So I just had to go out, huh. Maybe I could practice some more... No! I need to go eat!

Carefully I started to crawl out of my pod, I started shimmying down the fibrous-tendril-thingy, let's call it tendril fabric, and I headed down, where's down again? What's down? I needed to remember so I went back into my pod.

Okay. That was weird. How'd I forget what down was, I'm a... uhhh... I brushed my tendrils against the outside of my pod. A land-mammal no that's not right, I was a land mammal? What's land again? Yes. I was a ground-dwelling self-aware Upright moving mammal. What's a mammal, I moved my tendrils over. Ah, a mammal is an animal that nurses, and does a few other things, It's very vague on the subject of birth.

Anyways I'm running out of room on the inside of my pod here, there must be a way to compress memories to leave more room for storage, no. I need to eat. Maybe if I bring my pod with me. I'm in water it shouldn't be too hard.

I squeeze half of my tendrils through the fibrous material on the bottom of my pod, and I leave the rest of myself within it, I start shimmying back down the tentil fabric. And after a few minutes of that, I reached the bottom. it felt a bit like a net of tendril fabric hiding bits of rock and seashells together. Huh, interesting. Where do I go now? I started floating back up...

No! I quickly grabbed the bottom and pulled myself close, okay I felt the water changing, something was getting closer.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I tried to hide inside my pod and I felt a tendril brush across mine. Was it another of my kind? I reached out and,

Curiosity, thought, food, youth.

What was that? I reached back with a few more tendrils.

She, inquired to why I was not swimming? I tried to ask who she was?

Who? she sent back a few images, wait. What was it about land-going mammals? I tried to explain that I was once something else, that I had become special knowledge or understanding. But I didn't know where I was, and I couldn't see anything, what's wrong?

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The youngling was strange, it seemed to have lost the ingrained memories, some delusions about a surface, and some weird ideas about directions.

Sad, it seemed to feel a need to prove itself useful. Well, it was still one of us, he must have had his ingrained memories damaged by something.

Poor thing. It wasn't going to be able to survive on its own. But maybe it could come up with something that had merit, it wasn't his fault that his development had been broken.

Guilt

It isn't your fault, I repeated

even if he thought so. And without his inbuilt memories, I don't know how he'd be able to earn more shards or create his own. But, I had some to spare, yes, I can't let a young one die.

I pushed at him to remember to return it to me then passed to him a shard with a few memories on how to better store memories, or how'd he think of it? compression. I gave it a shard and I returned the thoughts of compression and pushed that he should return it to me when he integrates the memories. No.

Return it when you are done.

Gratitude.

Ah, now to get you fed.