“Stop!” Sybil cried out, blood trailing from her nostrils. I cursed as I jogged towards her and disregarded the aches and pains that coursed through my body with every step. [Spear of the Many] drew enough magical power from my “true believers” that the single time I’d pushed even a little harder with the disorienting hum I’d just discovered, I’d injured Sybil. She fell to her knees and then her side, gasping in pain. Before I could call for assistance, Etra stepped forward and, with Sakkit’s assistance, tended to my stunned mate.

After far too long, Sybil recovered enough to sit back up. She locked eyes with me before sighing. “I believe we should not experiment with this new ability of yours while near others, myself included.”

I cocked my head and looked at her. “Yeah.” I answered, my attitude obvious.

“We have still learned good information, and there are yet more things to investigate. It would serve us well to continue to educate ourselves on our limitations. As you are the template and inspiration for the swarm as a whole, it behooves us to continue in probing your every limit.”

“Yes, it does ‘behoove us’.” I answered, my tone both tired and sardonic.

“I do not understand any of your frustrations” Sybil replied. “If you were relying upon power that you can draw on from others, and only in that moment learned that members of the swarm can be too far away from you to offer their strength, then you would die. It is infinitely better for us to learn that somewhere from one mile away to five miles away is too far.”

I flared my frills in agreement. “Even so, I don’t need to enjoy the continuous testing and wild ideas.”

“But why would you not?” Sybil’s tone was flat, almost confused at the idea that someone wouldn’t enjoy constant scientific inquiry and investigations.

I waved the question away. “Are you ok?”

“I am mostly recovered, and I have a different avenue of investigation to begin.”

I needed to tamp down a childishly large portion of myself from complaining. With a deep breath, I conceded. “Alright. What do you want me to try?”

“Much of what you do serves to heighten the volume of sound. Can you cause the opposite to happen?”

All hesitation I’d felt before was blown away by the novel idea. The first usage of the sonilphon had been to make something louder, and I’d only ever settled on that as a direct option with my magic. But why wouldn’t I be able to dampen or even silence something? My mind raced to understand what made a sound, how it could be made louder, and how it could be softened external to whatever was making the sound.

The instinctual understanding I’d gained of waves was far from scientific, and that drove Sybil crazy, but I preferred to feel it out. As a human, so much of Speaking relied on emotions and aligning yourself with what you were trying to do with your magic. Though I knew that the similarities between my sonilphon and the Veratocracy’s Words of Power were minimal at most, I still felt like so much of magic boiled down to an instinctual closeness with the magic. Thus, I listened to sounds, felt them thrum across my scales, tickle my nostrils, and itch the insides of my ears. I imagined I could taste them filling my mouth, leaving my tongue.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

A louder sound wasn’t longer, but instead broader. Taller. If I wanted to make something quieter, I’d need to reduce its sound waves’ size, to destabilize its strengths and break the individual waves down. This initial understanding got me excited enough to try the experiment, which I could see made Sybil smile. With a wry grin of my own, I turned to my willing assistant.

“Would you hum loudly, and as consistently as possible?”

She didn’t answer me with words, instead beginning to hum without an additional prompting. The sonic waves were gentle, though strong and forceful. As I visualized the sound, my heightened awareness made it feel like Sybil’s voice pressed on my ears and shook my skull. With a thrum of my magic, I forced a spear of condensed sound through the waves that made Sybil’s hum.

A loud, sharp buzz cut through the ambient noise of the forest, leaving quiet in its wake. The comparative silence didn’t last, though, Sybil’s hum resuming mere moments after my initial “attack”. Maybe that would work if I sustained the sound, but that wouldn’t help anything. I tried again, and while my magical attempt made a different noise, it was far from successful at even dampening the humming or ambient sounds. After the third time, I felt like this couldn’t work. Something about how the sonic waves traveled, or functioned simply couldn't be reduced this way.

Instead, I refocused on how sonic waves functioned. The larger and taller the waves, the louder. What if I mimicked the sound, but inversely? The concept seemed to make sense, and my magic and mind both seemed to whisper that it would work. Just as I began to hum a counteractive sound of my own, I truly opened my ears to the sounds that surrounded me. Sybil’s hum, as soon as it left her nostrils, was no longer its own. Instead, it mixed with the buzzing of insects, chirping of birds, whispers of winds, and so much more. The variance and inconsistency of the sound immediately proved to me that I wouldn’t be able to reliably cancel out individual sounds in any sort of a natural environment.

I nearly gave up in that moment, but another thought crossed my mind, and as I pondered it, I raised a hand to Sybil to let her know she could cease. Though she fought to hide it, I saw her shoulders shudder as she fought to breathe regularly. I pondered over my inspiration for a time, long enough for Sybil to catch her breath, then asked, “How do you cover a large group with your magic? How does your magic affect us?”

“I do not use my magic on you.” Sybil insisted. “However, when applying my magic over a new herd or a troublesome pack within the swarm, I combine it with the natural inclinations of the mind to reflect a further, natural progression to the original emotion. Thus, a frightened, escaping oryx can be convinced to be frightened and cowering, then to becoming frightened and obedient, and finally merely to be obedient. I can expedite and speed this process as it is applied, but taking each of those steps in turn towards my final goal serves best to allow the mind to acclimate to the new normal. How does this apply to what you are attempting to do?”

“Initially, I was trying to destroy the sounds I didn’t want.” I answered.

“That is not a surprise, that you would seek destruction of that which does not please you.”

I bumped my hip into Sybil’s, purposefully a bit harder than necessary. She took two steps away with a slight grin coloring her face. “Yes, that is not surprising. Regardless, it was a foolish approach, since it would be so much simpler and wiser to dampen the noise instead of eliminate it entirely. Then, I realized that it could be that what you do–”

“--Is largely to dampen emotion.” Sybil flared her frills appreciatively. I was about to ask her to continue when Arwa began to howl, a sad, confused cry.