CHAPTER 39: TEARFUL REUNIONS

My dreams are inscrutable, I’m fairly certain they’re nightmares yet again, but similar to the first time I nearly drowned, everything is awash in white. Perhaps I do have a merciful deliverer of dreams after all.

My eyes are itchy and swollen, but vision is already beginning to return. I guess the energy debt, and how much longer we spent beneath the waves, compared to my lung capacity at the time anyway, factored into my blindness previously. I find myself contemplating my vision, as a large, blurry figure begins to block it. A heavy form collapsing on me finishes stirring me to wakefulness. “Whuff!” I manage to exclaim, slightly in surprise, slightly from having the wind knocked out of me. I imagine that’s Luna, but I don’t hear any signs of Luni or Teuila, which is worrisome. Nor do I sense them with my danger wraps.

Okay, stay calm, think, is Luna here to get me to enter the pyramid, because they are in trouble, or is Luna here because she’s bored, and tired? If the latter, where are my family members? Likely heading to the point across the east side of the river, quite a ways to the south, where the rest of our family is. They probably expect to find me there.

“AARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!” I find myself shouting. Yet another solo adventure until I’m finally reunited with my family. The beavers that mill about within the ranged tactile sense of my danger wraps all startle a bit at my shout. Oh, sure, that you understand. Flippin’ ‘eck.

Luna swats my face to get me to shut up. I sigh momentarily, and take a deep breath. I let my sore eyes rest a might longer yet, as I hug Luna’s neck. She has definitely warmed up to us quickly. Last time I tried to make any motion anywhere near her head, she snapped at me. Alright, as sweet as cuddling a gentle giant is, I need to settle a lot of panic and ascertain whether or not all of my family members made it out of this whole horrid event unscathed.

“Luna, pardon me, friend. I need to catch up with them. Did they head southeast?” The giant, feathered bear lifts her head and nods. Wait, she really does understand me? I was just sort of humoring myself. Luna stands up slightly, shuffles back a few steps, then flops her heavy rear on the ground with a great thud once again. “Wow, you really are something. I’m so glad I met you.” My puffy, sore eyes wet with tears a bit as I smile at Luna. I shakily stand, approach her, and hug her one last time. Luna, for her part, gently swats me, which sends me flying about five feet to the side.

I manage to only stumble slightly from getting knocked around. I chuckle to myself as I let out a huffy sigh. I do what feels like a very iconic gesture indicating so long. I begin my journey south-eastward. Without looking back, I raise my right arm, flexed about my head, then straighten it quickly upwards just once while flicking my wrist slightly. It’s about half of a goodbye wave honestly. The only being over here that I even care about understanding the gesture right now is Luna, but that’s probably asking for a little much.

Once I’ve gotten far enough away, I put my recently practiced tendril movements to good use. Shunting two tendrils downwards, behind me to push me, while a third tendril flicks ahead to drag me forward helps me get a pretty decent velocity. It’s also a bit relaxing to be able to travel without expending any energy, just the mildest bit of concentration.

This method of travel lets me shut my brain off, and shut my eyes, thankfully. They still feel like they’re bulging slightly in my eye sockets. Eventually, I hear the rushing of the river, now the trick is figuring out how far north or south along the river I am compared to the dam. I probably should have headed straight east before veering south. Hm, my speed should be enough that if Luna separated from the girls only a bit before entering the clearing, then I might only be a few minutes behind them. If Luni has to stop somewhere to pick up Sugar and Spice, then we might all rendezvous at the same time. Relatively the same time, that’s the hope anyway.

I would probably find someone or something to kill, if I ended up in a merry chase of sitcom hijinks, missing one another by a few seconds heading back and forth. I’m in too frail of a mental state to handle any shenanigans right now. It might sound childish, but, come on, cut myself some slack. I don’t even want to list the things I’ve been through recently. Plus, there’s still that copy of that flippin’ stupidly deadly spear out there. Ugh, that balls up my innards then drops them like a pit into my stomach. Is that even the right phrase? Heck if I know, something about peach pits upsetting stomachs or something maybe, and people being afraid they’d grow a tree inside of them, so it’s equated to fear? That sounds about right, right? Or is it something something, knotted in the pit of my stomach? Bluh, it doesn’t matter.

It especially doesn’t matter, because the train of thought was so distracting, that like so many times before, my danger wraps try to get my attention to warn me of incoming impact, and I don’t manage to react until too late. I crash shield-first into a tree, then bounce, skid, and ever so casually, slowly fall into the river.

You’d think this river would have traumatized me by now, how often I end up in it, unplanned. Right? Yet nope, I’ve always come out of it in a better situation than when I entered it, more or less. I check my inventory, and I’m missing so much. My walking stick, my original sharp stick, most of my leaves, all of my vines save some fragments, nearly all my clay except a single tetrahedron face worth. Should I try sapping some leaves to my thunder stick, as a mini raft? No, no that sounds pretty incredibly stupid now that I think about it. Boom, boom, boom boom boom as I bonk into every last thing, or maybe even a constant unending loud crack, since it would be under constant pressure from being pushed by the river. Awe heck, I don’t even have the makings of Lil and my original lean-to tent anymore.

While distracted, checking my inventory for raft materials, I slam into several rocks in the river, a number of times, relatively hard. My equipment absorbs the majority of the brunt of it, but it still rattles my skull. Whatever, fine, I’ll walk. I thrust myself out of the river towards the east, using the tendrils. If it sounds like I’m starting to rely on them too much, trust me, it’s just for today, my partners and I will be back to training soon enough. I just need a freakin’ rest for my weary muscles.

Why am I asking myself to trust myself? Hm, actually, that’s a fair question, but also, unnecessary, because I do actually mistrust myself quite frequently, so it’s not like it was sarcastic, but I also wasn’t expecting to realize that the answer was fairly obvious. My head starts to spin as I think myself in circles about whether or not to trust myself and whether or not to ask myself if I trust myself, or to ask myself to trust myself when I know I don’t trust myself. Holy moly. Okay, yeah, brain needs a reboot. Does the river ahead sound weird? I swear to all that is holy, if I somehow ended up all the way down in the swamp already, and am at the cliff, I’m going to be so angry. There’s no way I could have made it that far already.

I decide to risk opening my eyes. Now I understand what the sound was, the main structure of the dam is ahead, but it’s partially collapsed, and there’s a massive whirlpool near it, likely where one of those series of locks was. I spy some beaverfolk milling about, which for some reason irritates me. I think it’s just because I was hoping that the first thing I saw when I got my sight back would be my family. Also these are likely beavers that I didn’t save, because they were nearer to the entrance of the dam. I realize only now that they’re scattered to quite literally the four winds. I led a pretty equal number of beavers out each wing, North, East, and West, and this would be the South wing, or entrance.

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I have to rest my eyes again as my vision blurs quickly. My ocular cavities still feel a bit too small for my eyes right now, like my eyeballs are bruised and puffed up, swollen perhaps. Hopefully a night’s rest, when I finally get one, will clear that up. Even without sight, and danger wrap senses, there’s plenty to be heard though, mostly that bruxing sort of sound that comes across when the beaverfolk are talking to one another.

I can’t handle this anymore, I’m impatient, I want to see my family, now. I haul the thunder stick into the air and slam it into the ground like an axe chop. The immense crack of thunder that follows is almost deafening. The sound that follows that however, melts my heart, soothing it from the terrible pain it’s currently in, as it’s raked by barbed wire, from a tether stretched far too far, for far too long.

“Reggie!” Several voices cry out. I want to maintain my composure, but I can’t. I fall to my knees and weep, I’m finally reunited, and there’s no more dangers between here and our new home. It’s finally over. Everyone rushes my direction, and everyone save Mata embraces me, surrounding me. I can’t help but to, what’s the phrase? Ugly cry? Yeah, I’m ugly crying. Sugar and Spice get to see this side of me, as one of their first impressions of me, since we’ve only just barely met, but impressions be darned, I can’t help it right now. I’m so relieved.

“Child, can you not open your eyes? We’re so happy to see you safe, surely it would do you a world of good to see the same?” Lao, somewhat jovially, pleads with me. I struggle to open my eyes as I smile towards her voice.

Teuila is still evolved, we’re still tethered, and she’s holding me the tightest, against her armor. I probably change a few shades of blue from inability to breathe properly, which causes the rest of the family to back off a bit. I stand and embrace her back, trying not to think about the recent events.

She simply whispers, “I’m okay, I’m ready to be me again, I can tell how much this has been hurting you, for this long.” I gulp, grimace, and nod slightly. I bite my lip as I release the energy tether, hoping that I can temper my reaction, and steel myself.

I fail. I fail miserably. When Teuila returns to her usual, naked, ottery self, as she reaches for me, I shriek, flinch, flail, and fall backwards, scrabbling backwards. This all happens as my mind floods with the terror of what transpired below. And the very worst of it? How I personally killed her. I killed Teuila, I killed her, but here she is, I killed her, but here she is. I burst into tears and sob loud, fearful cries as I hug my knees to my chest. Teuila tries to reach to me to comfort me, but sees my reaction, she hesitates, and I can sense tears form in her eyes as she makes a mad dash off east into the woods.

Half of the family is asking what’s the matter with me, why I would do that, the other half is trying to defend me, to explain on my behalf so I don’t have to relive it by explaining. I just start shaking, so badly. I inch towards the river, away from the family. I couldn’t control myself, I couldn’t hold against my fear, and I hurt my dear, beloved Teuila. Lil is the most vocal in trying to get everyone to calm down and give me a break, explaining that I went through something awful, and hinting at what it was, avoiding things that might trigger my panic.

How can I be with the one I love most, if I’ll tumble into fear, fall into panic every time I lay eyes upon her? I’m going to be sick. Once again, I find myself vomiting, for the how manieth time in the last few days? I let up sick, all over myself, at the edge of the river. I tried to stretch out, to aim away, but I was clasped so tightly fetal, I couldn’t unlock my arms. I’m pretty sure it probably smells awful, though I personally haven’t seemed to have had a sense of smell for quite a long time now. Anosmic or Apnosmic, something like that. Sure, my brain can go down a rabbit hole of self pondering, while I’m in a terrified panic, but can I even accept a touch, or gaze upon my beloved Teuila, when things are finally safe? I just sob harder in response to myself.

I vaguely hear Lil and Luni trying to get my attention across our shared mental wavelength, in fact, due to the way it works, it means they’ve been calling out to me for hours to try to help me, but I can’t even engage. I didn’t even notice Luni had walked over to use the soap stone to clean me up. I get the vague sense that Lil has been reading my logs, to try to see what happened since I sent the family out of the dam so that they have the whole picture, to fill Luni in. She’s also peaking at my logs on occasion, but not reading with scrutiny as much as Lil.

I so badly want to run after Teuila, to beg her to forget that I reacted like that, but I felt both of our hearts shatter when I did it. Lil’s trying to get my attention, probably to distract me. I just think quizzically at Lil, more or less sending them a question mark.

I finally notice Lil’s thoughts as they come across the wavelength, “Hey, that was all pretty rough partner, I’m so sorry you went through all that. We’re here for you, you know that, right? You haven’t been responding, but we’ll keep trying, because we love you, we’re here for you.”

“I, I love you too, all of you.” My eyes are puffier yet still, with tears of mixed emotions. Out loud I ask, “Lu, could you tell me about your adventure? What happened? How did you find out what to do?”

As Luni tries to fill me in, I’m unable to grasp, hear, or comprehend her, since her adventure included Teuila, as soon as Te was mentioned, my brain checked out once more.

The first thing I hear when I realize I still exist in reality is, “Um, um, so, um.” Luni balks, stammering. Then she suddenly, quickly rattles off a shout “I’m so glad I don’t have to put on a brave front anymore!” We all gaze at her, somewhat stunned before she continues. “I can, um, kind of maybe, keep being that upbeat, if, if you guys want, but, but um, I don’t really want that much attention, or responsibility, ever again.” Luni was pushing herself to be both brave and happy, that entire time? No wonder something seemed off! It’s all the more reason she’s our wonderful, lovable Luni.

I think it’s probably my longest panic episode ever, because I keep triggering repeated cycles and circles, as I so desperately want to think about Teuila, and to ask for her forgiveness for being afraid, but I’m too afraid to do it, because of being afraid of her, and I want to ask her forgiveness for feeling that fear, but I’m too afraid to do it, because of being afraid of her, and on and on.

I honestly didn’t even notice my family curl up around me protectively, I don’t know how long they’ve been taking turns napping around me. Even Mataalii, who looks as angry at me as ever, seems to have some sympathy there behind what seems like palpable hatred now. As I finally begin to calm, I realize Teuila’s been watching over me from the edge of the treeline, just outside the distance of the senses of my danger wraps, and my heart breaks once more, but I also freeze in a panic that I can’t escape. I hyperventilate as my vision tunnels, my pulse pounds into my ears, my tinnitus grows, and I awaken several of my family who’ve been napping around me. I only refrain from shrieking in terror because I lose control of my vocal chords and most of my muscles, seizing up and falling prone. I can virtually hear Teuila’s heart break further still, from the treeline as I burst into tears during my panic.

That’s the final straw that snaps my mind. I’m fairly certain anyway. I think I retreat into my brain, just so exhausted from endless panic. I stop perceiving the world around me, and my family decides to continue our journey, to finally find our new home. I don’t know how many days that my body follows, stumbling alongside them. I don’t know if Teuila gets close to me during this time. I am pretty sure that someone had to be taking care of me, and maybe occasionally carrying me, because I’m utterly checked out, buried beneath my own terror. I feel broken beyond repair, all the worse because the only real thought I have during all that time is how sorry I am to have hurt Teuila by having these feelings.

It feels like one phrase breaks through, just once, during my entire time checked out from reality. “I will always, always love you, and I will always, always wait for you. Take as long as you need.” I fear it was likely my imagination, but the faintest glimmer of hope keeps me from succumbing to a yet further level of despair. What could be deeper despair than this? Well, I think accidentally just outright dying from a self-inflicted heart attack is probably the next step, or something like that.