A note from Your Friendly Neighborhood Geist:

Well, my dears, here we are at Chapter 13. I'll freely admit that most of this has been written for more than two weeks, I just didn't have the inspiration to finish it and (as you can see in the disclaimer I put in my profile) I believe uninspired writing is boring garbage, so I'm not going to foist something half-assed on you. It's done and done right. That being said, I will literally fedex you cookies in exchange for constructive critiques. I keep seeing people adding this story to their favorites or their watch list, but I hardly get a peep from you! There is no piece of writing that doesn't have room for improvement, so tell me where I can make it.

Now, there's no guarantee that the next chapter will be up before the holidays; I want it to be, but I'm not going to make promises I can't keep. So if I don't see you before then, have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Crazy Kwanzaa, a Tip-top Tet, and a Solemn, Dignified Ramadan. (Hint for getting a nice update for your holiday of choice - reviews make me want to write more!)

Catch ya on the flip side,

-G

Part 3 – The Shadowed Council

Chapter 13 – The Quiet One

It was black satin with tiny gold stitches, floating down to the floor where the fabric rustled like a whisper in an empty room. Her wide eyes absorbed the details at the hem and the cuffs of the elbow-length sleeves, the slim golden ribbon at the waist, and she summarily decided that the dress hanging on the back of her door was the prettiest she'd seen outside of a picture of a sector governor's daughter – or a princess in a book. It was the sort of beautiful thing she was afraid of touching for fear of ruining it.

But her Master had said to put it on and 'make herself presentable.' She wasn't quite sure what that meant, but she'd scrubbed her face harder than usual and brushed her hair while it was wet so it didn't turn into a poofy mess. Now that it had dried into soft curls, she pushed it back with a black band and slipped the dress over it.

It zipped up the side to encase her just right, and her little hands smoothed down the front; it was a gesture she'd seen her mother perform time and again, one she seemed to unconsciously mimic each time she dressed. She tied the ribbon in the front so that it would be pretty (she'd never quite gotten the knack for tying a bow in the back) and slid it around. She buckled the black shoes that sat to one side; they were cut from whatever material her father's formal shoes had been and reflected light like they were made of liquid.

As ready as she felt she'd ever be, she made her way to the suite's sitting room with a hopeful, appeasing sort of quirk to the corners of her mouth. His face rose from the data-lectern after a moment, and he scrutinized her as she threaded her fingers together so she wouldn't wring her hands. He came around to stand near her, he reached down, and carefully removed the bandage at her neck. By now the mark had almost stopped itching; that must've meant it was healed enough to go uncovered. He looked her over again and nodded once, rumbling, "Acceptable."

During the span of time that he'd assessed her, she returned the favor (discretely, of course). She'd never seen his power armor in anything less than pristine condition, but it seemed to have been cleaned, buffed, and polished until it shone like her shoes. His typical mantle had been replaced by one of quality comparable to, if not surpassing, her dress. She wasn't quite sure what else about him was different on this morning compared to any other – perhaps the set of his jaw – but she knew something was.

His enormous hand crushed the liniment-soaked gauze as he passed her to throw it away. "I will be attending the High Council of Inquisitor Lords today." That must have been why he had taken such care in his preparations. "You will be accompanying me." She had guessed as much from her new dress. It was, of course, in all probability because he had no one to babysit her until he got back; and that was alright. She'd just stay out of everyone's way, and –

His nose was all at once inches from hers; he towered over her, close enough to feel the heat of the exhalations from his flared nostrils. His expression was ominous. Her heart stopped a beat, mind scrambling to identify what she'd done to warrant that. "If you-" his timbre was dark, with the sort of clipped quality that she associated with over-enunciation, "-so much-" she knew his natural eye was violet, but at that moment she could have sworn it glowed with the same red fire as his augmentic, "-as breathe incorrectly-" his face got even closer and she dared not move back even though her eyes couldn't focus at such a short range, "-I will dismantle you." His eyes narrowed and he near-whispered, "Atom by atom."

She swallowed carefully to ease the dry, tight constriction of terror in her throat, and then nodded. He seemed to accept the fear written in her huge eyes as an avowal of good behavior, and led the way out the door.

Perhaps she'd had preconceived notions about what a meeting of this High Council would entail. Her parents had brought her into an emergency meeting of shipboard line officers once, when they had no time to dump her somewhere else. She hadn't even gotten a warning about what would happen if she uttered a sound or – Throne forbid – sneeze or in any way call attention to herself and thus embarrass them. She knew: the consequences would be worse than anything she could have imagined at the time.

So when her parents had filed into the fluorescently lit board room to take a seat around the enormously long oval table, she'd wedged herself into the furthest, most unobtrusive corner she could find and made sure she didn't breathe too loudly. There had been a briefing and then a quick, orderly round of discussion and clarification before the meeting broke, officers leaving with deft purpose to attend whatever the topic had been. She supposed that she'd suspected all meetings would run that way.

The truth couldn't be further.

The first thing that struck her – and she found particularly odd – was that the place was rather dark. She'd been expecting the ultra-bright lights common in most administrative work areas onboard, but this was apparently not the sort of meeting at which one took written notes and assembled a plan of action to transmit to the masses. The room was easily the size of one of the Lacertus's cargo bays, with floors that rose around its perimeter like the seats in a stadium. On each of the levels there were rows of alcoves in even deeper shadow, making it near impossible to make out the figures that occupied them.

They were occupied, though. The sort of murmuring whisper of many hushed conversations filled the air. She wondered what the voices were talking about, to whom they belonged; she wondered how many of them knew her Master, if these were his friends, as so many of the other officers had been to her parents. She peered up at his face, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness, to try reading any hint of expression there in hope that it would answer her unspoken questions. His head was carried high, eyes focused on one particular alcove, shoulders and jaw set with an almost attractively self-composed, cold arrogance.

Four steps into the room, the whispers stopped – all of them, almost immediately dying down to silence that filled the space more than the conversations had. If he even noticed, he certainly didn't care. Almost as soon as he took a seat behind the desk in the alcove he'd mounted the steps to, the buzz of conversation redoubled. His head turned by less than ten degrees toward her; he met her eyes, attentive and zeroed on him alone, and then flicked his gaze to a spot just to his right. She took two careful steps to stand precisely where he'd looked, and then he faced straight forward.

After a few moments a voice announced in the darkness, "The High Council in the Tricorn Palace on Scintilla is called to order on this, the three-hundred-seventeenth day of the year forty-thousand, nine-hundred thirty-five; Tiberius Blackmoon, Inquisitorial High Lord of Terra, presiding." There was an almighty, synchronized scrape of dozens of chairs moving for their occupants (including her Master) to stand. She noticed movement across the room as someone entered, but with the distance and the shadow, she couldn't see. After a moment, the figure who had entered must have sat, because another mass of noise – the sort that has volume only because of the number of people making it – accompanied them sitting back down.

The meeting progressed systematically. The floor moderator followed a strict protocol to announce each speaker as: "Lord Inquisitor (whoever was taking the floor), (whichever Ordo or Conclave affiliation was applicable)," who would stand and move from the deep shadow into the dim light to speak. Most of what the other Inquisitor Lords were talking about went over her head. It seemed like they were updating each other on what they'd been up to. A few times other people would ask questions or make comments, make motions to take this or that action, but it hardly seemed like the hyper-focused productivity she'd witnessed on the Lacertus.

More interesting than the statements the other Inquisitor Lords were making was her Master's reaction to each of them. She found herself focusing on him alone, watching carefully for the hidden markers that told her his disposition toward the current speaker. She wasn't even sure what, specifically, she saw on his face that clued her – so far as she could tell, if his features shifted at all it was by the most miniscule of degrees. Yet she was certain she knew if he especially liked or disliked someone, if something bored or worried him. It led her to wonder if he was making himself transparent for her benefit, or if she'd just gotten better at reading him.

At last she heard the moderator call, "Lord Inquisitor Pieter Mordekai, Ordo Xenos," and her Master rose. When he stepped forward she found herself madly curious about what he would have to report compared to the others. In a manner, this was a measure of him against his peers; would he have accomplished more? Less? Would he be received well or barely tolerated?

His report didn't meander as much as many others: he tersely related that the Cult of the Redeemer had been exterminated. As he gave pertinent details, she found herself wondering how that had happened, if he had done the exterminating all by himself or if he'd had help, if the cult had been on one planet or spread across a system; she didn't understand much about cults but so far as she could glean, they were bad things, indeed. He went on to inform this council that three planets in the Helican Sub-sector had fallen in short order to a new Ork Waugh, and his recommendation was nothing less than a full crusade mobilization. Regarding Orks, she only knew what she'd learned in the few books he'd had her read: they were fierce, awful things that destroyed everything in their paths, more often than not on principle alone.

From his inflection, she thought that he had finished; and so it startled her when he looked down at her and rumbled, "I have Sanctioned and taken an apprentice," with an inflection that said he was staking a claim or announcing ownership. She tried to make sure her expression didn't convey complete surprise.

She stood very still with her back straight and her fingers laced together, the sensation of dozens of sets of eyes inspecting her making her madly nervous. She worked hard to ensure her features remained as they had been before he called attention to her: faintest hint of a smile, chin high, focused only on him. She hoped it was working. He hadn't told her he'd be pointing her out. This room full of sudden scrutiny made her skin crawl and she wanted to hide behind him so that she couldn't do anything embarrassing; but that itself would be an embarrassment. If she even so much as breathed wrong he'd tear her apart. She didn't dare move.

Silence met the announcement, followed by the moderator's acknowledgement of someone's desire to discuss this news. "Lord Inquisitor Mantara Suzaku, Calixian Conclave." Ellie didn't know if she should look at the new speaker or stay focused on him; he, however, was staring down whoever had stepped forward, and she found his reaction too interesting to turn away from.

"You seem to be making a habit of this, Lord Inquisitor Mordekai." It was a woman's voice, in the higher register and accented in a way she'd only ever heard deck-hands joking in with mocking exaggeration, greeting each other with, 'oh, herro.' There was mocking exaggeration right now, but it was coming from the speaker's use of his title; it sounded like doing so put a bad taste in her mouth.

The tiny psyker had never heard such smug baiting in one syllable as she did when he replied, "Oh?"

"I reminded you the last time you did this, Lord Inquisitor," her voice was dripping with such venom that Ellie was tempted to look over at her, but her Master looked so much less than impressed. If someone was still looking, they'd notice she was interested when her Master wasn't, and she didn't want to seem out of touch with him or disobedient. More, the fact that he'd done this before – had another apprentice he'd Sanctioned and taken – intrigued her: when did that happen? Where was this person now? How did he pick?

"We have protocols for this," the woman was talking again. "Peer review isn't something that's optional. And yet – again – you pick up some… thing with no warning, no approval, no external inspection; decree that it's safe, and decide to keep it for yourself."

Ellie had been good: she'd managed to remain focused on her Master, to display a healthy connection to him, unwavering respect, but she'd been called a thing. In a millisecond, she turned her face to where the woman's voice was coming from. Lord Inquisitor Mantara Suzaku was a petite woman with softly luminous golden skin, glossy, pin-straight black hair, and delicate, exotic features currently marred by an expression of loathing directed at the little blonde waif and her Master.

The girl's too-large blue eyes narrowed for just an instant as she considered Lord Inquisitor Suzaku; looking more into her than at, searching for what the woman could have found so reprehensible about her that she was relegated to thing-hood. Curiously, she pushed her sixth sense out: perhaps it was that this woman detested all psykers – but no, the woman was definitely a psyker herself. The closer she looked, the more disgust she saw the woman bore; it wasn't something she wanted to continue looking at. It had only taken her a heartbeat to observe, and she turned back to her Master, who still looked unimpressed.

"It's reckless and irresponsible," the woman still wasn't done complaining, "– that thing could have a daemon in it and you'd never know," the woman was also still convinced Ellie ranked significantly lower than personhood "– and now it's seen us, been given a full briefing of our most clandestine actions –"

"Thirty-six hours, Suzaku," Ellie's Master interrupted in a tone she'd never heard before. It sounded like he was talking to a child – slightly condescending, marginally impatient – he'd never even spoken to her like that. She could hear the woman's near-apoplectic gasp at his lack of respect from across the large room. "I spent thirty-six hours plumbing the depths of my apprentice's mind, rooting out any foothold for weakness." Had it truly been that long that she'd lain on the table with him inside her head? "That's generously more than anything you could ask for – and double what you could perform on your best day." There was an angry hiss from the woman's direction that he cut off with his final, crushing insult directed solely at the other Inquisitor Lord, "And who knows what sort of taint could be passed along if I did it your way?"

"You should be sanctioned for your actions, Mordekai." Both rage and outrage had turned her voice into something that resembled a whistling kettle and Ellie quite suddenly wished for a sock to stuff in the woman's mouth and make her shut up.

Perhaps it was her Master's utter lack of regard to the threat that soothed any fear she would otherwise feel. Or perhaps she didn't want to appear afraid that her Master couldn't defend himself – or her – in a tenuous situation. Or even that balking now would undermine her worth in the eyes of people he had to at least work with. Whatever the case, she kept her eyes affixed to him, her chin up, the same soft smile that had been lingering the entire time in place. One of his brows raised with exaggerated mock-graciousness and he drawled, "If that's what you believe, Suzaku, you should make a move to censor me."

There was a challenge Ellie didn't quite understand in that – something dangerous that her Master was baiting this woman into. She wasn't quite sure how it would turn.

Lord Inquisitor Suzaku's exotic, dark eyes narrowed and then her voice rang out in the vaulted room that seemed to be holding its breath, "I move that Lord Inquisitor Mordekai be censored for flagrant disregard for protocol and potentially dangerous abuse of authority."

Somewhere across the room, a figure stepped forward from its shadowed alcove and supplied, "I second."

"All in favor?" the floor moderator called; but only three more people that she could see stood up. "All opposed?" The five stood back, but at least two dozen stepped forward. "The motion has been denied."

Ellie searched her Master's face as it turned down to her and she beamed up at him; she didn't fully understand what had happened there, but he was pleased with the outcome. That was enough for her.

Her brow was crossed by the time he guided her through the labyrinth of halls back to his suite, and her mouth pursed into an uncharacteristically flat little line. He closed the door and, now that she definitively couldn't be overheard by any random passersby, took a deep, almost troubled breath. "The other Inquisitor Lord that started trouble with you doesn't like us very much, does she?"

He seemed completely unconcerned about this and moved toward the data lectern, she supposed to make some cursory notes about the meeting. "Lord Inquisitor Suzaku advocates no one but herself, a quality common in most who hold her station."

The little mark between her eyebrows took hold as she nodded slowly. She took a breath, thoughtful for a moment, and began, "She's a very beautiful woman. That might be part of the problem." She had once overheard her father saying that attractive people are often spoiled; that once they know it, they abuse it and develop a weak and selfish character. "The other part is that she's obviously m'yor le brancka te piguyen faswe gra'arbdes urn fervinaque als bluemdeh yingtao. Densie logdaso neemal spita obors da naris aoqui sayo nayolfect." She'd lapsed into the lilting cadence of shipboard dialect; it was the only way she knew to convey the extent of what she meant.

She only had a hairsbreadth of a second to see his stern expression before he cuffed the back of her head – particularly harder than he'd done the sole time before. His voice reminded her of the void: just as cold and intimidating when he warned sharply, "You'd do well to hold your tongue in judgment of your betters, lest you find it removed in its course."

Her face flushed hot; she took a faintly stuttering breath and then hung her head. She wished she could melt into the floor and disappear forever. If she'd just kept quiet he wouldn't be angry at her now. Hadn't she decided she would be better off sticking to only necessary communication? Nothing had happened that should have convinced her otherwise. After all the progress she'd made, she had to go and ruin it by saying something – some stupid opinion that hadn't even been requested.

"Your room," he all but growled, "now. I expect to not see you until morning."

She swallowed, nodded, and retreated without lifting her gaze to meet his. She also didn't apologize. She was sorry that she'd said it, now that she'd gotten in trouble for it, but it didn't change the fact that it was the truth.

She'd taken great care to hang the dress up as nicely as she'd found it. Her little fingers caressed the satin of the skirt, gripping it with the fleeting spasm of almost heartbroken dejection that wrenched her face into the unbearable frown that comes just before crying; but she swallowed it down with a great sigh and forced her fingers to open and smooth out the tiny wrinkle she'd created. Shaking her head as she pulled her jumper over it, she retreated to the bed and clambered up into it. She leaned against the headboard, wrapped her arms around her shins, and laid her cheek to her knees, eyes open but unseeing.

She'd been an idiot.

How could she have done that? Had she thought he would agree? That it was funny? Had she thought it would make him smile? Had she even thought at all?

She must not've; the Lord Inquisitor didn't find much funny. And he was right: it wasn't her place to make rude comments. Truth be told, she didn't even completely understand what she'd said. She'd heard a midshipman say it to one of his friends as he left a disciplinary meeting in her father's unpretentious office. It had left the impression that the man thought Nic Reiker cared too much about the letter of rules to be anything but a nasty sod. He was right, of course, and the man's friend had laughed.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter if she was right. It didn't matter if her Master never laughed. It didn't matter if he was ten or a hundred times as cold and distant and scary as her father. It didn't even matter if she liked him. The only thing that mattered was that he kept her. If he didn't, she'd have nowhere to go. She had known what was at stake, and she'd still upset him by being disrespectful. She hadn't said it until they were in his suite because she knew it would be an embarrassment if someone else had heard. By that virtue, alone, she should have known not to say it.

Maybe she'd thought it would be alright, since he'd been uncharacteristically gentle when he Sanctioned and Branded her. Maybe she thought he was just a little more accessible now, like the Seneschal. Maybe she felt closer to him because he'd been at her side and in her head and things had almost started to become normal.

And she'd gone and messed it up. And he was angry.

She couldn't afford another mistake like this.

The door opened and she faced it with a sharp breath, only to let it out in relief when Michael Corrigan stepped in. He took the briefest instant to survey the room; and then, as if absolutely nothing were wrong, he briskly stated, "Dinner," as he held out a plate covered to retain heat.

"Thank you, Seneschal Corrigan, but my," her voice sounded off even to her own ears: too high, soft, and close to breaking. He was acting as if everything was normal, though, and she didn't want to seem sniveling. She bit her lip and tried to force a smile through it. She cleared her throat in an attempt to normalize it, "my Master sent me to bed without supper."

The man gave a soft snort and dismissed, "Nothing of the sort."

Well, for the sake of accuracy, he was correct. All the Inquisitor had said was that she was to stay here until morning, but the intent of the punishment seemed clear. Her parents had done the same thing on occasion; she was fairly certain this was just how it worked. But she'd learned her lesson about talking back today, so she wouldn't correct him and instead excused, "I don't want to make him any angrier." Truth be told, she didn't think she could eat if she wanted to, now. Her stomach was tied in knots from worry and she felt she might be sick.

The Seneschal gazed at her hard and inscrutably for a long moment. She saw the slightest tic at the corner of his scarred eye, and then he intoned with the timbre he often used when joking with her Master, equal parts exaggerated graciousness and unfelt condescension, "Then you should have dinner."

She watched him for an equally long moment, inspecting the area that had twitched, wondering if that had happened before, or with any regularity and she'd just never noticed, and what caused it. Finally, she gave a slow nod and almost shyly requested, "Could you please put it on the nightstand, Seneschal Corrigan? I'll get to it in a little bit."

The stare with which he fixed her told her in no uncertain terms that even the Throne couldn't help her if she didn't. Despite this, she smiled, she hoped encouragingly, to show him she understood the terms of the arrangement, and he set down the plate where she'd indicated.

"Thank you," she offered, and truly meant it; he nodded in a way that convinced her he'd be watching through the very fabric of the walls to make sure she held up her end of that little deal and then left, closing the door behind him.

"You wouldn't believe what she said to me today." The Lord Inquisitor deposited two generous glasses of amasec on the table between himself and his Seneschal, the corner of his mouth twisted up.

"Suzaku's never been a big fan of yours, Pieter." He made the point while taking his tumbler in hand and lifting it – perhaps to his friend's good health, or simply for emphasis. "There's not much she could say that would sup-"

"Not her," a rumble of a chortle came from Mordekai's chest as he picked up his own. "Giselle." The brow over Corrigan's milky eye lifted expressively and he took a sip as his employer expanded, "When we got back from the council she started telling me that Suzaku m'yor le brancka te piguyen –"

He was interrupted by a startled cough as Corr pounded once on his own chest, having swallowed the liquor down the wrong pipe. His eyes were wide with delight as he half-choked, "The greater daemons, she did –"

The other side of the Inquisitor's lips were quirking of their own volition, as hard as he must've been trying, he couldn't quite seem to keep the expression from creeping in. "Oh, it gets better. Verbatim, she says that the woman's had a stick lodged up her ass for so long that it's grown into a tree that makes piss and vinegar the way most trees make fruit. Since she's plugged up there's nowhere for her to spew it from but her mouth, and she keeps her nose in the air all the time so the stench isn't so bad."

They were both silent for the briefest of seconds and then uproarious laughter filled the small study. By the end of the long outburst, Mordekai's forehead was resting in his hand, elbow on the table, and he was shaking it just as his shoulders shook from the force of his deep chuckles.

The Seneschal picked up his glass again, this time the gesture certainly a salute, "You do know how to pick'em, Pieter." Another snicker escaped him. "Ah," the exhalation was half-sigh, half-subsiding laughter and he shook his own head before taking a satisfying mouthful of the amasec, "It's always the quiet ones."

What's this? An actual note from the author that contains author-y-type notes?!

Chapter Trivia:

The chapter's title, "The Quiet One," obviously refers to Corr's closing statement, "It's always the quiet ones." However, in this chapter, consisting of 4,600 words, Ellie doesn't speak until about 3,000 words in and only speaks six times totaling less than 100 words: that's approximately 2% of the entire deal.

The shipboard dialect I've created is actually not complete gibberish - it's a messy amalgamation of four different real-world languages, devolved and phonetically spelled to ease its reading. Language is constantly evolving. Consider that 50 years ago no one knew what a taco was. 150 years ago most people didn't use the word "hello." 400 years ago there was no such word as "bedroom." In 400 years people might not be able to read this any more than you could pick up an original copy of Beowulf and skim through it. Our ability to communicate is one of humanity's greatest - and most tenuous - achievements. Just some food for thought.

-G