Author's Note: This is a sequel series to Amy, Captured. To get the full experience, please read through that one first.
Hey guys, apologies for the long delay between chapters here, I've been working on a few other things that you might find interesting, coming in future. I'm back on the Panic Moon bandwagon, hard at work on the next chapter, so it shouldn't be too long incoming. In the meantime, I'd appreciate any feedback and votes you guys want to give. Enjoy!
Kurokami
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'You keep getting looks.'
'Yes, thank you. I can tell. I may not have eyes, but I'm not
blind,
Lysithea
,' Dulcimer sent, the apex of her gaze swinging around to regard the alien.
'I know that,' She replied. 'But it does make me want to ask: What happened to the Dullahan? Your people are only stories to me, but you are
here
, you exist. Where are the rest?'
'
That's a long story. And I can't blame these people for looking
,' The Dullahan seemed to sigh, though it was hard to tell without any real sound. '
I doubt there's anyone here who has even seen one of us before. We don't really leave the homeworld.'
'You did,' Lysithea pointed out.
'
Yes. I did. Can we talk about something else, please?
'
'Yeah, okay,' The Trine-form craned her neck to look back, eyeing Sally and Lorna as they walked side by side, some ways behind the pair of aliens. 'Come on girls, keep up. This is hardly the place to be unescorted.'
'Aren't you two technically the same?' Sally, always the most willing to speak up, asked.
'Ah yes, but we aren't wearing those Collars,' The pale alien responded with a sly smile, winking a clear green eye at them. 'That's quite a distinguishing factor. Just look at the kinds of attention
you two
are attracting.'
True enough, the non-contemporaneous duo were attracting an undue amount of attention, mostly from the passersby, but occasionally from the service staff working the stalls and out-facing shops, too. It was frankly unnerving; the citizens of Selestene were uniformly well dressed and aristocratic in manner, and their expressions had a refined sort of detachment to them. This city was filled with libertine dignitaries and a wealthy criminal element; an Arcology for those with lots of money and a minimum of respect for the law. The kinds of things they would be perfectly willing to do to people like Lorna and Sally didn't bear thinking about.
The four of them walked well kept streets, with the aliens walking ahead to cut through the crowds; the streets were filled with humanity, and not much else. Lorna got the feeling that Selestene didn't get a lot of nonhuman traffic, or that if it did, the aliens had the good sense to stick to being unseen. These folks had never seen anything like Dulcimer and Lysithea before.
'
I'm glad you convinced me to come out, I'm getting all sorts of interesting signals from these people. This place is surprisingly murky, for a human city
,' The Dullahan sent during a lull in the conversation.
'
You shouldn't be reading minds without permission, Dulsie
,' Lysithea sent back, keeping her words in the mental realm to avoid raising the ire of the crowd around her; she got the feeling they wouldn't appreciate knowing that a couple of telepaths were walking among them with their empathic filters off. '
It's rude
.'
'It's also not something I can help
,' Dulsie replied, calmly. '
I can't just turn off how I see the world. I'm not even trying to limit it, these people are just
brazen.'
'I'm beginning to feel left out, now,' Lysithea lapsed back into speech, the sudden return to the audible spectrum causing Lorna and Sally to look up quickly, receiving only a fragment of the conversation. The Trine-form had had to force herself into the habit of speaking; her own people were hive minded in the extreme, and if she allowed herself to converse telepathically more than she had to, it would be easy to slip back into it and not return.
'
Well, let's find a nice likely cathouse with poorly maintained telepathic shielding, sit down outside and you can soak up some nice feelings
,' The Dullahan stopped dead in the middle of the street, sweeping the focus of her awareness about the scene, lifting her mind above the murmuring of the people on the street to push the locus of her mind into the nearby buildings.
In a place like this, it didn't take her long at all to find what she was looking for.
'
There
,' She pointed, drawing not only Lysithea's attention, but the attention of the two human girls following them. Without another word she set off, allowing the rest of the group to follow her.
In truth, Dulcimer had found herself spoiled for choice, in regards to houses of ill repute; though on the whole Selestene was filled with crystalline towers and complex, sweeping structures, it hadn't been all that hard to find the arcology's red light district. The buildings here were more squat, the layout of the streets more conducive to keeping each individual person at a remove from everyone else.
Some buildings had wide, open entrances, beckoning passersby in as effectively as several hundred blinking augmented reality advertisements could do. But the one that had attracted the Dullahan's attention was far more discrete, something that did not escape Lysithea's notice.
'Yes, this one's good,' She nodded, drawing her eyes over the front faΓ§ade. 'The people in there mean business, you can tell. No ads, no indication it's even open... sessions by appointment, probably. Good choice.'
'