"Yes," Solomon agreed, "I was able to get it looked at by a healer." A healer who had been kidnapped at the time, and whose laboratory was under watch by the Temple, but details. "There's very little Kenspeckle Grouse can't fix."
Like Necromantic-caused blindness.
Both the men asked their questions too quickly after one another for Solomon to get a word in-between, and he paused, automatically glancing toward the little girl. "She looked like a fading ember, before," he said quietly. "Now she looks like a candle in the wind." Not quite strong enough to stand alone, but no longer exactly dying. He glanced sideways, his sightless eyes gazing past Barney's face, and nevertheless smiled. "She'll be fine. Raphael has her cradled in his wings. Safest person in the world at this moment, I imagine."
And because he knew, even before he'd spoken, that Barney would need the chance to take that in--to let the hope solidify--Solomon turned almost immediately to answer Erskine with a snort. "Hardly. It's more ..."
He paused, trying to figure out how to explain it, even as his gaze caught on the way one of Erskine's 'pine-needles' drifted. Still attached, but actively interested. "It's all metaphorical," he said finally. "The line between senses is blurred. Things don't really have a look or a smell or a feel, but it's the only way I can comprehend it. You're not actually a tree. It's just the nearest analogous thing. Tipstaff is the sound of parchment, and the smell of it and candlewax. Tanith Low is a sensation. Duty and self-assurance."
The last was added as an aside towards Ghastly, before the man's curiosity could register. "So no, I can't see thoughts. But I can see the reactions thoughts have on people. Humour is usually a warmth radiating from the centre. In Corrival it feels like a hearth. In you it feels like a den ... or a nest. Exasperation comes with a certain kind of prickliness. Corrival's eels snapping. Your pine-cones dropping everywhere. And so on." He smiled wryly. "It's more a matter of emotion than anything else, really. And they radiate. Why do you think I came back here?" He nodded to the group ahead of them. "A group of souls that strong, all having fun, rebound off each other. It was like walking in the centre of a star."
That was the thing he hadn't expected in the least--if he'd expected anything at all. The way souls weren't just self-contained, but the way they interacted with one another. Gabe's wing was only the most obvious. Even now, if he looked closely, he could see a rainbow thread of Tanith's awareness reaching back toward Ghastly, and a piece of his toward her. An extension of Barney's self, more solid for its longevity, like a thick tendril, reaching out toward Allie.
Only if he focussed on them. When he didn't, they faded into the lifestream as just one or two of its multitude of colours.
no subject
Like Necromantic-caused blindness.
Both the men asked their questions too quickly after one another for Solomon to get a word in-between, and he paused, automatically glancing toward the little girl. "She looked like a fading ember, before," he said quietly. "Now she looks like a candle in the wind." Not quite strong enough to stand alone, but no longer exactly dying. He glanced sideways, his sightless eyes gazing past Barney's face, and nevertheless smiled. "She'll be fine. Raphael has her cradled in his wings. Safest person in the world at this moment, I imagine."
And because he knew, even before he'd spoken, that Barney would need the chance to take that in--to let the hope solidify--Solomon turned almost immediately to answer Erskine with a snort. "Hardly. It's more ..."
He paused, trying to figure out how to explain it, even as his gaze caught on the way one of Erskine's 'pine-needles' drifted. Still attached, but actively interested. "It's all metaphorical," he said finally. "The line between senses is blurred. Things don't really have a look or a smell or a feel, but it's the only way I can comprehend it. You're not actually a tree. It's just the nearest analogous thing. Tipstaff is the sound of parchment, and the smell of it and candlewax. Tanith Low is a sensation. Duty and self-assurance."
The last was added as an aside towards Ghastly, before the man's curiosity could register. "So no, I can't see thoughts. But I can see the reactions thoughts have on people. Humour is usually a warmth radiating from the centre. In Corrival it feels like a hearth. In you it feels like a den ... or a nest. Exasperation comes with a certain kind of prickliness. Corrival's eels snapping. Your pine-cones dropping everywhere. And so on." He smiled wryly. "It's more a matter of emotion than anything else, really. And they radiate. Why do you think I came back here?" He nodded to the group ahead of them. "A group of souls that strong, all having fun, rebound off each other. It was like walking in the centre of a star."
That was the thing he hadn't expected in the least--if he'd expected anything at all. The way souls weren't just self-contained, but the way they interacted with one another. Gabe's wing was only the most obvious. Even now, if he looked closely, he could see a rainbow thread of Tanith's awareness reaching back toward Ghastly, and a piece of his toward her. An extension of Barney's self, more solid for its longevity, like a thick tendril, reaching out toward Allie.
Only if he focussed on them. When he didn't, they faded into the lifestream as just one or two of its multitude of colours.