At Prinrin’s compliments, I fight my smile, biting my lips as I’m aware of the disdainful gazes of the Gilmeshtu and Orthral. Fenric’s gaze is more— jealous? Certainly not friendly, but I’m not entirely certain what emotion is being broadcast, without making eye contact. The brief flicks of my eyes away from my runework don’t afford me enough to analyze without actually turning my head towards them. Still, I try to not be too overt in my enjoyment of my contact with Prinrin’s warm, athletic, petite, bare back.
I work cautiously, exceedingly slowly to be able to be able to draw the runes as small as possible with Miraina when it’s her turn. Since her small frame doesn’t offer room for any mistakes unless I wanted to make use of more surface area than I’m comfortable with. She giggles occasionally about ticklishness, despite the firmness of her scales. I’m surprised that they offer such feedback.
When it’s Lil’s turn, I do apply my hands more affectionately to Lil than I had during the previous bonds, and he murmurs happily as the runic application upon him becomes a backrub as well. I hesitate as I approach Lady Kinzul’s back, wondering now if she would appreciate the additional affection normally, but also especially right now, after earlier revelations. Lady Kinzul continues to practice masking and portraying separate emotions to separate people across the wavelengths, for those that would be observant enough to make note of such things, so she doesn’t offer me advice one way or another. Without explicit consent, I treat the runic application for Kinzul as I had been, almost clinically.
Apparently Miraina knows to keep the secret, and I’m drowning out my wavelengths, putting up a wall between me and members of the Vivant. Miraina is catching on quickly to how to operate the psychic connections, able to toggle the passive reception of others off and on, and similarly able to put up walls to block her own passive broadcasting. I make certain that Lil and Prinrin get private instruction on how to do the same, for different reasons. If Prinrin doesn’t see fit for the Vivant to know her secret, then I don’t want this compromising that for her.
Since Miraina is going to take a break for lunch during the next subnetwork batch, I give her a high five as she starts to zoom off down a hallway. I can sense that she pauses at an intersection junction that wraps around. I’m pretty sure I know what she’s planning. She’s wiser than she should have to be for her apparent age. While the rest of the Vivvies take their leave, Prinrin hangs back for a while longer yet, making almost inane smalltalk, while the Vivvies head off in one direction, seemingly intentionally boring her teammates.
After the rest of her team leaves, Prinrin offers me a tight hug, and some whispered words of encouragement. After that, Prinrin leaves in a third direction that I know loops around to the intersection junction Pawn happens to be waiting at. It warms my heart and brightens my smile when they hold hands and virtually skip off together to go find lunch in secret.
Up next are five individuals I haven’t met. Well, other than Sponge, Kagired. Boetah and Shaylon show up first. Kagired isn’t all that far behind them. Jumpy, sandy-yellow haired Gresog, in a shirt that matches his hair and flesh, and dark-haired lazy-appearing Revinth are almost late as they arrive exactly when scheduled.
Revinth goes topless, and kicks back lazily in a loveseat after pulling up a footstool. He rolls up his pants, making it abundantly clear he’s not going to flop onto his belly, but he’s going to relax and give me all the time and space I need anywhere on his front. Gresog opens his silky shirt, and lays stiff, flat as a board, across a couch, twitching every time a sound is made, like the dragging of the footstool. Revinth casually indicates to use the more intimate version of the paste on everyone in the group except Kagired, to which Kagired agrees. I’m not entirely surprised, but I’m not sure of its implications just yet.
Boetah, Shield, gives Gresog a hearty pat on the shoulder, startling the hell out of the sandy-toned man, earning a bit of a chuckle from Sponge, Shield, and Aegis. Revvy, Revinth the Dark, squints towards Boetah ever so slightly, seemingly his lazy version of a glare. Like Illy said, he’s always looking out for his pal. I can relate. Lil yawns as he lays lazily on his fore, waiting for yet another runic application, hoping for another one that includes a backrub.
Lady Kinzul indicates that I should treat her back in kind, as I give Lil affection and what rubbing I can muster with my free palm, and free digits on my right hand. I nod, plenty happy to agree, not questioning why she hadn’t asked during the previous session.
Boetah chats happily during the entire process, mostly about stones and minerals in the surrounding area, earning some eye rolls, but also some licked lips. He pats his big belly, and though his bald head shakes as he laughs, the stone crown sprouting forth from it moves exactly in rhythm, never veering from its perch.
Shaylon is— interesting. They make eye contact, and silently query if they can receive the same treatment as Lil, to which I agree. Shaylon’s form is slender, androgynous, and gray. Their skin is visually similar to pavement almost, only smooth. Instead of hair, they have what appears to be chiseled marble dreadlocks atop their head. The dreads hang in perfect rows, utterly still.
Shaylon and Boetah’s skin both happen to be harder than stone though, so it’s hard to do much in the way of offering affectionate rubbing with very little leverage with my free fingers. Their flesh is an odd mixture of pliability in motion, but firmness at rest. It takes a bit, and probably isn’t offering as much in the way of relaxation as they’d like, but they work at keeping their various free muscle-groups upon their back in motion, to allow for some mild massaging to occur. I’m beginning to understand why these two are Shield and Aegis though. The longer any of their bodyparts remain still, the more dense, tough, and rigid those parts seem to get. They would be formidable bulwarks in their dragon forms, and, like Illy said, good to have between oneself and a breath weapon.
As I find myself picturing Shaylon’s dragon form, I imagine a more serpentine, oriental style dragon, and Shaylon confirms the picture I have in my mind. I’m a bit embarrassed to have been broadcasting my guess, but once we’re bonded, Shaylon is incredibly friendly, if a bit slow to speak, act, or think.
I comment, “I’m pleased to meet you, and to have you in our bond Aegis, thank you for making time for this today.”
As if coiling around each syllable that I telepathically send their way, Aegis mentally takes apart each word I’ve offered carefully, before responding with a slight hiss extending their ess sounds, “Nice to have friends, Schism. Don’t be shy.”
Blushing, I feel only mildly caught off guard, as Shaylon has me sussed out quite well. I was being a bit formal due to not knowing them so well yet. Flashing them a telepathic smile, I add, “It really is. I hope that our battles always bring us home safely. Do you happen to like to read?”
Once again, it’s as if Shaylon surrounds and hugs each word, squeezing and carefully testing them, before they offer me a smile in return. Shaylon remarks in their serpentine telepathic voice, “Reading in silence is sometimes pleasant. Reading aloud is sometimes pleasant. Neither are always true. Company makes it more likely.”
It feels like a subtle offer, so I try to request, “Would you like to read together sometime? Either in our new space in Mount Verdimenn, or here in the library, perhaps with Nala.”
I sense Shaylon scrutinizing each word, testing them, until they get to Nala’s name. They balk slightly, as if they can’t wrap themselves around the word. I’m worried for a bit that I’ve affronted them with the suggestion, but thankfully Shaylon mentally answers with their hissed esses, “Perhaps your Mount Verdimenn space.”
We continue our private chat for a while afterwards, while I attempt to also get to know Boetah. Boetah seems jovial, and perhaps a bit simplistic, yet wise. He doesn’t have a lot of desires besides keeping his home safe, and finding the tastiest minerals, but I can’t fault him for that. He talks about the difficulty in finding a mate, due to the rarity of rock-dragons. He mentions that he’d be afraid to be so intimate with anyone less sturdy, which— ah, gets a little more detailed than I’d have expected from a first conversation. I don’t want to pick apart his relationship with Shaylon, but it hangs in the air. It might be that Shaylon’s indeterminate gender is a barrier for Boetah’s desires, so I don’t want to insult the pair by prying into the curiosity.
Kagired is incredibly modest, and almost balks at the need to reveal himself for me to be able to apply the runes for the permanency enhancement enchantment. I feel a bit bad about it. Worse, it seems like Sponge hasn’t been touched, in perhaps ages. He’s sensitive, and fidgets, and there’s a constant air of worry about his telepathic wavelength. In some ways, he’s worried that his Latent will pull some injury or another from our contact, or mental scar. In other ways, he’s simply worried that he might enjoy the sensation of physical contact, something that he apparently denies himself, due to the first worry. I wish I could assuage his fears, but I barely have a concept of how Latents work, my own is still as much a mystery to me as my stupid, broken, buggy memories.
Gresog nearly jumps out of his skin upon first contact, but then settles in as I maintain contact during the application of the permanency enhancement enchantment. Revvy of course has a casual air of disinterest about him as I apply his enchantment, but being observant enough lets me sense that he’s on edge. Revinth the Dark is carefully analyzing every single thing in the room, especially my contact with his neck, and chest.
When we’re telepathically bonded, Revinth is quick to admit that he and Gresog are a pair in more ways than one, because he doesn’t want anyone to act surprised, or to give it away to people outside of the bond. Gresog seems to calm down some at being bonded, especially with Revinth. Revinth is able to stream reassurances directly into Gresog’s mind, as well as his analyses of everything going on, and perhaps even pictures of layouts of rooms, and so on.
I’m incredibly happy to be able to offer Revinth and Gresog this new layer to their relationship. I’m also glad Revinth was able to indicate that they’d benefit from the more intimate version of the bond, that offers the broader array of wavelengths. I can sort of understand why Kagired would want the lesser version, and how someone as observant as Revvy would know that implicitly.
The entire party of five happily hangs out the entire time, though Kagired immediately covers himself in his entirety, in his simple white hooded cloak, as soon as his turn receiving the runic paste is done. Lil, and Kinzul receive as much of my affections as I can impart with the very limited range of movement and zero leverage of the free digits on my right hand, and the palm of my left hand. My own emplacement of my runes upon myself with the more and more expensive paste is almost rote, even with the change in the consistency due to increased volume of gem-dust in the mixture.
Up next are a couple of couples of Draconiacs. Well, I’m not entirely certain if Aktixas is in a relationship with Shrulniz, but they seemed close enough at the feasting hall to be comfortable with each other. I know Aaront and Geskae are definitely together. I’m pretty sure Illy confirmed as much when I’d been asking about the major players in the Order. The five haven’t finished shuffling out as the next four arrive, and there’s actually a round of hugs and waves between several of the arrivals and several of the leaving parties. Kagired only waves, almost demurely. He seems, like Nala, really only comfortable in his special location, the infirmary.
Gresog surprises everyone by being able to calmly walk to, and hug the four arrivals, thanks to Revinth painting him a mental picture, and Revvy has the slightest hint of a sly smile on his face, while still hanging back lazily. After that, the five filter out, with Shaylon and Revvy both keeping in touch with me telepathically til the end of our range. Miraina, Pawn, appears just as that happens, meaning we can get started with the next batch.