She handed me a piece of material similar to the inside of my pod, I carefully took it from her.
Gratitude, I... well, I communicated, sent? I communicated back to her, With the tendril that seemed to be connected directly to my brain, if you could call it that, I gentle sent across a communication. One word, Gratitude, one feeling. It came naturally.
I took the shard, back into my shell, and let my tendrils brush across it to try and remember the information within, pre-member? Learn.
She gently began to pull me in a direction, among the myriad communications she was sending me, I could make out food, shard, and membrane. She helped guide me back to the root of the tendril fabric that was holding my pod to the ground and she had me tear its connection to the bottom and store it inside my pod.
It's getting a little crowded in here. Oh right, food.
She pulled and I followed.
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He was still confused, even the most basic of information seemed to be lost to him, so as I felt through my memories I repeatedly communicated all I knew about the structure of our nest, and the work that needed to be done to keep it whole. Maybe in one of his weird thoughts, he would have something, Yet he seemed to have trouble with even the most basic of thoughts and memory storage.
Still, I lead him on, simply communicating whatever memories I could, then communicating them in their compressed form trying to help him more efficiently make use of his memory, he wasn't going to be any use if he could not figure out how to use what he had.
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It was like she was speaking to me in a language I couldn't understand, until I could, she was explaining how to use the memory compression shard she handed me.
I began to reorganize the thoughts I had, but I had trouble when it came to the more human bits, they were put together in such a haphazard and interlocking manner I was afraid I would destroy them If I attempted compression. She explained to me how the compression worked and I stored everything I knew of walking and moving around, huh, it took about a third of the place, but I still needed to hold the compression shard to reinterpret it how could I make my own?
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Carving, string, membrane.
I had to put it together with string? Oh the tendril-fabric, Tendril-fabric, amusement. I got it I'm dumb I can at least make that out. So I hold it together with the membrane. Oh if I rip it sticks to the pod material, So I can tie it together or use it like glue, Gratitude. I communicated.
Amusement, worry.
Oh, and I didn't have enough memory room to really pick up any practical skills? I needed to either compress or overwrite the land-mammal memories. Well, I couldn't it was what made me me.
Identity? It was the most complex communication I understood from her yet, yes, these memories were linked to my identity, I needed them to hold who I was.
Stupor,
How was that supposed to help?
Growth,
Inquiry, I responded.
What came back was still jumbled, I store what I could I'd make sense of this all later.
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Frustration, I sent to him, at least he'd be able to understand that. So he had entered stupor with the new memories, not even knowing how to move through space. Well, that's a problem his illusions were already becoming part of his identity. But I couldn't ask him to forget that, it would break him, it was too integrated. This would be a problem,
Sound?, Sound?
Water-vibration, Water? is... space, ah, Space-fullness.
He thought he had understanding on the nature of space-fullness, unfortunately, the elder who knew to make use of that was currently in stupor. Well, why was he so weak? He needed food, I tried to communicate silence and stupor, he shouldn't be using his energy on thought until he ate, and not until he spent some time digesting as well.
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Peace, Silence, Rest, Stupor, Food,
Ah okay, I'll shut up now.