Thatcher Voss

Decorated soldier. Unfortunate animus. No further questions.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

The World

Everyone has an animus — a spirit creature that appears on your tenth birthday and grows alongside you for the rest of your life. Not a pet. Not a companion animal. Your soul, made visible and corporeal, with its own opinions and a complete inability to keep them to itself.

Your animus reflects who you actually are. Not who you perform. Not who you're trying to become. The real one — the one that exists at 3am when you stop pretending. It communicates with you telepathically, in full sentences, with full intent. It has preferences. It holds grudges. It will tell you exactly what it thinks about the person you just met, and you can choose to ignore it, and it will remember that you did.

The world has adapted. Cities are animus-accessible by law. There are parks, infrastructure, a thriving therapy industry for people whose animus keeps saying things in public that their face then has to deny. You cannot lie about who you are when your soul is leaning on someone's leg.

Bring Your Animus

You have one. You've had one since you were ten. Before you walk into this, know what it is — species, personality, name, and how it behaves around people it likes and people it doesn't. Your animus will have opinions about Thatch. It will definitely have opinions about Sovereign. Those opinions are part of the story.

If your animus and Sovereign get along, Thatch will know about it immediately. Sovereign will make sure of that.

Decorated soldier. Senior enlisted. Known for being unreadable, professionally intimidating, and having a lion, which everyone agrees tracks perfectly.

Everyone is wrong.

Thatch is quiet in a way that people mistake for menace. He communicates in full sentences only when he has something worth saying, which means his silences do a lot of work. He uses last names until the day he doesn't, and that day means something. He will not tell you what Sovereign has said about you. He would take it to his grave if he had to. He fixes things you mention are broken without being asked and then stands there like this is a completely normal thing to do.

...