--- NETUN, THE YEAR 771 (PRESENT DAY) ---
The scent of sandfrost was the most present thing in his mind as Netun walked through the desert -really walked. His feet were still a bit out of practice with every new body he made and his eyes were weaker than they should be this time around, but he felt a strange type of resolve as he walked through the moonlit spores that floated around him like fireflies.
His antennae twitched, receiving signals from those spores just like they’d done back before the betrayal.
~Footsteps!~
Curiosity, ~Human?~
~Half Breed,~ another corrected at a better vantage.
~Not many. Those dream big.~
Netun felt the corners of his mouth as they lifted into a slight smile at the conversation. In response, he sent out a slight probe of his own to observe the five souls watching him, greeting them as was right. ~I hear.~
~Familiar!~ One of them shouted the observation.
~Felt him before,~ another agreed
~Him?~ Asked a mind that was farther away.
Another sent confirmation. ~Him.~
Netun nodded his head and sat down in the sand, closing his eyes and moving his internal timetable to the speed of the conversing mushrooms, the little missing pieces of their sentences moved into wider speculations as he observed it more fully. “It’s Netun.” He explained, “I led the first ship.”
The spores went wild at that, the ones in the air dying quickly as new ones were pushed into the conversation by the mushrooms hidden beneath the sand. “I know you! How are you whole?”
Netun’s antennae vibrated his answer, letting out invisible spores of his own. “I’m not whole.” He corrected them. Little tendrils of fungus had started growing beneath his body, just as much a part of his consciousness as his mind. “I gave up my hatred and it repaired something in me. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to help the world and find every scrap of sandfrost.”
One of the voices, one that felt the most familiar to him, rose up from the background. The rest fell back at her wake. “Netun, how does this work? I’m sure at least one of us is ready to learn your way.” The voice was familiar, as was the bearing she had. Of course Salven was the leader here, he should have expected as much.
He turned to look out at the desert, feeling odd as he remembered the little patch of mushrooms he’d spent hundreds of years alone in. “How many of us are here?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Salven sent a bit of sorrow at his isolation, “Thousands. There were only a dozen unaccounted for, you were one of them.”
Netun closed his eyes, “That’s wonderful. I worried for so long- but that doesn’t matter now. Salven, all you need to do is forgive yourself and things will slowly fall into place.”
“I…” Salven paused, “It will be much harder to find an Alanerea who is ready for that than I assumed.”
Netun nodded, “Set in your ways then? Eight hundred years didn’t mellow anybody out?”
“We still…try to see past it, but I think some of us will never be capable. No longer being mortal does strange things to most of our minds. We did…so many things against our promises, all I’ve been able to think this whole time was that Alner was right to do as he did.”
“I can come back and check on everyone in a few weeks. But Salven, I found someone. Someone I think you’d be glad to see again.”
She sent curiosity as a response, so Netun rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a small -but sturdy- box. He opened it slowly so as to not alarm the things inside. When he set it down the culture of fungus eagerly spread out from the box and into the ground outside.
Well…two cultures of fungus. He’d found them tangled together rather thoroughly, but within a few months, they would separate again. The minds within were rather lethargic, not having enough mass to properly form thoughts in the same way sandfrost usually did it. It had taken quite a bit of telepathic pantomime to get both of them to understand that if they went into the box he would take them somewhere better.
They’d thoroughly devoured the two handfuls of leaves he’d given them last week, and they seemed more responsive than last time.
Salven absolutely radiated excitement as her spores erupted from the ground and scattered about in a rather showy exclamation of joy. They gathered rather forcefully upon the new culture and a few other souls that were listening sent out their own little probes. They all shouted the same word.
“TURSTE!”
How she could tell immediately who it was was a skill Netun had never developed. Apparently, there were more benefits from having lived in the desert all this time than he’d expected.
“TURSTE YOU LITTLE-”
Netun interrupted her by waving away her spores. “Now now, there’s no need for such things.” He reached down and prodded at the mass, “Turste here lost almost his entire mass just two months back, and he’s in no state to properly respond to you.”
“I haven’t heard from my brother in almost eight hundred years, I’m going to SCREAM AT HIM…once he grows his brain back so he can understand JUST HOW ANNOYED I AM.” Salven mulled on that for a bit before moving her mental probe toward the other soul. “I don’t think I ever met her though. But there is something off about her, things shouldn’t be able to grow like…that.”
With a hand, Netun gently guided the not-Turste mass away from the Turste mass. “I don’t know who she is either, but Salven, she doesn’t have the mark at all. I don’t think she was ever cursed in the first place.”
Salven sent curiosity, “You think she’s Turste’s daughter? Some of us have tried to reproduce but it never works.”
Netun frowned at the delicate structure of the living mass, absorbing that tidbit with not a bit of worry. How would they be able to return to the traditions of their past if they couldn’t have children? That just made the past of this mystery soul that much more vital. “Maybe. And there is something off about Turste too. But all we can do is wait.”
“We’ve gotten too good at that,” Salven said ruefully. “Thank you Netun, I’ll keep an eye on the two of them.”
“I have some things to look into, I’ll be back soon.” He stood up, leaving the toppled box in the sands. As he watched, the sand slowly parted, absorbing it and leaving not even a trace behind.
“We will await your return.”