Brynn
New member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2026
- Messages
- 5
The lower concourse smelled of something that had been burning recently and decided to stop. Not emergency seals; something organic, probably vendor goods. Amber emergency lighting had replaced the commercial strips at some point in the last hour and the station authority's single-pulse sirens had not stopped yet, which meant they were still counting the dead.
His signature had drawn her here from the upper levels. Nothing else in the district carried that kind of weight, and it had not moved since it returned from wherever it had been. She rounded the corner and found him; she stopped at a distance somewhat closer than a stranger's introduction warranted, considered him for a moment, and did not explain herself.
The energy read Changeling, with something elder in how the power sat in him. Not the output itself, which needed no special reading, but the way it settled in the body carrying it. She had watched enough of his kind to distinguish Scorch from Cold at range. He had stood at the center of something catastrophic and come back to this corridor with the same composure he had started the day with. The surface had not changed.
That was the thing she had followed him for.
"There was a fight on the upper concourse," she said. "Something with no Ki reading at all, against someone who had considerably more. And then you were there, the largest mortal signal I have encountered since I arrived at this station." She did not look away. "You left."
His signature had drawn her here from the upper levels. Nothing else in the district carried that kind of weight, and it had not moved since it returned from wherever it had been. She rounded the corner and found him; she stopped at a distance somewhat closer than a stranger's introduction warranted, considered him for a moment, and did not explain herself.
The energy read Changeling, with something elder in how the power sat in him. Not the output itself, which needed no special reading, but the way it settled in the body carrying it. She had watched enough of his kind to distinguish Scorch from Cold at range. He had stood at the center of something catastrophic and come back to this corridor with the same composure he had started the day with. The surface had not changed.
That was the thing she had followed him for.
"There was a fight on the upper concourse," she said. "Something with no Ki reading at all, against someone who had considerably more. And then you were there, the largest mortal signal I have encountered since I arrived at this station." She did not look away. "You left."
