[Amdi is in his room when the roar sounds out and the Alices speak, and he doesn't know what's happening but he has a terrible, terrible feeling. He sees the rules on the walls change as he runs down portrait gallery and towards the dining hall, and he hears the their last proclamation and his hearts sink into his guts. "Let this be a lesson". Just like Lord Steel.
His paws skid on the slick marble as all of him at once come careening into the foyer, and then he stops. He stares. And slowly, with the tiny taps of dozens of claws, all of him walk forward.
Amdi isn't unfamiliar with death. He'd been in the castle yard when Mr. Steel's worker collective attacked the whitejackets. He saw Pham's ruined body being taken out of the starship after Countermeasure. He'd heard Blueshell's screams through his voder as he burned, though he and Jefri didn't know what those horrible sounds meant at the time. But all those were people he didn't know, or had only barely met. This...
He hadn't really known Ib well. He'd spoken to her a little bit a couple of times, and he thought she was nice, and he'd been thinking about asking her about math because her portrait said she liked math, but he was worried he'd sound like a show-off and had never worked up the courage. But now... now....
Amdi lays bellies-down on the floor around and near Ib, stretching out his long necks towards her, and all of him make a sound that will be wholly unfamiliar to everyone else in the castle. It's a kind of soft, keening, breathy whistle, and it is the first sound he has made in this place that has actually come out of his mouths. And at the same time, his members' eyes are uniformly growing glossy and wet around the rims. It's not a hard picture to interpret.]
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His paws skid on the slick marble as all of him at once come careening into the foyer, and then he stops. He stares. And slowly, with the tiny taps of dozens of claws, all of him walk forward.
Amdi isn't unfamiliar with death. He'd been in the castle yard when Mr. Steel's worker collective attacked the whitejackets. He saw Pham's ruined body being taken out of the starship after Countermeasure. He'd heard Blueshell's screams through his voder as he burned, though he and Jefri didn't know what those horrible sounds meant at the time. But all those were people he didn't know, or had only barely met. This...
He hadn't really known Ib well. He'd spoken to her a little bit a couple of times, and he thought she was nice, and he'd been thinking about asking her about math because her portrait said she liked math, but he was worried he'd sound like a show-off and had never worked up the courage. But now... now....
Amdi lays bellies-down on the floor around and near Ib, stretching out his long necks towards her, and all of him make a sound that will be wholly unfamiliar to everyone else in the castle. It's a kind of soft, keening, breathy whistle, and it is the first sound he has made in this place that has actually come out of his mouths. And at the same time, his members' eyes are uniformly growing glossy and wet around the rims. It's not a hard picture to interpret.]