Dead Star Dockyards

The call was made to cease tracking efforts after securing their bountiful haul of two Brists and a Tillet, unprecedented for an inaugural hunt. It was doubly impressive for only the first day of hunting, a time usually spent finding tracks of worthy game while the party prepared themselves, and furthered by the state of the forest. As an omen of Titanyana's rule this bode incredibly well, however she did not find herself celebrating.

This wasn't to say she wasn't happy, she was positively elated at the results of the hunt, but she found herself pondering the day more than expressing her joy. Part of this was because she wasn't involved in the cleaning of the game and therefore not in a position to make easy conversation with them, but a larger part of this was spent thinking about Donovan - and not in a romantic way.

She had a lot of questions, she always had questions when it came to him, however the nature of her questions were quite different today. They extended beyond the simple curiosity of how to do some of the things he did, or what he was thinking about, or what she should try to talk with him about. Today's questions were more substantive, wanting to know more about his past and - more importantly - how he knew there was a Tillet there.

Tillets were notorious for their ability to disappear into the shroud of leaves and branches above the forest floor. The pattern on their fur made them incredibly difficult to identify beyond a reasonable distance, while their six legs enabled them to move swiftly and silently through the canopy - the higher number of points of contact distributing their heft across different branches. She supposed it could have been that he simply caught sight of it when it moved into a position to investigate the goings on beneath, but she didn't think it likely. Even if Donovan's senses were beyond her estimations, there should have been multiple layers of leaves between where he stood and where she thought the Tillet fell from. She had him beat when it came to hearing, so something he couldn't see should have been picked up by her or her men well before he got a bead on its position.

Simply put, Titanyana was confused. She could not figure out how Donovan detected the Tillet in the first place, let alone got a good enough look at it to determine range with such accuracy. In her estimation it just wasn't possible, and yet he had pulled it off. This left two possibilities.

The first was luck. Shame though she might feel about it, Titanyana was quite a bit shorter than Donovan. It was entirely possible that he had a better line of sight through some gap in the canopy thanks to his different perspective. However plausible this seemed she didn't think it likely, and certainly not something she wanted to place a bet on. The chances of such a gap appearing for such a long distance were astronomical, and Donovan's sermon on luck and why she shouldn't rely on it was fresh in her mind. She had no intention of believing Donovan managed something like that twice, not in quick succession like that, which only left the other possibility.

A skill.

Despite knowing nothing of such a thing, Titanyana could only assume Donovan had done or knew how to do something to allow vision through the canopy. Maybe it was a way of focusing on things that weren't leaves or some other mystical sounding capability the Terrans possessed, however there was one problem with this proposition.

Titanyana knew Donovan did not have experience in wilderness environments. In fact he very explicitly said he knew little about them besides a basic understanding of their ecosystem and how plants and animals behaved inside of them. For him to have some form of skill the most expert of trackers lacked would be preposterous.

She would need to ask him directly to clear up this conundrum.

"Donovan?" Her gentle intonation was enough to grab his attention. "I have a question."

"Mhm?"

"How . . . did you know where the Tillet was?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well I don't think you could have seen it through the leaves, and you certainly wouldn't have been able to hear it when none of we couldn't, so I can't figure out how you managed to pinpoint it." Donovan only looked more confused after Titanyana confessed her reasoning. "Was it just luck?"

"I just . . . used Split? I guess?" Now it was Titanyana's turn to be confused. Donovan was still an amateur at anything even tangentially related to the utilization of Split. To claim he could use it to do something nobody else could would be insane. "Well, it's less using it and more looking at it. You can detect Split in your surroundings, right?"

"A little?"

"That's how I did it. An element of Split in the branches was behaving a bit different than the rest of the forest, so I focused on it until I could make out its distance and shape. It was difficult to separate the Tillet from leaves and branches to get a clear picture, but not impossible. Is there a danger associated with it?"

Donovan apparently didn't recognize the impossibility of what he suggested, but why would he? The presumed standards of 'normal' regarding Split were not present within his conscience, and he would not come to understand them without familiarization. The total isolation of his perspective from 'normal' was as much a blessing as a curse.

"How far can you see?" Titanyana immediately judged that making some remark about the absurdity of his proposition would be counterproductive. He had no reason to lie about a feat he did not entirely understand, and it existed as a convincing if unlikely answer to her question.

"It depends on what I'm look at and the scale I'm focusing on, but I can keep track of a person sized volume out to maybe forty or fifty meters and detect a sizable anomaly in concentration without the need to focus on it out to about seventy. I'd give a run down of other metrics, but I can't really explain what it is I look for. At the moment I just don't have the vocabulary to express it verbally. Is that odd somehow?"

"Um, very?" Titanyana wasn't even sure if she wanted to break this news to him. Letting him know he exceeded the standards to such a degree could be detrimental to further development, if indeed this sense of his could be developed further. "I don't think anybody can parse a clear shape of Split from an object more than an arm's breadth from their core, and though I admit there is a great deal of variance in what people can detect in terms of anomalies . . . the difference between ambient and independent Split profiles usually needs to be massive in order to evoke a substantial reaction. I don't think I could detect someone using Split to strike from more than a few meters away, though the range depends almost entirely on how much they emit."

“So . . . have you ever practiced it?”

“Practice it?” She tilted her head. How would she practice sensing Split? As far as she knew it was like trying to train senses like sight and hearing, possible but limited by what they could accomplish physiologically. “Do you practice it?”

“Yeah? I mean, starting out I was probably way worse than what you described as the standard. Sometimes even paying attention to it would make me dizzy, but I thought it would eventually become an important skill. You don’t use it?”

“No, I haven’t.” For a moment Titanyana pondered if maybe she was the one with a faulty view of the standards, but quickly realized this couldn’t be true. If it was, then things like assassination, stealth, and spying would be practically impossible, and as far as she could tell they still occurred with regular frequency.

There were only two possibilities then. Either the Great Csillacra had bestowed upon him this ability, or the general populace had gone completely unaware of a paradigm redefining capability they possessed for an indescribably long period of time. She supposed both could be true as well, Donovan having a heightened capacity in this field with most people still having untapped potential, but for now she only wished to consider these two scenarios.

The first and more likely was that Donovan had simply been gifted an advantage in this field. Sure, he might be a bit weak now, but he was displaying a level of growth that would be absurd for most people. Even if children lacked the same ability to concentrate and absorb conceptual information, he was still at the level of the average ten year old after about half a year of training - most of which was unguided.

The second appeared implausible - how likely was such a fundamental element of their senses to go unexploited across such a long period of time? Surely somebody would have chanced upon this at some point, right? And yet for all the implausibility of the proposition Titanyana could not claim it impossible. In a short few millennia, Terrans had derived such miracles as electricity and magnetism that could not be perceived with the eye. Would yet another failure to innovate truly be out of character for those born into Split? Titanyana didn’t think so.

“How?” Had this been a few months ago, Titanyana would have lamented this development. She considered herself among the number that failed to identify this potential, and to be placed in a situation where her mentee was making progress in an area she knew little of would be devastating. The situation had changed though, so instead of being afraid she might be discarded or left behind due to perceived incompetence she was excited to have the opportunity to grow stronger. There was also the potential for intimacy, but she wouldn’t let herself claim that to be her primary motivator.

“I started with trying to keep track of people.”

“People?”

“Yeah. They were the easiest to identify against the background, and they move around. Started by remaining still and closing my eyes, just focusing on their signature until I couldn’t make them out anymore. Then I moved to doing it while also manipulating Split, and then opening my eyes, then doing something else while also keeping track of them. Right now I’m trying to get good at keeping track of a moving target while I’m also moving, but it’s kinda difficult.”

“Can you teach me?”

“Um, I’ll try? I’m not exactly at the point of mastery myself, you know.”

“That’s fine, I just want to have another weapon at my disposal. A blunt dagger is still an advantage if nobody else has one.” Titanyana wondered who exactly he would have kept track of. Aside from her, perhaps only Sanna had enough Split to easily distinguish from the background. “Was I perhaps the subject of your practice?”

“Most of the time, yes.” Donovan coughed to clear his throat, blushing a little bit. “You were also the first person I tried to distinguish detail on from a distance, so . . . sorry about that.”

“Sorry about what?”

“Clothes aren’t exactly, uh, opaque.” The blush spread to Titanyana as though it was contagious. “I only did it once, and I didn’t mean to either.”

“O-oh. Okay.”

“If it’s any consolation I stopped immediately after realizing what I was seeing.”

Titanyana was conflicted. On the one hand she was horrified that she had been seen like that. On the other she was flattered Donovan was the one to do so.

“H-how was I?” Titanyana opted for the Diana approach to flirting, just this once. She lacked the same level of confidence and wasn’t entirely certain she wanted an answer, but at the same time she didn’t want to abandon the chance at the type of flirtatious back and forth they so often displayed.

“Huh? Very, um . . . provocative?”

Her blush deepened, happy to be seen as physically attractive even if she was embarrassed by the prospect. Donovan having seen her naked with his eyes on a separate occasion was, of course, completely forgotten.

“Ahem, uh, we should probably return to the group now, don’t you think?”

“Ah, yes, let’s.”

- - - - -

A tingle ran down Diana’s spine as she exited her tent, fresh forest air sliding across the few patches of exposed skin with the breeze. It was a nice feeling, something she hadn’t savored since her time on Terra.

“Hmmm.” Looking up at a sky growing gradually more colorful, she realized she wasn’t cut out for this whole camping thing.

The environment wasn’t the problem, nor was the entourage (even if they were a tad distant for her liking), but instead the act of camping itself. She didn’t much appreciate sleeping on a cot, and the lack of proper bathroom facilities certainly didn’t help much either, however the worst by far was going to be the wildlife.

Diana assumed it to be a developing fear of the unseen given the nocturnal activities of the fauna on Nectar, but that didn’t stop the occasional birdsong or grunt off in the brush from putting her on edge. It didn’t take much to imagine how she might feel when this fear was combined with darkness. Needless to say, Donovan was going to be dishing out quite a bit of physical affection tonight.

“Um, your majesty? Would you like something to drink?”

“No thank you, but I appreciate the offer.” Smiling gently at the handmaiden, Diana suppressed the urge to giggle. They clearly weren’t comfortable with addressing someone besides a Strapper with such a level of deference, and couldn’t seem to decide on a single method of address. “Would you happen to know when the hunting party plans to return?”

“I was told to expect the before sunset. It would appear they have secured quite a grandiose haul.”

“How lovely.” Diana honestly did not care what they hunted, only that they had secured something. That would mean one night here instead of the potential week or so they could have spent searching for something. The sooner she got to a proper bed, the better. “Will you be needing assistance preparing dinner?”

“Oh, no. We should have more than enough hands.” The words were polite, but the expression betrayed the truth - she didn’t want Diana anywhere near the food prep.

Honestly, Diana agreed. Even if the main reason was a dislike for her person or personality, there were plenty of others as well. She could cite inexperience, lack of work, and a desire to keep someone of higher rank out of lowly work. That, unfortunately, left her in a position where there wasn’t much else to do but lounge around.

Any grandmasters or individuals with influence left to assist in the cleaning and transportation of the trophies, so while there were technically still people around she could talk to, the status barrier and general discomfort with her as ruler above Titanyana kept them from engaging in the sort of discourse she wanted. Hell, she couldn’t do any work either, the Pegasus was out of signal range of her tablet!

“Is this what Donovan felt like?” She couldn’t help but remember the times when Donovan engaged in work just for the sake of working. She could take this time to just relax and destress, just lay down on the cot and let her thoughts float into nothingness, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do so. “Don’t tell me I’m a workaholic too!”