https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png Thomas wanted to protest that he was fine, that it was nothing, but listening to Maladan disrupted his concentration and caused him to falter once again. Then, while he was feeling frustrated, he lost his grip on the tether and it fractured before evaporating. In an ...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png As Maladan's mural shifted, Thomas saw much and understood little. Some sort of terrifying monster dominated his childhood, which Thomas assumed had something to do with the Dranoch in Sil'Elaine. Impossible to tell if it was just a nightmare that had a hold on the m...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png 62nd Frost, 4621 When he was finished tending to Maladan's wounds, Thomas knew what he had to attempt to do next. In theory, he could already do it. In theory, he was unknowingly doing it in minute ways all the time, nudging the emotions of the people around him to m...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png "The guards here are not good at searching people. Especially not people they view as harmless little playthings of a Lord." Thomas murmured into Maladan's ear. "I have all kinds of stuff in this coat that they overlooked." He put his coat on the stone bench again. I...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png Thomas was awake long before Maladan returned to the cell. The thuds of the guards' boots on the stone floor was obnoxiously loud, and he had a feeling that they would keep him up all night when they patrolled the corridors. He was a light sleeper even when he was so...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png Maladan had the conversational style of someone who had not talked with anyone in quite some time, but he knew the season, at least, which meant it had likely only been weeks or months since his imprisonment, not years. So either he had not been mentally all there to...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png Lots to take in from Maladan, and Thomas could see enough now to make out a shape, hunkered into the corner of deepest shadow. Long arms and long legs were folded into a compact bundle, but Thomas could tell that when the man stood up he'd be very tall, which was sta...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png His eyes were beginning to adjust, but he still struggled to make his cellmate out in the shadows. Maladan had a pleasant enough voice, though he -- Thomas was reasonably certain Maladan was a he -- sounded rather drawn. Given the guards' familiarity with him, he'd b...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png As Thomas looked at the horrifying squiggles in Latham's awful book, he wasn't laughing any more. In fact, the tea and sweets were no longer settling into his stomach as they had. He felt like had a bellyful of churning cement. The room felt too hot, his clothes felt...

https://i.imgur.com/TZFDaPS.png Thomas' lips quirked and despite himself, he laughed. The jape itself would have fallen rather flat, but the prop was fantastic. "You know, Latham, this book really sells the joke. Where did you get this thing?" He asked, leafing through the pages. Fortunately they w...