In meditation, the world makes sense. The luminous connections spool away from me giving me the hint of a picture that’s far too big for me to actually see. The peripheral links are barely there for me, only the ones that directly touch me having more presence than just a flicker of instinct. Like something seen out of the corner of one’s eye, but invisible when looked at directly. My mind explores the network of connections linked to me.
Several of them are linked to my Bound and I touch them in a different way than before, sensing the connection I have with them from the outside as well as the inside. I feel the links between the cubs, half-visible to the sense I only seem to have access to when in this trance. Far less perceptible are the network of links between them and everything else, but I am aware something exists in the space. For a moment, I even feel a flicker of emotion through the faint connections they have with me, too brief to identify any more than that it was there. From my companions, I move on to sensing the rest of the world around, the blur of connectivity of everything to everything else.
Hints of fire lick at my sense of self, not hurting but teasing, tantalising me with secrets only they know. Even the trees have links that stretch out into the world around them, though theirs are hostile, rejecting the touch of mine. I feel their strong links to each other, the lines so powerful they stand out to my sense in comparison to everything else around. Apart from the strong connections to each other, there are also thick lines that plunge deep into the earth. In curiosity, I reach out the sense, moving far more by instinct than thought. Deep, deep, deeper does my perception go. I wonder why the trees around me have such a thick connection with something below…
And then I’m yanked out of my trance by a touch to my shoulder, my physical shoulder. I flinch, the sensation suddenly too much, gentle as it is. My body feels ill-fitting, both confining and loose in the wrong spots. I blink and swallow, and then the world rights itself. Like emerging from an immersive dream, I feel my way back to who I am. Not the trees, not the connections, not the fire...Markus Wolfe, human.
I rub a hand across my face. Maybe I need to be careful with this trance stuff. Then I chuckle dryly: I’d have never thought I’d want to put a warning label on meditation of all things. I check my bars: my mana is full so probably just as well I was woken. There are other things to do.
As the first thing, I feed more healing magic into Bastet’s body, pleased with her progress. In the end, I don’t need all of it to heal the surface wounds which remain. Although I sense that she’s not quite at full health, her body seems mostly healed to me. My hand falling away from her side, I gaze at her head intently, hoping she’ll wake up soon.
What do you want us to do with this, master? River asks me, the sudden rumble and clicks of his voice breaking through the quiet which had taken hold. I twist around to see him holding a fist-sized crystalline structure. Pushing myself to my feet with a wince, I head over to him. Before examining the thing he’s holding more closely, I look my Bound seriously in his bronze slit-pupil eyes.
“You don’t have to call me that, you know.” He frowns – which, incidentally, on a lizard-man involves his mouth opening a little and his spikes flashing a dark orange.
What?
“You know...master.” I hadn’t cared before, my anger at the lizard-folk - and River by dint of being their representative - crushing any sense of guilt. But considering the situation, what he’s done for me, what he’s given up in pursuit of my objectives...The word makes me feel dirty now, like I’m the bad guy. “Just call me Markus.” River eyes me uncertainly and with no little confusion for a moment.
Very well...Markus. Nodding in satisfaction, I squint at the red crystal the lizard-man is holding. It’s large, filling most of his hand. It looks like a rough-cut ruby, or a chunk of red-tinged glass. Taking it from River, I tilt it in the light of the sun. The colour isn’t very strong, but somehow it renders the material opaque nonetheless. Light acts strangely when it hits the thing – at times reflecting off it like it would a real gemstone; at others seemingly absorbed into a matte surface. I think I’ve seen something like this before, though they were a lot smaller.
“Is that…?” I don’t know what to call it – I just know that Bastet ate two of the thumb-nail sized ones we found in those insectile things, giving the three others to the cubs. I shove the memory down the Bond to River, attaching a questioning feel.
Yes, he confirms. We call them Energy-Hearts, because they are what grow in us and are instrumental in our control of Energy.
“You have them too?” I ask, curiously.
Everything does. Once they are strong enough, he replies. But right now...no, I don’t have one. He seemed a little ashamed, or embarrassed, perhaps.
“I don’t want to pry,” I preface, “but if you’re willing to tell me why….?”
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If you wish to know, he shrugs, a little uncomfortably. It is no big secret. I haven’t grown my Energy enough to cross the threshold. Once I do, I will either be able to direct my Energy into my body to strengthen it and grow bigger, or I will be able control some lesser form of Energy like our shaman and my...our...the herbalist. For a moment I war with myself. Should I…? Finally coming to a decision, I sigh and brace myself. Whether it rocks the boat or not, it needs saying.
“Look, man, I…I want to say that I appreciate your help. You...stood with me, against everyone you knew. And I appreciate it.” River’s looking at me and, if the feeling coming down the Bond is anything to judge by, he’s more offended than anything else.
I swore to serve you, he replies finally, his tone sounding like I just insulted his mother. Brood-mother, whatever. I grimace mentally. Why am I doing this? My ex made it clear that she considered my emotional intelligence to be the equivalent of a teaspoon. Just call me Ron. But I’m doing this because ever since we’ve left the village there’s been this unspoken...weight in the Bond. And my history with unspoken negativity has proven that just ignoring it doesn’t actually make it go away. No, it just makes it fester and ferment until it explodes one day and destroys something. It’s that thought which makes me continue.
“Yeah, you did,” I acknowledge. “But I also recognise that you could have followed the letter of what you swore, and I appreciate you following the spirit.” He makes a derisive noise, the sense of insult growing.
Prey must be coerced and threatened into fulfilling their tasks. The word of one of the Tribe is our bond.
“Right,” I say slowly. Different cultures, I guess. And if my experience in the lizard-folk village was anything to judge by, slavery or indentured servitude or whatever seems pretty normal. I kinda want to dig more deeply into that, but it’s not the time. “Well, then, I just want to say that I’m sorry about...well, about what had to happen.” He just looks at me, his spikes rippling with different colours. “You know, about that one that I… that died. You seemed like you thought they were pretty important and -” I cut myself off as I start babbling.
It doesn’t matter, he dismisses, turning away and crossing his arms, his tail shifting uneasily behind him, pain coming through the Bond.
“It clearly does to you,” I point out, unable to stop myself. He whips around to glare at me, his mouth open properly to bare his teeth and spikes flashing a deep red.
It doesn’t matter! he snarls at me. I raise both hands in surrender and don’t push further. The display is pretty intimidating but that’s not why I stopped: the benefit of being the Tamer in this situation is the certainty that I could stop him from attacking me if he did. Clearly my attempts to point out the elephant in the room have been worse than useless. I should have known better than to try to broach emotions – when has it ever turned out well? Especially at a time like this. Idiot, I castigate myself. I turn away a little to give him some space, letting the veil of silence fall back into place.
My emotional state too disrupted to be able to easily relax back into meditation, I shove the Energy-Heart into my Inventory and move towards the massive corpse stinking up the air near us. Pulling out my knife, I start digging into the side of the salamander myself. The Energy must be dissipating from the carcass already; I don’t want to miss out on what I can get from the heart.
I still haven’t found it by the time I’m digging elbow-deep in the body. I’ve probably got the wrong angle here, or something. Muttering curses under my breath, I pull my arm out and try to look into the hole. Of course, I don’t see anything – the light barely pierces the tunnel I’ve made and what I can see is just red flesh, indistinguishable from any other bit of body.
Here, let me, River offers quietly, his tone subdued as the message comes over the Bond. Wordlessly I step aside. He sticks his clawed hand in, a look of concentration on his face. I see the blackened scales over his shoulders and arms, the clotted wounds which have ripped through them – the marks the fight with the salamander left on him. Without even thinking about it, I place my hand on his shoulder and channel the mana I’ve regenerated into him. Flesh knits together and grows anew to replace burnt bits. In a few moments, he looks significantly better. Dirty, but uninjured. I let my hand drop, satisfied.
Suddenly realising he’s staring at me, I look away for a moment, embarrassed and not really sure why. Then I straighten up, looking back at him with determination: why should I be embarrassed? I didn’t do anything wrong.
Thank you, River tells me, a hint of something I can’t interpret in his voice. The emotions coming at me through the bond are too complex to parse, positive and negative mixing together into an indecipherable mass. I shrug.
“You were injured and I had the mana.”
So were, are, you, he points out. True. I shrug. I’ll heal myself in a few minutes time – it’s not like it really cost me anything. I’ve lived with the pain this long; I can live with it for a few minutes more. My own healing regeneration has already started working on the wounds anyway. He looks at me for a long moment and then turns away to continue digging into the side of the salamander. As he works, staring blankly ahead at the wall of flesh, the emotions within him stabilise a little leaving dominating emotions of loneliness and sadness.
I thought I knew what I was giving up when I agreed to your bargain. I thought that knowing I was doing my best to save the Tribe would be enough of a justification for my betrayal. He’s silent for a few moments. I was wrong, he adds finally, almost in a whisper. It still hurts. I turn towards him, my mouth open to say something, anything to help with the broken-glass style pain I feel emanating from him.
It’s a familiar pain, one I’ve felt too many times before, and it’s one I don’t wish on my worst enemy. I’m interrupted from whatever banal platitude I might have uttered by a shift in his emotion. Underneath the negative emotions is the hint of something else: hope. He looks back at me, the same emotion evident in the hints of pale green that dance between his spikes. But maybe my vow of servitude shall not be as much of a burden as I feared.
Before I can respond, not that I really know how to, a new set of feelings filters down the Bond. Confusion, fear, hope, and a determination to protect.
Bastet.