Author's Note: For those unfamiliar: this AU is based on the concept of daemons from Philip Pallman's 'His Dark Materials' series. If you haven't read it, don't worry. This probably won't be too hard to follow. Still, some basics:
- Human beings have daemons, which are manifestations of your soul in animal shape, but are sentient and can speak.
- Adults' daemons take on one specific animal shape, which reflects their person's personality and/or desires in some way.
- Childrens' daemons, meanwhile, are unsettled, and change shape based on both whim and emotion. Daemons usually settle around puberty, though this can have earlier or later depending on individual.
- Women usually have male daemons, and men usually have female daemons, but there are exceptions. Nobody's quite sure why.
- Most people's daemons can't go far without causing intense pain.
- Dust is the particle of thought and sentience, and is related to daemons and daemon-related phenomenon. It can't usually be seen.
Enjoy!
oOoOoOo
Silver Magic, Golden Life
Chapter One: Gold Eyes
Vedris's family are dead.
Or rather, Mattin and his wife are. They were killed by the pox. Their bodies are long gone, burnt, but there's no doubt.
Their daughter, however. That's another matter. There are no accounts off Sandreline fa Toren catching the small pox, and though she's been missing for weeks, her body has not been found.
Not that either of those things mean very much, Niko reflects, as he strokes his daemon's silky grey fur. The city's still in chaos. The pox has run it's course, but all infrastructure has been destroyed. Records from the plague are sketchy, and the list of the missing is almost as long as the list of the dead. Many a person died without ever being noticed.
But they're not going to give up just yet. How could they sail back to Emelan, and look Vedris and his daemon in the eyes, and admit they'd left without having conducted even a basic search for his lost grand-niece?
He and Sajas begin their search in what used to be the fa Torens' rooms in the palace, then move outward from their. Their four eyes are sharp, taking in everything, trying to ignore the bloodstains which have yet to be cleaned. Sajas's usually excellent nose is useless. Any scent trails the girl might have left has long faded; now all you can smell is the lingering stench of death and disease. The bloodstains, at least, are easier to ignore.
Sajas trots on ahead, regardless. She scouts ahead, looking into places her human can't reach, while Niko is more thorough, taking his time. Two hours into their search she turns a corner, then immediately returns, her ears pricked. "Niko," the cat daemon says. "Come see."
Niko catches up in a few long strides. He finds himself turning into a dusty hallway, one that appears to only exist to connect one part of the castle to another, really only to be used by servants. It's nothing but an empty hallway-
- but it's not empty, not really. It merely seems that way.
There's actually a door built into one of the walls, though it's hidden by spells so clever that even Nico could barely notice it at first. The door is plain and wooden, most likely leading to an ordinary storeroom. Not the kind of thing one would go to great lengths to hide with powerful magic… unless there was something unusual hidden inside it.
He focuses himself, and in his mind's eye, even those subtle spells blaze brilliant silver. The shape of the workings are unfamiliar to him, but not unknown- this is Trader magic. Powerful trader magic, at that.
"The girl's nurse was a trader, wasn't she?" Nico remarks quietly.
"Yes, she was," says Sajas. "But never mind that. Look here."
He follows her intense gold gaze- and finally sees it.
A faint golden current is flowing through the thin crack between the hidden storeroom door and the floor. It's barely noticeable, but it's still shifting, and it's there.
Dust. A current of Dust. That can only mean one thing.
There's someone in the room, and they are still alive.
"Go," Nico commands, but Sajas is already gone, streaking down the hallways to find help. Someone who can help them break this door down. Whoever she finds will almost certainly be startled, unsettled, as people so often are when they meet a mage who can walk separately from their daemon.
No matter. There are more important things at stake than someone's comfort.
oOoOoOo
They stand at the prow a ship, wind sharp against their faces as they scan the horizon.
They don't have a lot to go on. It was Niko's vague scried visions which started them on this search, but they were as vague as always. The Trader's Counsel was willing to give them the Third Ship Kisubo's planned Route. This ship's crew is able to use their own experience to guide them. But none of that is concrete, especially when you're searching an entire ocean for a single wrecked ship. Right now, their greatest asset is their own eyes.
Of course, they're not the only ones looking. The captain's seagull daemon is flying as high as she can go, and under the water, a sailor's dolphin daemon searches the sea with sound. They appreciate the help. Niko's the one with the telescope, though.
Sajas is pacing the railing besides, tail swishing irritably. "I wish I could use it."
Niko does not bother to respond. She knows very well that the spyglass does not fit her feline eyes, and his concentration is needed elsewhere.
He watches the endless horizon the telescope, as he has been doing for days. There's not much to see. Or rather, there's too much, and nothing that's relevant. It's all just sea and sky and clouds-
-and wood?
Sajas feels him tense. She stares out to sea herself, suddenly as still as a statue.
Yes- it is wood, jetsam, the first physical evidence of the ship-wreck they've yet to find. But they're not looking for just wreckage. They're looking for signs of life.
And nearly an hour later, he manages to find it. More and more wooden wreckage, floating pieces of canvas and human flesh… and in the distance, a flicker of gold rising up from the water.
He makes sure he's not mistaken, first. He needs to be certain that that golden glitter isn't just reflections thrown up by the waves, or a mirage, or his tired eyes seeing things which simply aren't there.
But no. His eyes see true, as they always do. There is no mistaking the Dust of Thought and Intention for anything else.
"Change of course!" Sajas howls to the helmsman.
oOoOoOo
These days, the few brief minutes they snatch before bed are the only moments of quiet Nico and Sajas are able to find.
They often like to spend that time reading, or in quiet conversation, or simply sitting in companionable silence, aside from the sound of Sajas's gentle purring.
Tonight, however, they are inspect the small bundle of weeds and flowers they've laid on the covers in front of them.
"They're dying," Sajas says.
"Yes," Nico agrees. "The boy didn't think of that before he picked them."
Sajas's golden gaze is sharp. "Because he doesn't know about such things."
Nico sighs. She's right, of course. He wouldn't have realised that picking them would just kill the pretty flowers. How would a street rat have learnt even the basics of plant biology or gardening?
But the boy wants to learn. Niko's certain of that, even if the boy doesn't realise it himself yet.
Nico saw the magic of him, that day at the trial, but the Sight Mage could not discern it's nature. Oh, yes, he and Sajas had had their suspicions, between the thorny scar on the boy's arm, and the chosen name of 'Briar Moss'- but it was these picked plants which had made him almost certain.
Now, certainly, not every child who picks some flowers is a Green Mage. But carrying those flowers around in your pockets like they're a secret totem is a fair bit stranger. But the truly remarkable thing about it all is how these plants now glitter.
Plants don't do that, as a general rule. They don't attract Dust; they don't generate it. You need to think to be able to do that. Physical objects can hold dust, but only if they've been deliberately shaped by a thinking being- by animals, or children, or especially adults.
These plants haven't been shaped- they've simply been picked and stuffed into some boy's pockets. Yet they are shot through with golden light, shimmering with Dust. Briar gave a bit of his own self to these plants, without even knowing.
So yes. They'll bring Briar and his daemon to Winding Circle. Let them see those greenhouses, and see how they fits in. Whatever happens, it will certainly be interesting.
oOoOoOo
When Nico becomes aware that his charge has gone missing, he makes his polite excuses to the ship's captain and the other sailors, and immediately goes looking for her.
Sajas had noticed Tris's disappearance before he did, and has already found her. They're both up on the ship's deck, but Sajas is hiding in the shadows, only her amber eyes showing in the darkness.
She watches, and so does Nico.
Trisana Chandler appears to be on fire.
She isn't. But bright blue globes of ghostly flame hover in the girl's palms. Another floats in the air around her daemon, who is dancing in the air with it, shifting between shapes so quickly that he appears as nothing more than a flicker. The girl's wild red hair swirls around her, sparking with literal lightning. And inside both girl and daemon, the silver fire of their magic burns.
It is utterly mesmerising.
Many people would have been left staring, open mouthed, or else running with fear. Nikolaren Goldeye does neither. As he watches the strange scene, he adjusts his Sight, and looks.
The ability to see Dust is rare. Even rarer is the ability to see how it moves. To see how it reacts to someone's mind and thoughts, to see the play of someone's emotions case in golden light…
It's an exhausting ability. It eats up his power faster than almost any other working in his arsenal. That's why he hardly ever uses it, mostly keeps it reserved for difficult trials and interrogations, where he needs subtly, to sense the shades of grey between truth and lies.
Now, when he looks again at Trisana, he sees not only the Dust swirling so thick and strong that it's as thought she's become lost in a golden sandstorm- but he see the currents in that storm, the patterns, and he reads the girl's emotions.
Exhilaration. Excitement. Freedom.
And, for the first time since he met her, true joy.