Jasmine walked down the halfway repeating a calming mantra in her head, trying to imagine the waves of the beach as she approached Ryo’s door.

The yacht was giant, enough to have a small ball room on one of the lower decks, so naturally Ryo had chosen a room on the complete opposite end of the ship to her.

She thought it was probably so that their frequencies couldnt interfere with each other, he was the only other human with a translator and his frequency always seemed to prickle and crash against hers when they were in the same vicinity. It was just easier when they were far, easier to think and easier to sleep that way too. The ocean in her mind gently lapped at the shore, the subtle sounds of sand and surf pulled from her memory calmed her. Jasmine took a deep breath but hesitated before knocking in the door, she didn't want to come on too strong or bubbly, even though a day had past the tension was still thick in the air.

She wanted to extend the olive branch.

Maybe it was too soon?

She took another deep breath to stop second guessing herself when Ryo’s sharp voice rattled in her head.

“I can sense you’re(Bright/annoying) there,” he informed her, then adjusting his tone to a softer one, “what do you want(of me)?”

Jasmine pulled back her hand, the sadness and hurt still lingered in his mind.

It felt so lonely.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she answered with her own inner voice, leaning with her back against the wall, “would you be willing to join a meditation session with Xant and me?”

She paused for an answer, and when she didn’t get one she added, “You don’t have to, I just thought I’d ask if you wanted to try some of the new ‘upgrades’, make the best of a bad situation…(that you never asked for.)”

Jasmine closed her eyes and tried to feel for the subtleties in his aura, curiosity and excitement flickered in his response.

“What kind of powers?” he asked, small flashes of posed hands and childlike imagination peered through the gloom.

“Oh, uhh,” truth be told she wasn't expecting him to reach out for the idea so suddenly, she was sure she was going to have to try harder to bring him on side, but progress was better than not! “well, for starters we can sense where other people are, we can change other peoples emotions and do other things with our telepathy, if were good enough we can swap memories and emotions or block them out entirely, at least that’s what Xant is teaching me now-”

The last suggestion created such a strong reaction Jasmine had to step back from the door.

Her body became overwhelmed with energy, an unobtainable opportunity presented before her, the gasp of a last hope in her throat as Ryo’s door sung right open.

“You can block out memories?” he demanded an answer, an honest answer.

The hoodie that usually obscured him pulled away enough that Jasmine stood face to face with the young man. His eyes were the colour of fresh chipped slate and filled with expressions betrayed by the translator.

She allowed her answer to seep through her body, her shoulders relaxed, a hand raised to hold her arm and her ocean drew in.

“Yeah,” she voiced it outloud, so he could hear as well as feel, “I blocked some stuff to help me sleep better at night,” The echo of horrors had faded, but she had not allowed herself to forget completely. As the ocean withdrew, still air surrounded her and gentle snow fell in the back of her mind. Those haunted eyes, that were so, so tired smiled back at her.

“Okay,” he replied, “I’ll do it,”

The hostility had eased enough she wasn’t afraid to smile back, it was like she had offered him the solution to all his problems.

Then again, she very well might have done.

-*-

Xant had spent the last half hour or so setting up his room for the meditation session, the space needed to be clear of any distracting items, but he was finding that impossible with human surroundings. Pillows and cushions on the floor, drinks of water for his human companions, and he was beginning to think he may just have to throw white sheets over everything else.

He had already pushed the bed and desk to one side of the room and wondered why there needed to be so many superfluous chairs and even smaller less useful table sides to accompany them.

While he admitted the decorations were pretty, they did little to lighten his mood like they did jasmine, so he tucked them away in the endless walkin.

The minimalist space reminded him of his hab room back on Uleesia, minus the red coloured plants of his formative years.

Satisfied with the space he had created, Xant made himself comfortable and soothed his own inner voice.

“Xant? You in there?”

Jasmine had returned with Ryo in tow, Xant had of course felt the pair returning, humans were like beacons in the dark, others naturally flocked to their signal.

The human male stiffened as he entered the room behind jasmine and laid eyes on Xant. The doctor looked up and refused to advert his gaze, while they had been in the room together many times this was the first time Ryo had acknowledged Xant in any sort of capacity.

Defensive, cold and dark, it was strange for Xant to feel such a frequency and deny its interference, his strength had grown in ways he’d not noticed, a reflection on his former self.

Ryo withdrew his leer, pulling down his hood further while Jasmine awkwardly folded her legs underneath herself sitting besides Xant.

Ryo copied Jasmine, sitting cross legged but looking way more comfortable in doing so.

“So, she (miss sunshine) says you can help me block memories,” The human stated, inviting Xant to interpret it as a question.

Xant looked at Jasmine who shrugged unhelpfully.

“Youre better at explaining it than I am,” She chuckled nervously.

“I suppose it would be irresponsible of me to assume you could define lessons you have not yet mastered, Jasmine.”

“Ouch, but fair,”

“But you said you could block memories to help you sleep, can you do that or not?”

Ryo demanded, Jasmine deflected.

“I can block my memories, some of the time (alcohol helps too though)”

Ryo’s frequency aggression began to pulse out, Xant was quick to step in and distract him.

“You can block memories, once you’ve learned how to control them, but its not what I would advise on a first session,” He explained to Ryo.

Ryo leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees while his hands held his chin and mouth from view.

“So what do you suggest for a first session?”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Oh,” Jasmine interrupted sheepishly, wiggling her fingers, “will you need to uhh, stick you fingers in his ear?”

“What?” came the alarmed question.

Xant realised that Jasmine had not been entirely upfront with Ryo about how the mediation sessions were conducted. The bond of trust between he and Jasmine on their first session had had weeks to form, Ryo was at best, dismissive of Xant and that did not make for a great connection. But, the young prince had not flown off in a fury, he was still there willing to listen.

Xant calmly removed his gloves and showed the other human his nerve tendrils, extending them out past his finger tips.

“While we can speak and feel freely through the translator, it has many filtering and safety measures built within it. To have a pure, unaltered connection we need to join nerve endings.

But, I have not tried to join since Jasmine altered my brain,” and made him more human, a condition Xant was ever unsure of.

“If it means we can block out my memories, I’m willing to give it a try,” Ryo admitted.

“I commend you on your determination,” Xant complemented, rising from his seat to take one next to the human.

Ryo looked nervously at the aliens tendrils as they twisted and twitched in the air.

“Its easier of you close your eyes,” Jasmine offered the advice, Ryo was quick to take it.

“I’ll need you first to quieten your mind,” Xant instructed, raising his hand to Ryo’s ear, “find your most happy memory, one where you are at peace,”

While Jasmine had to actively concentrate to find ‘the beach’, Ryo’s outer interference disappeared quickly, the gloomy presence melted away to a stillness. Xant carefully and slowly matched the quiet of Ryo’s mind, threading the nerves into his ear and soon, out of that quiet an image began to emerge...

It was a clear and starry night, the moon made the fresh snow glow.

He stood in the snow, warm clothes, cold face.

Gentle, peaceful, silence.

An old memory, a dear memory, Ryo was so much smaller in this image than the one that sat beside Xant.

Small, innocent, happy.

Ryo stood between two figures, holding each of their hands.

His mothers long black hair and smiling face,

His fathers tall figure and the red burn of a cigarette.

The security and love of family.

Ryo squeezed their hands tighter.

“This is your centre,” Xant guided, “How you perceive the world, and how others feel you in it-”

But Ryo’s grip on the memory became tighter, time froze, the silence turned from peaceful to stagnant.

Desperately trying to hold it in place, unchanging, eternal.

Xant tried to ease his grip.

“It doesn’t have to be focused so tightly,” he warned, drawing on the falling snow as an example, “it needs to be the whole memory not a single frame,”

But Ryo’s grip became painful…

he looked up at his mum, her smiling face.

Her smile became a blank stare when she talked on the phone to no one.

A mask to hide her desperation when he asked her what was wrong.

An answer she gave when her first answer it wasn’t enough.

He held her wrists, his small hands could barely wrap around them.

She had scrubbed the floor so hard her fingers were bleeding.

That awful smile on her lips when she told him it was to make sure the bugs didn't come back.

He didn’t want to live with bugs all over him, did he?

Ryo looked to his father.

The man became so tall he couldn't see his face any more,

he couldn't meet his gaze without fear, without pain.

He didn’t dare look at the shadows in his fathers eyes.

“You better not turn out like her,”

The cigarette smoke added bitterness to his voice, the fire burnt so harshly.

“Weak,”

There was no longer a face on the man before him.

Long dark fingers coiled around his throat.

A clench fist sunk into his stomach.

He sat in the cold of a classroom, entrance exam before him.

The snow fell gently outside, the last of winters grasp.

He lifted his pencil, and went to write his answer.

But he couldn’t read the paper.

It was crawling with beetles.

No one else had noticed, if he spoke out hed be expelled, he’d ruin his future.

But there were too many bugs on his hands.

He needed to get them off, they wouldn’t go away…

He raised his pencil, and aimed for one on the center of his hand-

The memory broke, shattered to pieces as the pain shot through them.

Ryo ripped himself away, clamoring backwards, sweat pouring down his face, heart racing in his chest.

His aura returning to the disgusted dark cloud.

“I said I wanted to block those memories!” he cried “Not relive them!”

Xant lay still on the floor, trying to sort out the memories running through him.

What was his, and what was Ryo’s what was a dream and what had occurred.

It melded into each other without rhyme or reason, he had been taken again by the human memories and swallowed whole.

Jasmine’s warm presence brought him back to reality, lifting him up from the floor, her fingers screamed with concern, blocking out the Freq-aggression Ryo was flinging at them both in full force.

“Are you alright Xant?” her voice a whisper, holding back the power of her panic.

He raised a hand over hers.

“I will be Jasmine,” he reassured her and stood on his own two feet and tail.

“Whatever!-” Ryo exclaimed, wiping frustrated tears away. He jumped off the floor, trying to run from the room, but crashed straight into Beau.

“What on earth is going on in here?” the mountain of a man asked, he peered in and pulled a puzzled expression, “ya’ll having a party without me?”

Panic rushed into Ryo, as he quickly tried to deny it.

“Nothing happened-”

“Were trying to suppress awful memories,” Jasmine offered an explination, “but they’re too fresh to contain in the moment,”

“Suppress memories huh?” Beaus eyes looked between Xant and the flustered Ryo, clearly not liking the situation he had stumbled upon. Beau lowered himself to be eye to eye with Xant, “is that a service or a feature?”

“Its an option,” Jasmine replied firmly, standing between Beau and Xant, a barrier to protect her friend, “Xant wasn’t doing anything Ryo didn't ask for.” she answered a question Beau had not asked and Xant was once again forced to realise there was more going on that what was being said.

Beau stood slowly, towering over Jasmine, the hard line of his gaze looking her over and she stared harshly back.

The bright, warm glow became frantic but she did not step back or let her eyes waver.

Freq would not work on Beau, he had clear size, experience and skill over her, but she stood her ground all the same to protect Xant from him.

Did Beau see what Xant had done to Ryo as a threat?

Did it cross some cultural Taboo Xant wasn't privy to yet?

“Tsk,” The sigh escaped Beaus teeth, in a moment the tension was gone, a small laugh followed. “Geeze girl, what do you think I’m gonna do? I was just worried is all, you talking about suppressing memories, thats some scary stuff...” He stepped to the side of Jasmine not backing down but desecellating his approach, “but if you say its safe then, I want him to have a look,”

“A look?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be too hard right?” Beau tapped his forehead and waited for her to relay the message. “Do to me, what you did to him, I’ll be the judge on if its what he asked for,”

Xant began to worry about humans and wanting memories erased, what horrible experiences could Beau be hiding? Was human warfare as strenuous as their own galactic war front?

“In a moment,” Xant told Jasmine, “once I’ve calmed down...”

Jasmine furrowed her brow with concern.

“You don’t have to push yourself Xant, I don’t want you going comatose on me again,”

“Don’t worry Jasmine,” He said, steeling his nerves for whatever beau had waiting for him.

Without a translator Xant had no choice but to join with Beau, his nerves tickling the large man ear as they slid inside the calm...

Sweltering hot day, cool sweet tea, the laughter of friends and family, the soft fur of a friend on his lap.

The happy memory contrasted with the dark

Endless stretch of desert, the air burnt his lips and nose, it cracked his skin.

Blood stained the sand, screams filled the air, fire burned.

Heavy, hot, strangling.

Dead eyes, empty shells, small bodies.

Beau stood and watched.

Xant tried to draw away, the images, the memories he saw gruesome, but he felt nothing.

No memory was that clear and yet so hollow.

Like it wasnt whole.

The man stood apart from his memories, as though they weren’t his but he was holding them within him.

Was this what he wanted to show Xant?

‘I don’t remember a lot of it’ Beaus voice spoke, ‘its probably best I dont” the soldier stood and waited, staring at Xant, waiting for a reply.

Xant breathed out slowly, feeling the challenge the human had presented him, the transference of memories was like second nature to them, thankfully, he had recently received an abundance of practice. Xant unfurled his own dark memories and showed the human.

The empty eyes of the Vassal stared back at Beau, hollow and hungry.

The fear for his life, the screams of his companions, the acid and the inches that stood between Xant and the death threatening to swallow him.

The dread and the dark, the hopelessness and fragility, washed away by the river at their feet.

Xant sat amongst the grass, admiring the beauty of its construction, the arrangement of the stars and the sounds of the station around him.

‘I am not your enemy, through misstep and misunderstanding I shall be paitent’ Xant sat on the black sand beach, watching the colours change with Jasmine, smiling beside him, ‘just as you have been painted with me,’

Xants hand pulled away slowly, Beau quickly put his finger into his ear and twisted away the sensation.

“Jasmine,” Beau stood, his voice gravely quiet, “tell your friend I meant no disrespect, but I understand him a little better now, hes not as alien as the others.”

Jasmine nodded, worry welling in her throat.

“Ryo,” Beau turned to the boy, who had made himself apart of the wall, “don’t go looking for quick fixes…”

Ryo nodded silently, and watched as Beau left the room.

“Xant?...” Jasmine held her friends hand.

He squeezed her fingers back.

Human’s care deeply for those close to them, they care so deeply it causes them and their loved ones pain. Xant understood it better now, they were small of number and barely knew each other, but the desire for connection was still there. The desire to protect those they cared about, to preserve what was human.

“I’m alright Jasmine, I can stand,” his ears twitched as he gave her a side smile, “but I would not be opposed to a drink,”