Albies new right eye itched. He rubbed the red stone with his sleeve. He could see himself from the eye laid on the table. His pail skin stretched over his bones like canvas over a tent and his new eye seemed almost a size larger in the socket than he would have liked. He waived the knife in his hand just to watch himself move from the eyeball on the table. The view in his left eye remained normal. The distortion in his sight stabbed his brain and his churned his stomach.
He covered his red eye, but his vision did not change. He turned the eye away from himself. The view in his right eye spun while the view in his left remained the same.
The young mage placed a plate in front of his eye. He could see the grain of the would very clearly but was more able to focus on the view coming from the left eye now. To the left of the eye was a rat tied to the table. The creature squeaked and squirmed trying to escape the restraints.
The mage began his planed surgery. He had sharpened his knife well for the task. He put a finger on the rats head to stop it from moving around while he popped one of its eyes out with his knife. The eye carefully extracted he poked his thumb with his knife. The red liquid pooled on his skin and he scraped a droplet of with the knife. He placed the droplet of blood in the rat's empty eye socket. Next came cutting a sliver out of his eye on the table. He pinched the globe between his fingers to stop its movement. Carefully he cut a small wedge out of the eye and with a nearby set of tweezers he pulled the scrap of flesh out from the rest of his eye. He placed it into the empty eye socket.
He placed the tweezers down and began healing the rat with magic from his moon stones and a little bit of his own life force. As he did a new point of view began to appear. Along with the piece of wood he also saw the point of view of the rat. He closed his left eye and he could see the rat's perspective a little better.
He could also feel the rat's terror and pain know that a piece of him was inside the beast. He had connected to it. Calm he ordered the rat through his new connection.
"It hurts, it plays," thought the rat in response. "Two legs with knife, plays before killing."
The rats mind was refreshingly less alien than the bees he kept.
"Do you hear me?" asked the mage through the link.
The rats head searched the room for the source of the voice.
"Sound, hear but no hear," thought the rat "predator sneaking up. Need to move! Need to move!"
The rat panicking struggle again trying to slip from its bonds. Albie moved his separated eyeball to a jar of turpentine on the counter. His view bobbed in the liquid. He returned his attention to the rat and he worked the connection he had with the rat. He felt the rats will resist him and push back against his. The panicked creature resisted his attempts at invasion.
Stubborn and having lived its days clinging to life one day after the next it refused to surrender its mind to an outside force. The sensations of constant hunger and a constant fear of predators reached into the mages continuous and chewed at his mind. Albie resisted the rat's day to day sufferings and tried striking back with the pain of loosing everything he had ever know.
The rats mind didn't flinch the concept of family and home to foreign to affect the creature.
Albie followed by filling the rat with his hatred for the queen and her servants. The rat's mind flinched before the burning hatred. It responded with the shrieking rage of a cornered animal. The sensation was familiar to Albie. He pushed the pain off the mortal wounds he and cat had suffered into the rats will and felt its mind coupled with the fear of being left to bead out and die. The rat's mind bent its will crushed by the sensation of dying.
Albie felt the rat stopped struggling against its restraints. Albie felt a control over the rat he never had over the bees. He raised his hand and saw the rats right paw lift. He turned his head and watched the rats neck stress as it tried to match his movements unsuccessfully. He moved his body and watched the rats body try to match his own partially successful.
He removed the rat's restraints. The rat only moved its body only to try to match his movements. He picked up the rat and placed it on the floor. He got on all fours and tried walking on his hands and feet. The rat's movements were as uncoordinated as his own. He stood up and watched the rat stand up on its hind legs unsteadily.
He eased his control on the rat and the creature began try to escape.
"Be still," ordered Albie. The rat stopped in its tracks.
"predator, rat, big rat, it orders," comes though the mind link. "wont move, does what it wants, don't want pain again."
The book Sculpting Life had described the animal mind as simple. It also described the act of communicating with animals as possible but rarely useful unless the animal was properly trained. The process of training difficult depending on the intelligence of the animal. Dogs being trainable, Cats a good way to make a lifelong enemy and cattle animals mostly useless especially if you let them know you are planning to eat them.
The book made note of a litter of pigs that had started looking at their handler strangely after letting slip they were being raised for meat.
Dominating an animal as he had done was listed as dangerous to the mage as being dominated by the animal was possible.
Albie picked the rat of the floor.
"No bite," ordered the mage out loud and in the rat's mind to make it more familiar with him. "Ablie is what speaks to rat. Albie call rat Bags. Bags does what Albie wants; Albie give Bags food. Bags stand on back paws."
The rat looked at Albie for a moment it seemed confused before standing on its hind legs.
"Bags does what Albie want," responded the rat. "Bags not want hurt again."
"lift paws," commanded Albie out loud and in Bags mind.
The rat lifted its paws above its head.
"Okay Bags," said Albie. "Albie will get Bags a snack."