data-slates that clutter their desk. “Ah –”
Whatever it is they are about to tell her is interrupted by a polite cough. Cassia is familiar with such noises, as they were often made by the veritable swarm of secretaries and accountants that followed in the wake of every high-ranking member of her family. As she surmised, Lord Malakai’s secretary stands in the doorway. “Begging your pardon, Lord Captain. Seneschal Werserian is waiting in the antechamber, and he says it’s urgent.”
“Oh! I shall –”
“Forgive me, but –”
They both pause, indicating that the other should speak. She waits for them to speak first, as is proper given their respective stations. “A thousand pardons, Lady Cassia, but I can feel his anxiety from here. If the Seneschal is alarmed enough to interrupt then I must speak with him immediately.”
She nods, for this she cannot dispute. “Seneschal Werserian wears the colors of loyalty like a coat. I do not doubt the sincerity of his urgency. Might we... might we speak again at a later time, Lord Malakai?”
“Of course! I will look forward to it.” They smile, but there is an element of distant distraction to it. They are focused already upon whatever crisis the Seneschal has seen fit to bring them, dutiful to the last. It inspires her, a little, to see a leader who cares so deeply for their charge. There is something commendable about it, something she hopes she might one day find the strength to imitate if and when she is called to take up her own command.
They exchange polite farewells as she departs their study. When passes Seneschal Werserian, she is unsurprised to see his colors cycle in a range of anxious hues despite his calm bearing and polite inquiries into her health. He may be worried, but she, despite everything, despite the loss of her home, despite the death of her guardians (who she will remember fondly, always), is not. She had been desperately afraid when she fled the station, but in the few weeks she has been away she has already managed to make a friend, to find new books, to see and learn things she had never thought to know. She wonders what other new things she might discover, now that she is out here among the stars.