Fifty or so Indians sat in groups of two or three at several tables strewn across one of their several immaculately-kept gardens, daintily eating the spiced chickpeas that had been served to them at seven PM on the dot. Omet and Horan had been given their food first.
Omet didn’t see anyone looking at the two of them, and Horan had quietly told them not to look over their shoulder, but they could feel dozens of eyes boring into their back as they picked at their food with their ornate ivory utensils.
Horan noted that Omet had stopped eating halfway through their meal and tried to speak in the quietest non-whisper voice that he could manage. “You gotta finish that eventually. Not even touching your meal like that is a really bad move.”
Omet shrugged. “Breakfast was two hours ago, I’m not hungry.”
“Interdimensional jet lag isn’t an excuse, Omet. We don’t even have metabolisms, you can’t be hungry to begin with.”
Omet took a half-hearted bite of rice. “It’s an emotional thing, I guess, I dunno. Time zones or no, dinner is not designed to be eaten two hours after breakfast. Also, this is some of the best food I’ve ever had, and I feel dirty having it without everyone else.”
Horan took a bite and started speaking. “Que…” He suddenly froze, looked around at the Primoi around him, then swallowed. “Right. It’s to be expected, you know. You’re used to eating food prepared by a hobbyist in order to all gather in one place. Everyone else does it to know that they have better cooks on hand than all the super-fancy human restaurants. The Indians probably have one person who’s been practicing a medium-sized list of dishes for millennia. I found out about how common a practice like that is when I helped organize an Eid celebration for a bunch of Domains across the Abbasid Caliphate, biggest event I ever had a hand in, and every Domain had one person dedicated day-in, day-out to making six or seven meals flawlessly. Point is, this is a pretty standard Old World-caliber meal.”
“Nobody’s talking except us. They’re like ghosts.” Omet sighed and shook their head. “It would seem that everyone except my family and our roommates lost their minds centuries ago.”
Horan shrugged. “It’s how it works. If you don’t follow the rules, they’re gonna notice. And when they notice…” He trailed off.
Omet looked down at their food for a moment. “...Okay… So, uh, you mentioned a, uh, a Seraphim? No, it wasn’t that, it was–”
“Seraphium.”
“Right, yeah.” Omet shuddered. “I’ll admit, a name like that sounds like Deus’ work. I’m gonna assume the name is completely meaningless and ask what Deus would need something like that for.”
“You know, that actually reminds me.” Horan ate his remaining food as quickly as he could without seeming uncouth, then placed his knife and fork parallel to one another on the plate and got up. “Most Primoi here aren’t the best drinking buddies, as one might put it, but I know a guy. I mentioned him earlier, I think.”
While Omet watched quietly and spread their food across their and Horan’s plates so that it seemed like there was less of it left, Horan sauntered over to the two Indians seated at the nearest table. “Evening, you two. So sorry for disturbing your meal.”
The Primus on the left visibly held back a sigh and nodded curtly, looking up at Horan expectantly.
“Well, hey now.” Horan moved to lean on the table, but swiftly decided against it. “Who says I want anything from you fine folks?”
The Indian tried and failed to glance inconspicuously at Omet, then looked back down and pretended like Horan wasn’t there.”
Horan didn’t drop his smile, but did feel his nails digging into the palm of his hand. “Okay, fine, we’ve been a little loud. But that’s fine, no problem. My fault for interrupting your wonderful garden’s feng shui. One question and it’ll be back to all quiet.”
The Indian on the right pursed their lips and shrugged. Horan noticed them mouth Get on with it, despite them trying to hide it.
“Naturally.” Horan could feel the table itself turn hostile towards him, though it hadn’t exactly been friendly beforehand. “So, um… Do either of you have an idea of where Rachna is right now? I want to introduce him to the other guest, and…”
The two Indians immediately went back to eating, not even glancing up at Horan.
“...Right then.” Horan slowly turned around, strolled back to his table and retook his seat in a poor attempt to seem casual. He opened his mouth to speak again, but quickly shut it and opted to just wind-speak to Omet. “Didn’t even debate it. They don’t want me talking to Rachna.”
Omet shrugged. “Okay? I guess he’s dead, or something.”
Horan shook his head. “I would’ve heard of it, you know how much of a big deal individual Primoi dying used to be. Especially in the Old World. That’s the thing in places like this: When someone doesn’t want to bring something up, it means they have a reason to not bring it up… Okay, that’s actually a pretty universal rule.”
“I don’t think your insistence that everyone here constantly follows these rules of polite society is allowed to overrule Occam’s Razor.”
Horan stared at Omet for a moment. “Omet. Omet. Look at me, Omet.”
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“I never stopped looking at you.”
“Good.” Horan leaned slightly forward. “Now answer me this: Between the two of us, which one has been frequently fraternizing with the Indians since the Domain manifested?”
Omet sighed. “You. Bu–”
“Meanwhile, you’re mostly familiar with your own Domain, plus presumably the other New World Domains, who I’m really not familiar with. Probably some humans, too. Now, seeing these things through Mark’s perspective, plus a little bit of common sense, makes me realize that people acting like this is completely insane. However, consider the fact that plenty of human aristocrats are like this too. Primoi just have more snobs per capita, I suppose. It comes with bleeding money.”
Omet regretted rushing their meal. They now couldn’t act like they weren’t paying full attention. “I don’t want to say that you’re making zero sense. I don’t want to become a second Mark, I think his manner of expressing love can be interpreted as disingenuous at times. But frankly, I think the whole house agrees that you should just raise your standards. If you need to deal with all these rules just so that you aren’t laughed out of someone’s house, maybe you should just hang out with someone friendlier?”
“Oh, I’m sure I would.” Horan’s eye shifted downward. “If I could do that without us all dying.”
Before Omet could respond, Horan straightened up again. “But there’s a very big difference between being civil and being nice, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. And that’s why I brought this.” He pulled his sticker book out of a pocket on the inside of his jacket.
Omet blinked in surprise at the appearance of the book. It had been a long time since they had thought about it. “I assume there’s a catch here?”
“Yup. Turns out, birthdays can actually be pretty useful when you’ve got a friend who can make things magic. Let’s say that humans got lucky when they had the idea.” Horan began flipping through the book, keeping one hand free to maintain the hand motions that let him wind-speak to Omet. “Quet touched this thing up for me when I mentioned my zodiac sign, because birthday gifts were apparently the first thing to come into her mind when she found out when I was born.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Neither am I.” Horan stopped flipping. “Here we go. She turned the whole book into a ‘beginner thaumaturgy set’, apparently with a whole bunch of spells written onto the backs of the stickers. I never did ask how she managed to get them all back into the book, but the point is that one of the pages is this.”
Horan put the book on the table and spun it around so that Omet could see. The phrase ‘Remote semnsory projection’ was written at the top in Quet’s handwriting, with the weather-themed stickers on the page surrounded by impressively tiny text that, based on a quick examination, seemed to be a breakdown of how the page’s matrices were constructed and how one could make their own.
Omet squinted and mumbled as they read Quet’s notes, only for Horan to turn the book back around. “The notes aren’t the important part. The only spells my mom managed to teach me were making swords and turning into a bird, and I have never once needed anything else. Until now, I guess, but why learn things when you can get a friend to do the thing for you?”
Omet nodded slowly. “So what exactly is your plan for… remote sem-sensory something?”
“Simple.” Horan looked over the stickers, feeling like they clashed very heavily with the tone of the conversation. “I agree with you that there’s a pretty decent chance that the Indians are just stringing us along and plan on ditching us once they’ve had their way with us, and that’s why one must always have a contingency, and there’s only one real way to go with that: Blackmail and the uncovering of fresh ‘goss’, as I have heard it called, is a part of these situations that not many people realize the true prominence of. All that matters is that you’re smart about it. Make sure nobody names any names, and all that.”
“I… should not have expected anything else.” Omet lowered their voice even further. The feeling of everyone’s gazes prickling into their back seemed to intensify. “I feel like a piece of garbage talking about this with you, even though it’s just because they haven’t overtly done anything bad. Who are we even going to send the blackmail to if this falls through? I say we just keep our heads down and try to look dependable.”
“And deal with the Indians on equal footing?” Horan pulled the book closer to himself. “This isn’t this hard, you know. Just a little clandestine observation, discovering the deep dark secrets of your neighbors, them indirectly acknowledging that they know you know what they know, but you know that they know that they can’t tell anyone you know without also revealing their deep dark secrets… I don’t involve myself in this part of Domain politics much, it’s seen as too unsavory for a leader to do themselves, but it can’t be that hard. The secret of the de’ Medici family’s wealth was blackmailing the Etruscans into blood donations using incriminating letters. If humans can invent the practice, it can’t be hard for a Primus to do it a little.”
“Are you saying that we’re naturally better at blackmail than humans?”
“We can’t be worse. Also, this whole trip is going to completely suck if I don’t have Rachna around to be fun on his Domain’s behalf, endorsing him by word of mouth is probably starting to get to you. Also, considering how frequently I said ‘know’ there, I think a little sanity is gonna come in handy.”
Omet picked at what little remained of their food, at a loss for how to respond to any of this. “...Alright? I guess? But I’m not really sure how we could actually do anything like that. Hey, I’m sure Rachna’s nice, I’m fine with taking your word for it.”
“Eh, it’s no problem for you.” Horan tucked the book back into his jacket as inconspicuously as he could manage. “That’s the great part of me not technically being in charge for this visit. If I get caught, you can just say you didn’t support this and get less hassle from it. Actually, since I’m from a different Domain, you could probably weasel your way into getting off scot-free.”
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.” Omet picked their fork back up and considered continuing to eat so that they could have something to do with their hands, but decided against it.
Horan sighed. “I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but that’s kind of stupid, considering the situation.”
“Don’t care, nobody gets thrown under the bus while I have anything to say about it.” Omet glanced up at Horan. “Mitigating circumstances or no, I have principles regarding how I treat my friends that I’m not breaking.”
Horan held a hand up. “Alright, fine, I get the picture. I think.” He stood up, quietly gripping his chair so that it didn’t grind against the brick floor as he stepped away from the table. “Ideal world, I just don’t get caught. Obviously.”
Omet only briefly met his gaze as he took a few steps back. “...Fine, sure. I don’t think there’s anything stopping you at this point. I think I’ve got some ideas that need workshopping in private, actually. I think I saw a library while we were headed for dinner, I might hang out there.”
Horan waved them off. “No worries, dude. Birds are very inconspicuous.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”