Quiet-Dream’s excitement had very quickly turned to horror when it became obvious just how dire the circumstances were for the new arrivals. One was comatose, one was catatonic, and the only one in any shape to converse was apparently “switching places” with their body’s original occupant in some way.
“I just don’t get it,” the squirrel chirped to no one in particular as he and the other humans, along with Sunny-Plume and Swift-Paw, sat around Song’s pond in the courtyard. The kits were taking the opportunity to scamper about in the grass independently of each other. They were waiting for word on what, if anything, they could do to help, and it was agonizing. “What happened to them? Why is it so different?”
“...I’m not so sure it is different,” Ink-Talon croaked, pacing back and forth like he often did when thinking.
“What are you talking about? They’re all… inconsistent, and broken. Shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, rules to this?” The squirrel gripped the grass beneath his paws, tearing out a few blades in frustration. “Why did they end up in such a bad way when we came out fine, relatively speaking.”
“Speak for yourself.” Song’s tail slapped against the water with surprising force, showering the grass on the opposite side with a light spray. “I’m not that far off from the dragon, all things considered. Just… mixed, rather than whatever their arrangement is.”
“Okay, but that’s from a head injury, right? You’re a bit of an outlier.”
“Quiet-Dream,” Ink-Talon stopped pacing and turned to face him, his tone becoming incredibly serious. “I almost died because my mind and body weren’t connected correctly, remember? I’m only okay now because of medical intervention, like they’re getting now.”
“But that’s not… I mean…”
“I can’t actually hear anything higher pitched than a human could,” The bat chimed in with a quiet chirp. “I learned that when I decided to try echolocating a few nights ago. I thought it would be neat. I figured out how to make the sounds, but I couldn’t hear them. I could feel myself making them, and the Guardian at the end of the hall even asked me to stop, since the noise was bothering it, but to me, I was silent. I asked a Physician, and it told me that this bat was not hard of hearing before I… took over. It’s my mind that can’t process it, not my ears. And I still can’t move my wings right, even after a bunch of practice…”
Quiet-Dream looked hopefully at Maggie for backup, even though they were now in the minority of people without these problems. The myna just shrugged.
“Pearl...” Sunny-Plume lightly nudged her with a wing.
“Okay, fine!” Maggie sighed. “Since we’re all apparently in a sharing mood. Before I met any of you, I had to spend a day or two completely relearning how to move, because everything was scrambled. Fingers to tail feathers, wrists to elbows, hips to neck… I never brought it up because you all had your own issues to deal with, and it was in the past by that point. There.”
“So I was the only one who was fine, then? All this time-”
“Stop it.” Maggie cut him off almost immediately. “You’re about to get all mopey and blame yourself just because you can’t read people’s minds, and we’ll have to try and convince you that it’s not your fault, and then the whole day is going to be derailed while you sulk. Please don’t.”
”Really, Maggie?” Ink-Talon shot the myna an annoyed glare.
“What? Am I wrong?” The awkward silence that followed spoke louder than any answer.
“Okay, point taken.” Quiet-Dream took a deep breath. Maggie was right, of course. That was where his train of thought had been going. She had his back, even if putting things diplomatically wasn’t her strong suit. “We have more important things to deal with. Like why am I okay? I mean, in terms of mind-to-body stuff. If something protected me, then knowing it may help us help the others.”
The group sat in silence for a bit, looking at each other for answers and coming up with nothing. Thankfully, that silence didn’t last forever.
“Oh!” The bat squeaked, pushing themselves up to a standing position. “Our bodies are all different!”
“All of you are different species, so that would go without saying, no?” Swift-Paw finally spoke up, having been uncharacteristically quiet thus far. “What are you trying to get at? You cannot afford to waste time on philosophizing.” It was only now that Quiet-Dream realized that she had been wracking her brain as hard as the rest of them, trying to come up with a way to help.
“Not just different from each other, different from how we were! And different in different ways!”
“I don’t follow,” Quiet-Dream chittered, tilting his head a bit.
“Okay, so,” the bat extended their wings to balance better. “Between all of us, we have one salamander, two birds, and two mammals. I have these weird wings and stumpy legs, so that just leaves you as a mammal with four kinda-normal limbs. The average human could probably learn to be a squirrel way easier than any of our species.”
“Not to mention our brains,” Song added. “Given what we know about Verdant-Trail and myself, I wouldn’t be surprised if the farther you get from a mammal, the less… stable your consciousness is.”
“Huh.” Quiet-Dream chirped, a familiar unease creeping into his voice. “That’s a good point, but that means they’re…”
“That would mean that our new arrivals are going to have an extremely rough time of it no matter what.” Ink-Talon finished his thought. “I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.”
“Nah,” Maggie hopped up onto her feet, self-assured determination practically radiating from her stance. “We just have to get creative, is all.”
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“So, your idea is… physical therapy?” Lead Physician Pensive-Pace stared at Maggie incredulously.
“Well, for the crab, at least,” the myna replied. “If their body is so alien that they can’t even begin to move it consciously, then they might not actually be in a coma. They could be paralyzed by the disconnect, but still conscious. If that’s the case, then this should give them an example to latch on to and learn to move. It’s how Sunny has been helping me with my wings.” She extended her left wing, and wiggled the wrist joint up and down a bit. “I didn’t even know I had this joint until a few days ago, but when Sunny here pulled on it, I was able to start figuring it out. This method it came up with really does work for this.”
“I think your tenacity should take the credit for that,” Sunny-Plume whistled, shuffling their feet awkwardly.
“Just accept the compliment, Pretty-Plume.” Maggie tilted her head up and tapped her beak against the flustered kestrel’s, mimicking an exaggerated “mwah” sound as she did so. It was so sickly sweet that Pensive-Pace shot the pair a desperate, almost pleading look.
“Are you finished?”
“More or less.” The responses to her and Sunny-Plume becoming an item had been varied, as she’d expected. Quiet-Dream and the kits had been extremely happy for her, while Ink-Talon and Song had congratulated them despite clearly keeping some unknown reservations to themselves. The bat was at first confused, and then swiftly excused themselves from the conversation and never brought it up again. As for the rest of the creatures around here, it was just normal to them, save for her extremely human displays of affection. Most creatures found them as excessive as her voice, which obviously did nothing to discourage her.
“Well, Explorer Valiant-Claw’s condition is stable for now,” the Physician grumbled. “You may attempt your method, but I will be observing. Both to ensure that you do not cause any further harm, and to take notes if it does actually work. Please follow me.”
The wombat led the two of them to a corner of the infirmary where the crab was being kept. It was a sad sight, the poor thing curled and splayed out in unnatural ways, their occasional twitching being the only thing to indicate that they were still alive.
“So, first I need to let them know what I’m doing,” Maggie said, gingerly climbing onto the bed next to the crab. Making sure she positioned herself where their strange little eye-stalks could see her, she began tapping on their carapace with her beak, expressing her message in the force and rhythm of her taps.
”Hey, are you in there? I know things are rough, I can’t imagine the hell you’re going through, but I want to help you. My name is Maggie, and I’m human, like you probably are. I’m going to start moving one of your limbs around. If you can feel it, try and focus on the sensation. Pay attention to what parts of you are pulling on other parts. Those are the parts of you that you need to use to move.”
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Maggie gingerly grasped one of the crab’s legs with her beak and began to move it back and forth, up and down, and bending it at the joints. After a minute or two of this, she stopped, and tapped out another message to the crab.
“I hope you felt that. Now, what I need you to do is try to move that leg. Focus on recreating the sensations, of moving the parts of you that you just felt moving. And if you can manage it, try and tell us something with it. You can express yourself with movements, and we’ll Understand you.”
Maggie ended her message and stepped back, and the three of them watched and waited. Nothing changed, and the leg remained where Maggie had left it. After what felt like more than enough time, Pensive-Pace spoke up.
“It was a good effort, and may be able to help others in the future, but I am afraid that reaching this one may be beyond our means at the moment. I am sorry.”
“Yeah, I know.” Maggie sagged, defeated, and Sunny-Plume preened the feathers on top of her head a bit for comfort. It was worth a try, but still… “Thanks for letting me-”
“Pearl, look!” Sunny-Plume squawked, jolting upright and waving a wing towards the crab. The leg Maggie had worked on was twitching, and not in the occasional involuntary way their limbs had been up to that point. The whole group watched with bated breath. After a few more seconds of twitching, the leg halted, and then began to flex. Slowly, it curled inward, and then extended back out just as slowly. The whole process must have taken well over a minute, but the whole time, the message came across, clear as could be.
“...Like …This?”
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Okay. Just ‘get creative,’ she says. Ink-Talon stared at the strange, unresponsive bird in front of him. Maggie was trying something with the crab, and the komodo dragon was apparently catching up on multiple days of missed sleep, so that left this one for him to try and help. Dunno how I’m supposed to do that. The only thing I really have going for me that a doctor doesn’t is my Attunement. If I could just expand that awareness, maybe I could figure out something. But I haven’t been able to figure it out any time I’ve tried. But surely someone here must know more about that…
“Excuse me, Physician Able-Heart?” The crow turned to the serval observing his visit from the side of the room. “Do you know anything about Attunement?”
“As the College’s resident Attuned Physician, plenty, why?” The cat tilted its head.
“Oh, so you must have already tried this. I’m Attuned myself, but only to my own body, and I was wondering if I could… extend that, somehow, to try and figure out what’s wrong with them.”
“It certainly would not hurt anything to try, and you may still find something.” Able-Heart stretched and stood up. It was only a little taller than a domestic housecat, but far more lithe and wiry in its proportions. It still could probably eat a bird like him for lunch, and his experience being overwhelmed by the raw speed of Golden-Streak still left him on-edge as it approached. “Not to mention, if you have already sacrificed so much to be Attuned, it would be prudent to know how to properly utilize it. What aspect of yourself are you Attuned to? ”
“What… aspect?” It was Ink-Talon’s turn to tilt his head, confused by the question.
“Yes. How you extend your awareness changes depending on that. I am Attuned to the structure of the body, the integrity of flesh and bone, so I was only able to verify that the afflicted Explorers were not injured. A different, more specialized Attunement could certainly find things that mine could not.”
“I don’t think I’m Attuned to any specific aspect of myself like that. I’m aware of all of it.” Ink-Talon casually clicked his answer, only to find Able-Heart staring at him, its expression entirely unreadable.
“All of it.”
“Yeah?”
“Every aspect? Bone structure, organ health, musculature, limb position, neurology, dietary needs, feather condition, hormonal balance, toxicity? All of those and more?”
“...Yes?” Ink-Talon nervously chirped his reply. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“No!” The serval yowled at him before composing itself somewhat. “Apologies for being rude, but what kind of hackneyed, ill-conceived method of Attuning yourself did you use?”
“I’m… not sure?” Ink-Talon thought back to that horrible night. He knew the gist of what had happened, but he’d been informed of that after the fact. The actual events and process had been rendered an incoherent blur in his memory thanks to his sleep deprivation. Of course, he could mention Physician Mindful-Sight’s involvement, but he’d gotten the impression that the chameleon wasn’t supposed to have done what it did for him, so he decided to keep that part to himself for now. “I wasn’t entirely lucid when it happened, and it was over before I really knew what was going on.”
“Over before- how- that’s-” The Physician failed to growl out a coherent thought and paused, shutting its eyes and taking a deep breath before swiftly and repeatedly ramming its head into the crow’s side, shoving him towards the exit. “Out! Out! Into my office! Now!”
Able-Heart’s “office,” if it could be called that, was a curtained-off room built in a corner of the Infirmary that had about as much floor space as a human supply closet. Even by “small animal” standards, it was tiny. In that limited space, there were two simple cushions for seating, one small angled wedge of polished wood for writing on, and then piles and piles of paper. Records, reference materials, messages, and uncountable other things were strewn about with no sense of organization or care. They even had to step over them to get to the cushions.
“Be careful of the papers, I do not usually have patients in here.” The cat sat down on a cushion opposite Ink-Talon and studied him, a vague sense of disbelief being the only thing he could get from it.
“Wait, am I still a patient?” The crow clicked the question. “I thought the Lead Physician cleared us all.”
“It did. You, however, have a different problem than your altered memories and identity.” Able-Heart’s gaze intensified. It was deathly serious. “Attunement is a delicate process that can take years to accomplish properly. This is because doing it faster means that less precise control is asserted over what one becomes Attuned to. Rushed or otherwise botched Attunements can be crippling, flooding the mind with so much extraneous information that it becomes impossible to process anything else. If you really are Attuned to that breadth of detail, I am astonished that you are able to function.”
“Well, mostly I become aware of something if it… causes a problem, I guess? Like when I get hurt, or I’m feeling sick, or I’m trying to do something physical.” Ink-Talon thought back to all the ways he’d used that awareness, and all the ways he hadn’t. “And it doesn’t exactly let me know ahead of time if I’m going to cause a problem. More than once I’ve exhausted myself unexpectedly, only to be made aware that I’m exhausted when I’m literally about to collapse. Basically, if it isn’t actively harming or hindering me, it’s filtered out as usual.”
“And you just… Attuned yourself to something that specific while only barely conscious, in an incredibly short amount of time-” The Physician stopped mid expression, its eyes widening for a moment before immediately narrowing to an angry glare. “Mindful-Sight.” It growled the name, digging its claws into the cushion and easily puncturing the thick cloth casing. “You were in Deep’s End. Of course. And I was foolish enough to think that Scholar Ink-Talon had Attuned itself of its own volition. Of all the reckless, amoral, self-aggrandizing experiments it could have performed, especially after promising-”
“Hey!” Ink-Talon squawked, flaring his wings in protest. “Mindful-Sight saved my life! I was suffering from similar problems to the new arrivals here, and wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t helped me Attune to myself! Isn’t that what a Physician is supposed to do?” He stood up and fluttered back to the exit, not caring that his wingbeats were scattering papers about. “Look, you can either stay mad about some random taboo that I wouldn’t want it to take back if it could, or you can do your job and help me help someone else. Either way, I’m done talking about this.”
Able-Heart didn’t audibly reply, and Ink-Talon didn’t even bother looking back as he pushed through the curtain and flew back over to the dark-room. Looking back from the doorway, he didn’t spot the Physician following him, and he was more than happy to put that entire interaction behind him. Upon reentering the dark-room, he fluttered up onto the broken bird’s perch and stared at it before extending a wing.
“May I?” he asked, out of courtesy more than anything, unsurprised when they answered with their usual blank stare. “Thanks. Now let’s see if I can actually do some good, for once.” Placing the wing on the smaller bird’s back, he closed his eyes and focused.
What am I aware of? Multiple things came to mind, none of them relevant. He sifted through things like the grip strength of his talons, his center of gravity, and how it was getting close to the time he usually ate an evening meal, and eventually landed on something at least adjacent to the other bird. It was the point of contact with his wing, how much force he was applying, and how much force he could be applying if he pushed as hard as he could. Okay, but what about them? Give me something on them! He strained his mind, clenching his beak and talons, but only came up with the fact that the other bird’s grip on the perch had enough give that he could probably shove them off if he wanted to. He did not, obviously. Opening his eyes, the crow made a low, frustrated croaking sound as he slumped on the perch, utterly defeated.
“The key for you would be conceptualization, I think.” A tentative meow from the floor distracted Ink-Talon from his failure for a moment. Physician Able-Heart stared up at him, its emotions unclear. “In order to extend the awareness granted by Attunement, one must re-frame what they are examining so that it more easily falls under their Attunement’s purview. You are Attuned to the state of your body, but filtered through a general idea of what is impeding your current needs or desires. I believe you will need to conceptualize Eager-Horizon’s plight as your own, or otherwise view it as an obstacle to your goals, specifically.”
“Okay. I’ll give it a try.” Ink-Talon once more gently touched the other bird with his wing, this time with something new to focus on. Their problems are my problems… Them being like this is getting in the way… of what? He was struggling to center himself in all of this. It was ironic. In order to help, he’d have to force himself into a more selfish state of mind. Besides their own well being, I want to find out what’s wrong because… He almost dismissed the first thing that came to mind before thinking better of it. This was just for him, whatever his first impulse would be was probably worth a shot. ...Because that’s Quiet-Dream’s goal. He wants to help other humans, and I want him to succeed. Their problems are Quiet-Dream’s problems are my problems. And we aren’t going to be able to overcome this unless I can…
There was a spark of intuition, and then he knew. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and he learned exactly what the problem was, and it only took a little bit of further reasoning to come up with an idea of how to fix it.
To put it simply, they’d need to turn them off and on again.