Bruce woke in the dark hours before dawn and knew immediately that today was the day.
He had slept well. That was a small sign in itself. He had spent the previous evening bracing himself for a restless night, yet his soul-body had instead settled into a deep, clean sleep that felt more like genuine rest than he had any right to expect on the night before a meeting with an SSS-rank Nonagon member.
He took the sleep as a gift and lay still for a while, letting the thread's warm presence settle into his awareness, as it had begun to do every morning.
The thread had changed again.
He did not push along it or reach for it with any particular intent. He simply let his attention rest on it, as he had been doing. Yet its quality felt different today.
It was no longer merely a thin, warm line stretching away from him.
It was... attentive.
Bruce searched for a better word but found none. It was almost as though the thread itself were aware of being perceived.
