They didn’t walk far. In the end, they simply backtracked a few hallways to the eating area where, as far as Cael could tell, the entire group of accepted students was present.

In total, that was about a hundred and fifty assorted aliens or about half the number they’d started with. Some of them, he even recognized. A few species that really stuck out visually, like a brightly colored bird here, a completely unrecognizable form there.

It was somewhat comforting to see them again, even if he didn’t know a soul among them.

He followed the pair of demons to a table close to the door.

Cael was startled by the mental equivalent of a tap on the shoulder. Tar hadn't done that before.

‘It’s that crocodile-drake speaker guy from the orientation speech.’

Since he wasn’t currently able to locate the man by his voice, Cael found him the same way the elemental had. He looked to where everyone else was looking.

‘Oh, I wonder what he has to say. It sure is a shame that we’ll never know.’

Cael turned in his seat and flicked Ava hard in the center of her avian forehead, which doubtlessly hurt him more than her. Not that hurting her was the point, but being hurt himself was much worse.

He rubbed his finger gently in an attempt to lessen the pain. It didn’t really work, but when he turned back around, there were more than a few people looking at him.

‘Of course they’re looking. I’m hollow. Even if we couldn’t hear that flick, I’m sure they all did.’

Oops.

She had a point though. He really did need to get the ears back. And what better opportunity than during one of Mereo’s infamously long-winded speeches? He was probably obligated to sit there for the next couple of hours anyway.

Besides, he had a hunch on how to fix his sudden hearing loss.

Cael slumped in his seat and laid his head on the table as comfortably as he could. If the demons looked over, they’d probably assume he was sleeping through the speech, which, for the record, was not the case.

He immersed his consciousness in the mana of his being and slipped into his soulscape. He was definitely getting faster with practice.

“Smells like rust in here.”

“It smells like blood.” Ava corrected him.

He looked up at her and jumped. Ava was standing much closer than he’d thought. And a person? Other than a few key features Ava was nearly human-looking.

“Are you an elf?”

Ava tapped the tip of her pointy ears with an index finger.

She actually looked a lot like Cael’s human form. Same black hair, and similar features. She also had a round face and sharp teeth. It felt somewhat familiar—no pun intended— but he couldn’t remember why that might be the case.

“No more than I ever was, but this form may be based on one.”

“Oh? And I thought I was supposed to be the body snatcher here. Whose form did you take?”

Cael got up off the dirt. The soulscape was somehow less muddy than it had been the day before. Was it starting to dry?

“It’s quite similar to my creator, the old God of Machines.”

“Then shouldn’t that have been the ‘Goddess’ of Machines?”

“I think God is meant more as a title of a position than anything else.”

Cael hummed in acknowledgment, searching the vicinity for something dark.

“I’m over here,” Tar called from the direction exactly opposite to the one he’d been looking at.

He smiled and turned to look at the black blob. Now he was a bit curious why the shadow elemental didn’t have a proper form as Ava did, but that was mostly secondary to the excitement he was feeling.

He took Ava’s hand and led her toward the void, trying to sink them both into the comfort of the familiar bond.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She chuckled and stepped back a moment before she could make contact with the writhing shadows. “You’re like a puppy. Tar and I have no bond. He just feels like an ominous mass of danger to my senses.”

Cael pondered that for a moment. It made sense, but there was also an obvious answer to that.

He stepped out and pulled Ava into a hug.

They had a bond too, so the feeling of belonging and affection was still present in her.

It wasn’t as all-encompassing as it was with Tar. Probably due to the fact that her form was limited to two arms.

Next, Cael deliberately tried to push his feelings across both bonds.

“And here I thought you were loud before. I think your thoughts are louder than my own right now.” Cael felt her laugh.

“That’s the point. Ready?” He asked both elementals.

Ava shrugged but gave her approval.

Tar answered by tackling them both. His amusement with the whole situation was evident through the temporarily enhanced emotions of their bond.

Cael tracked Tar’s mirth from the elemental, through his mind, and then finally to Ava. A moment later, it was followed by a torrent of positive emotions supplied by both familiars’ bonds.

It flooded his mind and flushed out all his thoughts.

Almost instantly, Tar spat them back out.

“In retrospect, that was an awful idea,” Tar said.

Cael blinked, too dazed to properly think of a response just yet.

“I feel like at least one of us should have noticed there would be a feedback loop there.”

“He overpowered me with enthusiasm,” Tar said defensively.

“...What happened..?” Cael was slurring his words, which he hadn’t been aware was something that could even happen in his soulscape.

Ava just backed up and let him recover. Through the still-enhanced feelings he was getting, he got the feeling—or rather, Ava 'got the feeling' for him and he picked up on it— that he was too overwhelmed to understand what had just happened.

He could feel Tar’s worry too, but both familiars were too afraid to touch him in case the loop triggered again.

After a few more minutes, he’d finally recuperated enough to assess his mental state. Overall, it wasn’t so bad.

Cael was perhaps a little more tired than he’d like, but he felt surprisingly good about it. He suspected that might have been a lingering effect of his little experiment with the familiar bonds.

If his guess was right, he’d be coasting on this wave of positivity for a while.

With a snicker, he stood and let the bonds return to their natural state. After the intensity of enhanced emotions, the two residents of his soul almost felt muted.

He was sure they’d be relieved to hear that.

“Where’s the soul window?” Cael traced a finger over his lips to check if they were smiling like he thought they were.

Not only was he grinning widely, but he felt it was interesting that his own form in his soul remained that of a human. Not a changeling feature in sight.

“Over here.” Tar pulled back from the window.

From this end, Cael was finally able to see that it wasn’t that much of a window at all. Mostly due to the fact that it was jet-black and completely upward-facing, it more closely resembled a table.

No scene was shown on its surface. It was as if Tar had left a sliver of himself to hang silently in the air.

He gently rapped a knuckle against it.

“Hello, hello? Is this thing on?” Of course, no reply came from the other side.

“That’s not your usual humor. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“A bit giddy, but otherwise good.”

He felt Ava push tentatively into his mind to check for herself. “...Okay, but I think we should calm down here a bit before we let you back out to interact with others.”

Cael hummed in agreement and stepped away from the window. If he was going to be hanging out in the soulscape for a bit longer, then there was no point in trying to mess with his form.

If he messed up and did something horrific, there would be no way of knowing until after he left,

“Anyone have any ideas on what to do until then?” Cael sat back down and crossed his legs.

“Well, I was actually thinking we could mellow you out on our own.” She hesitated for only a moment before nudging Tar.

The blob slunk forward and latched onto Cael’s hand to test the connection. A moment later, Cael was once more enfolded in Tar’s embrace.

The elemental pushed open the bond until it basically vanished. To the point where it was hard to even tell where his mind stopped and Tar’s began. The only sign of separation was the point where his emotions disappeared and ceased to return. Like the light effect at the edge of a black hole.

The changeling could actually feel the extra emotions beginning to ebb, leaving him less excited and more tired.

Normally that would be a bad thing, but the emotional overload was making him want to act impulsively. Like, he just felt like going out and buying a big expensive car or something. Maybe dye his hair while he was at it.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Cael confessed.

“Diffusion. High concentration moving to a low concentration until both containers have equalized.”

“Tar should not count as having a low concentration of emotion.” Cael pointed out. “Wouldn’t you be the better choice here?”

Ava stopped and seemed to think about that one for a moment. “Tar is a natural elemental. He can instinctively handle energies better than I can…” She trailed off and thought some more.

“I’m tossing all the excess into the elemental plane of shadow,” Tar said at last, saving Ava the explanation she apparently didn’t have.

“You can do that?” Cael asked curiously.

Tar just sent him a mental shrug.

He shrugged back at him. Even at the speed Tar was going, this was going to take a bit, so Cael took the temporary moment of calm to lean back with his two closest friends and relax.

It was kind of nice, all things considered.