As Stephen and Connor spoke to Lester, Nick couldn't focus on the conversation as he was too busy gazing at the spotted cat which sat neatly on the tabletop towards the end of the table, closer to the door; the wolverine lay beneath the chair, head on her paws. Neither animal went more than a few feet from the two men at any given time, and whenever someone made the suggestion that they leave the animals in a kennel whilst this…issue…was resolved, they both vehemently protested, almost to the point of needing security.
The cat was roughly the size of a domestic cat, maybe a little larger, but there was a sleekness to it that suggested a wild animal rather than domestic. It was a light, tawny brown-gold in colour, marked with darker rosettes and spots, and its golden eyes seemed almost too big for its head, round and full of an alien intelligence. It sat neatly with its tail curled around its paws like an Egyptian cat goddess awaiting tribute, ears twitching and turning, picking up on sounds inaudible to humans. Nick could see no evidence of a collar, not even the usual roughed fur around the neck that might suggest one had been present before. As he tried to puzzle out just what had happened to his world, the cat turned its sleek head towards him. Its muzzle moved, and a cool, velvety female voice said, "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to stare?"
Nick blinked hard, then replied, "Not every day I see a talking wildcat in the Home Office."
From beneath the chair, the ball of dark fur rumbled lowly. "She isn't a wildcat, she's a margay."
"In the Forest…Stephen asked where our…our dæmons were. Is that what you are? A dæmon?" Nick queried, ignoring the fact that he'd just been corrected by a wolverine.
"Yes. As is Ashildr, Nike, Brinley, and Landurmilla," the margay replied, then her ears lay back a moment, a decidedly sad look passing through her eyes. "I am Maren."
He could only suppose that those were the names of the other animals. Or dæmons. Whatever. "So what exactly is a dæmon?" he asked.
The margay – Maren – flicked her ears and tapped one paw against the tabletop, a gesture Stephen himself often made when thinking over his words before speaking. "I am…Stephen. I am his innermost self, expressed outside of his body. I am his soul. There is no me without him, and there is no him without me. We are one entity inside two bodies. And Ashildr is Connor's dæmon, she is his soul." She dipped her muzzle slightly in indication of the wolverine, who had jumped up onto the chair and was watching Nick closely.
"You're his soul?" Nick echoed in disbelief.
"Yes. And where we are from, there is not a human alive that does not have a dæmon. Which is why, when we came through the anomaly, we were…frightened. To see someone without a dæmon is…." She trailed off, at a loss for parallels to draw.
Ashildr spoke up then, standing on her hind legs and placing both forepaws on the tabletop. "It's like seeing someone with their chest open and their heart gone. A person without a face. It's…not natural, it's wrong and it's terrifying," she said, Maren nodding agreement.
"Well, in this…timeline, universe, whatever you'd call it, our souls are inside us. They're integrated in our bodies," Nick replied. Usually, he wouldn't have spoken of souls so easily and steadfastly, as his religious standing could be described as 'tentative' on a good day. He didn't believe in ghosts, and his belief in God wasn't always on firm ground, but it was kind of hard to argue the existence of the soul with the physical form of one. "So it's not that we don't have one, it's just that we can't see them."
"Hmm." Maren seemed to contemplate that, her tail slowly swishing back and forth, ears twitching. "Well, then, if you do not have dæmons, then you must know that you must never, ever touch any of us. It is the worst taboo imaginable, to touch another person's dæmon, as you would be in a most literal sense touching their soul. You mustn't. That is why Landurmilla ran from the medics who tried to grasp her, and why Ashildr became so protective. It is the barrier which nobody crosses."
Nick could understand that. Who would want someone to touch their soul?
"And we cannot be very far from each other, a human and their dæmon. We are tethered together, and to pull on that tether causes us a terrible pain, both physically and emotionally. It is why neither of them could enter this building without us."
He made a quiet noise, arms folded across his chest as he thought over her words. It all seemed just far too strange for him, like something from a storybook or a fairytale. Talking animals which embodied a person's soul? No, thank you, he would much rather prefer to stay in the sane world. The sane world where holes in space-time allowed dinosaurs into modern-day London. Yeah. That one. A sudden thought struck him, and he asked, "Why are you female? I mean...shouldn't you be male, like Stephen?"
"No. The dæmons of men are female, and the dæmons of women are male. That's the way it's always been. Only very rarely are they of the same sex, and usually it is a sign of a gift, such as second sight," Maren explained, and as Cutter's mouth opened, she said, "No, we don't know why. That is how it has always been. We don't understand the workings of Dust, Nick."
"Dust?" he echoed. The way she said it, the silent capital letter tacked onto it, made it sound like it certainly wasn't the stuff that accumulated on undisturbed surfaces.
Ashildr jumped up onto the table, her claws scratching the glass surface; Lester would be pissed. Sitting beside Maren, she explained, "Dust is...well, it is an elementary particle. We're not entirely sure just what it is, we simply know of it. I suppose you can ascertain it to dark matter, except that it is conscious. Dust is what connects a person to their dæmon, and when people die, their dæmons become Dust. That's all I can accurately tell you, because I don't study Dust, I haven't the foggiest about the specifics. Some call it the consciousness of the universe, some say its a cosmic force, but I believe it all boils down to one thing: we don't really know what the hell it is."
Maren sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping, and her ears lay back for a moment as her eyes flicked to a spot just above Nick's shoulder. She shook her head. "I don't know how you can stand it. Being alone. Without her. How lonely you all must be..."
He glanced away, uncomfortable, and realised that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was listening to their conversation. Stephen hadn't turned around, but the line of his back was rigid, and Connor was staring fixatedly at the floor, hands in his pockets. Lester's face was solemn yet unreadable, wearing his professional's mask once more. Claudia had her fingertips pressed to her mouth, watching the interchange with fascination. "What was her name?" Nick asked at last, ignoring his 'audience.'
"Niala," said Ashildr quietly. "Her name was Niala."
The abrupt screech of a chair being shoved back made them all startle. Stephen stood up, hands on the table. "That's it for the day," he said, his voice hoarse. "We're going home. See you tomorrow." He held out an arm, and Maren bounded across the table, up his arm, and perched on shoulder, digging her claws into his jacket for balance. Without waiting for Lester's answer, he walked out. Connor followed after him; Ashildr jumped from the table and walked at his heels.
"Niala," he murmured softly. For some reason, he felt a distant, far off pang of longing, like the name had rang some long-forgotten bell of loss in the back of his mind.
