okay but do we have to leave so soon

[liakoura]

The Ardelay twins loiter in the palace for a few days, then fall back to the Chialto house, in plenty of time to receive any prompt reply to the correspondence Kiri sent out when they arrived in the city.

Comments

[calescent]

"That sounds very - intense."

[calendarofcrime]

"I suppose that it is." She shrugs slightly. "I am used to it. Any less would feel... muffled."

[calescent]

"How do you do it, have you always or did you pick it up on purpose?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I developed the habit over time, when I was very young. Not entirely deliberately. It is just - obvious. Comfortable. Something along those lines."

[calescent]

"It almost reminds me of my self-examination habit, which I also developed when I was young - but more deliberately and less constantly, it sounds like."

[calendarofcrime]

"Hmm. Yes. I am always paying attention. It's convenient that I have so much of it to spare."

[calescent]

"It sounds like it'd be necessary. Did you notice an expansion at all when you inherited? I did - I can barely remember what it was like before, but I have notes asserting that there was a jump in sensory space once it had constant input from all sources of warmth and especially nearby human beings."

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes," she says. "Although I haven't been thinking of it that way. I have more or less always, certainly for as long as I can clearly remember, had enough attention to distribute it among all available senses with enough left over to analyze as needed, all before touching on the sort of everyday mental activity most people seem to indulge in. That has remained true while the size of 'all available senses' has grown."

[calescent]

"I've never had opportunity to test if my space expands to fit extra more than a couple of people at a time if they crowd in around me," muses Kiri. "There's enough room for, say, Aleko and Jayce simultaneously without being too crowded; I don't know what would happen if I also added Loel and Patience, both of whom have also been known to allow it."

[calendarofcrime]

"I wonder," says Sarelle, "if you have enough room for me. It would be interesting to compare."

[calescent]

"I couldn't tell you unless you feel like trying it. I had room for Auney and Jerist - and for that matter Alser, Valdin, and Nerine - but it sounds like you're a separate category all on your own."

[calendarofcrime]

"I often am," she says. "Do you feel like trying it? It's possible that it might be - disconcerting, or overwhelming."

[calescent]

"I'm curious," says Kiri.

[calendarofcrime]

"All right then," says Sarelle. "It should be less of those things than it would be if we were near a lot of people, at least."

She reaches a hand toward Kiri, past the approximate perimeter of her range.



There is a lot going on in Sarelle Dochenza's mind.

The biggest and most complicated layer, but also the one that gets the least conscious focus, is situational awareness. Inside the closed carriage, her visual universe is limited to Kiri, the carriage's interior, and what she can see out the windows - but she pays attention to all of it. She is, as implied, constantly aware of the distance between herself and Kiri. She is listening to Ekador and Aleko, who are currently experiencing a lull in their conversation. She is listening to the horses, all of whom seem healthy and unimpaired - but she would notice if one missed a step. She can smell the elemental affiliations of everyone present, hunti strongly flavoured with sweela from Ekador and torz from Aleko and sweela from Kiri and her own elay with hints of sweela and overtones of hunti, each tied into a unique individual scent representing the person themselves. She can also smell faded traces of everyone who has passed along this road in the last few days. On a more mundane level, her nose tells her what kinds of soap everyone uses to wash themselves and their clothing, more things about the state and identity of the horses, what plants they are passing, the quality and origin of the dust on the road, and miscellaneous other details. A bird calls in the distance and she identifies its probable species. Through her magic she is aware of the patterns of local air movement, and sometimes absently tweaks the breezes to change which sounds and smells are coming to her more clearly than others.

After all that come the things on which she is consciously focused. She is watching Kiri to note exactly when Kiri reacts to the read, so she can update her estimate of Kiri's range, and to see what Kiri's reaction to the read is; she is ready to pull away if it seems prudent. She is curious about what will happen, and deliberately suspending any concrete guesses until Kiri offers her some information. Since so much of her attention is on Kiri in particular, the Kiri-related parts of her situational awareness are especially in focus, which raises her background awareness of several minor conclusions she has made during the trip based on immediately available data - speculations about where Kiri obtained this or that piece of clothing, theories about the possible origins of this small hole in the end of a sleeve or that scuff on the toe of a shoe.

[calescent]

"...Scuffed my shoe on a corner of a table leg," offers Kiri. "That's a lot to sort out but it's more just available than it is intrusive or even particularly distracting. I can get sort of a - summary - of the whole thing without it taking up that much more of my attention than I use on other people, but getting detail requires focusing, it's like you're a complicated moving painting. It might be harder to affect how much or little attention I'm focusing on you if you were closer, but this range would do if you wanted to communicate something to me, I can definitely spot at a glance the general outline of what your primary attention is on."

[calendarofcrime]

'Corner of a table leg' fits in the general category of explanations that Sarelle was favouring. She nods and files the information away, along with the knowledge of how far away her hand was when Kiri reacted to reading her. She is pleased that it's not overhwelming; this way seems more convenient for, as Kiri suggests, communicating things. (She is also pleased that she is noticeably different from most people; it's a direct confirmation of a theory that she could not previously have confirmed.)

[calescent]

"My sample size isn't huge. There's a bigger gap between you and anybody I've read before for long enough to register observations other than 'oh crap', than there is between any two of those people, but that's only about a dozen other subjects," cautions Kiri.

[calendarofcrime]

"And yet."

While it is useful to know that this evidence is not as strong as it could be, the fact that it supports her otherwise well-established and verified-to-the-extent-previously-possible theory is still a worthwhile confirmation.

[calescent]

"And yet," agrees Kiri.

She skates her attention around in the supplied warmth. It's very absorbing; she could probably be not-bored for the entire carriage ride if Sary cares to remain within range for that long.

[calendarofcrime]

Sary is presently wondering whether there is still worthwhile information to be obtained from this experiment, since she does not care to hold her hand out like this indefinitely. She concludes that there doesn't seem to be, but waits to see if Kiri has any comment to make.

[calescent]

"Nothing in particular, no."

[calendarofcrime]

In that case, she reclaims her hand.

[calescent]

Kiri makes no protest.

She produces a notebook and starts scribbling cipher in it. After a moment she pauses. "Ekador has a perfect visual memory and for this reason has been avoiding looking at even my ciphered writing - I don't think you're quite the same situation, but all the same should I avoid displaying it in your direction?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes. My visual memory is not perfect, and I wouldn't memorize it on purpose, but given enough exposure it's possible I could partially solve your cipher. It might be prudent to avoid that exposure as much as possible."

[calescent]

"Okay." She draws up her knees and secures her notebook on them, pointed well away from Sarelle. "Very interesting batch of primes we have now," she murmurs.