Tidal Florette - A Painted Soul I

Favian - 25

The following days on the boat proceeded as such. Favian would follow Yumi around attempting to ask the right questions to learn more about her potential telepathy, and she'd do her best to answer. Meanwhile, Yumi would follow Sapha around attempting to contain her slurry of questions, failing to do so, and Sapha would do her best to redirect Yumi's attention back to Favian. This cycle continued rather hopelessly until Sapha became fed up and just asked Favian's questions for him, before determining for his sake that Yumi would need a telepath to help explore her ability.

This gave Favian an idea, he hadn't really thought about what to actually do with Yumi after returning to the capital. She was a means to an end, an unfortunate dead end, but now had become the answer he'd sought after in the first place. The Empress hadn't specified their intentions for Yumi upon his return, so perhaps they won't have the intention of detaining her for the dojo's practices. Instead, he may be able to convince the Empress to help Yumi with her telepathy. Although the Empress isn't known to be a telepath themself, their clairvoyance may give them the insight to assist.

Yumi remains insistent that her ability is nothing more than an inherited power of every Painted Soul and her sensei would have trained her to the extent of its limits. Favian is not entirely convinced, telepathy and other such powers of mental connection are often developed through forces of the nightrealm. If the Painted Souls had a history of telepathic abilities, the Ignited Temple would have targeted them immediately after Nightfall. Not to mention the insistence that they bear no allegiance whatsoever to the day or night. Favian hasn't pressed the matter too hard, Yumi seems to get bothered by the implication her sensei would lie and even moreso that her abilities align her to the night. He tried explaining this doesn't necessarily implicate her as a follower of night gods, but she refused to entertain the thought out of concern it would justify the high priest's actions.

Favian's own shallow development as an empath has confirmed a couple of things for him during this journey. Now that he's spent more time with both Sapha and Yumi, he's become more attuned to their presence and gets a clearer sense from their emotions. Yumi, despite being very expressive and seemingly open, is holding back an torrential fount of emotions he can barely discern. Sapha, despite her hood and mask making her exceptionally difficult to read visually and appearing stoically composed, has a near equal storm within her she's hiding. In Yumi's case, this seems perfectly sensible, she speaks of her sensei as though she were still living and trips over her words until she fades into silence whenever she mentions 'Kaiya'. Sapha seems to have things stable, the contract has gone smoothly and she'll be paid upon their return without any blood on her hands. So the anxiety Favian is picking up from her doesn't seem to match his current knowledge. He refuses to inquire, for fear of a violent reaction, but he'd sooner ask about that to try and help her than mention how much that anxiety shifts into something else when she talks to Yumi.

This has led to another conclusion, Sapha seems to be fond of them both, and her skills would be valuable for his journey to cure the moonlit. Unfortunately, hiring her would require funds he does not have access to without the Empress' assistance; and this means admitting his true intentions and risking a fate like his fathers. Still, an ally with her experience would be worth exploring for her interest in an ongoing partnership. Sapha still thinks he's going to get himself eaten by some abomination in the Gravelands, but she has caught onto Yumi's potential value if her telepathy is as powerful as he has theorized.

Which leads to his final conclusion before arriving at Taikira. Yumi's telepathy surpasses the basic forms of psychic communication. Many moonlit can speak out surface level thoughts as though it were audible speech. They can develop that into 'whispering' as Favian was taught to hear from his fathers, where those thoughts are directed into a specific mind. His fathers combined empathy and telepathy so that could speak into the depths of a person, even a mind lost to moonlit madness could hear them and communicate in return. Yumi seems to have added a level of clairvoyance to that mix. Something that lets her see beyond what a person may be willing to communicate, peering into their soul to evaluate the depths of their mind. She uses this to determine a person's ideal death, an elegant execution of fine details to her dueling so her challengers are granted an inner peace.