It was nice and peaceful out here. If it weren't for the fact that I was tied up, I might have relaxed more and enjoyed this moment of stillness. The buzzing in my head droned intermittently.
Wet and slimy hands stroked my body, but were frightened away when their mental abilities came up against the buzzing in my head. They reeled, as if in pain upon trying and failing to find the source of the buzzing. Fishy breath hissed and left me alone in the rocking boat.
It'd be nice if the buzzing went away too. In the moments when it wasn't there, my head would ache fiercely. I could almost taste the raw, bloody hole that had been torn through my mind, like how one might touch with the tongue the bloody, empty tooth socket of a tooth that had just been pulled out. So, maybe the buzzing was better. It didn't hurt so much and masked the pain.
Being on my own felt strange, alien and lonely. It felt like it had been a very long time since I had last been truly alone. I reached out with my mind in search for company during those brief, painful moments of when the buzzing stopped so that I could think.
In between the buzzing, I felt Shigure through our shared mental chat being very, very busy. So busy that he was accidentally leaking information into our chat group. I followed the flow of information through our shared mental link to his side to make better sense of the weird jumble of information. There, I found him busily fighting with someone or something that was more than his equal physically, but was brought down to his level when his mental attacks were used as well. Through the link, I felt the sharp, tearing pain when he was forced to use his broken mental abilities to help defend himself so that he would not be overwhelmed. I helped to buffer the pain and help briefly bolster his mental defences for him while I examined the situation.
His opponent's mental abilities were strange. Lacking any unique personal characteristics and more indifferent. Impersonal. Like an imitation. Electronic. As if the mental attacks weren't being sent by a human at all.
Shigure's scars were being split open and old wounds were being torn wider every time he forced himself to use his abilities over and over again. I could feel with Shigure just how painful they were and how much the nauseous pain crippled him. It was only his determination that was keeping him going, otherwise his physically stronger opponent would have already defeated him.
Reaching out to him through our link in between the buzzing while he was busy, I examined the reopened scar tissue and then decided it was possible to heal the old wounds and scars. The scar tissue was nothing but old, jagged memories embedded in the physical flesh, preventing complete healing. Such things could be rolled up into a ball and tucked away into a memory file.
Shigure seemed to glance at me inwardly and then leave me alone while he concentrated on the battle. As if he had decided I wouldn't harm him. The barriers had been held against me when I had crept into his side from the mental link relaxed somewhat. Then again, he didn't have the time for me. He couldn't afford to be distracted right now. He was too busy fighting.
I pushed the broken scars and wound edges together and found a thin, associated memory to use to sew up the broken bits again. For the actual physical and real injuries, I coaxed his body into healing and regenerating the area. I didn't know if he noticed exactly what I was doing. All his concentration was on fighting his unknown enemy.
I peeked out his eyes. Oh. It was Wing Blues. Chad.
With his abilities no longer hampered by the scar tissue reopening wounds, and the ability centre of his brain healing and regenerating itself, he was finally able to use his abilities freely. Without pain. I felt his surprise and pleasure at the discovery of this fact. There was a short burst of gratefulness. I soothed the former jagged pain away and encouraged a smooth flow of blood through the newly regenerated blood vessels. Poking at the dead tissue, I reminded it to regenerate. Don't stay dead.
His attacks became more ferocious and the full force of his mental abilities finally gave him the edge he so needed in order to gain ground in the fight against the nut brained Chad. Seeing that he was losing, Chad executed a ferocious attack, forcing Shigure back. And then while Shigure was pushed off balance by the force of the attack, Chad took that moment to make his retreat. By the time Shigure was able to find his feet again, Chad was too far away to give chase.
Shigure leaned over to catch his breath after Chad managed to escape and run away. Then he looked inward to see what I had done.
*"Uki-chan? What are you doing? What have you… what have you done?"*
Shigure looked around at his former wounds and the disappearing, healing scars and scabs. I pointed out where the scar tissue memories had been filed.
*"Make sure you process them properly,"* I told him, while he swept me into a big mental bear hug, at a loss for words.
What was I saying? He was the mental abilities master. He would know better than me that mental filing needs to be done. And yet, I felt the need to say it. What if he forgot, left them out and they created a new wound and scar in an even more important spot in his brain?
When he let me go, I retreated back to myself. I didn't wait for any further response from him. I was done. Tired. About ready to be sniffed out. Timing my focussed actions in between the buzzing on top of the mounting pain in my brain had taken a toll on my energy levels. My brains were melting from overheating and fatigue. He was quite far away after all and reaching all that way away had required me to burn my mental energy at a very high rate. The pain in my head was intensifying due to my fatigue. I was extremely tired. It felt about right to allow myself to drop off to sleep.
There were intense arguments in my head that woke me up from my deep slumber. What were they doing there? It was as if people had gotten used to using my brain as a meeting room and forgotten that the meeting room was in fact a part of my brain. They were noisy and irritating, but my voice was too small and weak to be heard, so no one knew that I had woken up and wanted them to leave my head alone. They were too caught up in their argument.
The two strongest voices insisted on staying to keep watch. One said I was physically fine and what I went through was just a rite of passage that all females have to go through eventually. The other was fiercely protective and railing at the males of the world, forgetting he was male himself. He growled at the thought of any male that might come near his daughter. The weaker two voices were using my brain to make use of the interpretation function and improve their understanding of the stronger voices.
*"You know Harmony isn't your biological daughter?"*
This voice carried the scent of forest greens.
*"What are you saying? Of course she is. When she grows up, she'll be as big and beautiful as her mother. You."*
This voice bore scent and memory of the hot sun on sandy dust and sun warmed rocks.
*"I didn't birth her. She's a human,"* said the booming forest.
*"No, she's not. She's my child. How can she be human? You said she's my child. Why would you lie to me?"* said the hot desert rocks.
Somehow, I had the feeling that the big male was somewhat lacking in intelligence compared to the big female. So was this argument over whether I was a real daughter, adopted daughter or some foster child in care? It took the big female some time to explain and a long time for the male to understand. Even then, no one was certain he had understood anything at all.
Another voice interrupted.
*"She's in a coma. We can't stay here in her mind space while it's trying to heal. She's not in a good condition. We need to bring her home, but we don't have the strength to bring her back through the mountain forest to our place,"* another male voice pleaded. I think I had once called him a computer, but he smelled more of bean paste pastries. *"Please help us bring her home."*
*"She is home. If she goes with you conniving two leggers with your weakling talents, my baby will be taken advantage of again. She's so small and weak. She's staying with me where I can keep an eye on her."*
*"I already told you, Desert Dweller, she's not your real daughter. She belongs with her own kind. You'd kill her if you stepped wrong. Look how even we can't fully protect her here away from the human cities. There are even more male creatures here that can smell her mating call and want her. We will have our own kits in the future and you can be as protective as you want with them, but Harmony needs to go back with the humans because she is human too."*
*"Forest Born, you know I love you, but this is my bottom line. This is my daughter."*
*"She's mine too. But she's a human. Let the humans deal with the humans."*
*"They're killing her. They can't look after or protect her at all. Look at all her injuries. That other human had been one of their herd and he still hurt her like this."*
*"We hurt her mind more seriously when we found her than how that reject of their herd hurt her. Her elders are trustworthy."*
*"Trustworthy, my farting arse. We left her with them for a brief moment just now and look what happened."*
Something blared loudly. It stank horribly and made me wrinkle up my nose. I wanted to stop breathing altogether. It was so fetid it felt that I was breathing filth.
*"You didn't have to actually fart. It stinks."*
*"I can fart when I want, where I want. What can you do about it? My daughter is staying here. With me."*
I wanted to cry. The voices were getting louder and the pressure in my head was getting stronger. I couldn't stand it. They were so noisy. This was my head. Couldn't they leave me alone and go argue somewhere else? Why invade my mind and personal space?
*"Desert Dweller, their own kind have their own ways. We shouldn't interfere."*
*"So what? I'm interfering. There are too many males staring at my Harmony and wanting to mate with her, I tell you. I have to protect her from them. My precious firstborn daughter has been hurt and I don't trust anybody with her right now. She's still too young. She's my baby girl and you can't convince me otherwise."*
*"She's an adult at the mating age. Her body is releasing the mating call. Of course they want to mate with her. She has excellent potential to pass on any of her many strong traits and unique ability to learn even more. You can tell just by her scent."*
*"She's already been hurt so many times. How can I let her leave my sight? What if she gets hurt again or shudder, killed? How can I trust her with any other potential mates if they're too weak to protect her or are as evil as the one who kidnapped her? I've barely spent time with her or seen her grow. How can I leave her in the hands of elders who can't see through the minds clearly? Her elders are mostly male too. What if they want to do something to her? She wouldn't have a chance or be able to defend against them. They could easily force her to bear them kits and she'd have no say. No, no. She stays with me. Nobody is moving her."*
*"She does have some female elders. Like the Matriarch. She has been directing the male elders in her care. The matriarch has placed a female elder by her side already. The one who smells of moist earth. Although that female elder is weak, she seems knowledgeable. I've seen her berating the main male elder here often who speaks for Harmony. She has the supple backbone strength of a good female."*
*"Harmony needs stronger males by her side. Look, the strongest of them is this male that smells of sweet things and then he's half crippled. His strength is broken. Wait. Was broken. The damaged part is disappearing. It looks like he's improved. Look at that. It's a miracle. If I had to choose any male, I'd choose him for her mate. She likes him and he is very gentle with her. With his full strength, he would be able to protect her from almost any enemy below our level. If any of those killers that Sea Swimmer says are massing in hiding on the shores find her, Harmony will stand no chance. She's a child. She's barely lived. That wind seeker male who wants to be her mate is almost useless. From what I've seen of Harmony's memories and the way she treats him, he hasn't taken good care of her either. Useless trash to be looking at my daughter. Who gave him the guts?"*
*"That's why Harmony needs to go back. She needs to go back to be taught and trained to be stronger."*
*"Wait, wait,"* two voices clamoured. One carried the scent of wild bone soup and the other was the pastry computer man.
*"She likes me?"* the pastry computer man said in a dumbfounded voice.
*"As a person that doesn't want to hurt her. Not as a mate. But that could change if you put in a little effort," snorted thr big male gently so that the two smaller voices wouldn't get blown away.
*"Did you say there are killers amassing in hiding on the shores?"* the pastry computer man shook his head to switch train tracks and asked.
*"There is another one of you in the Blue Sea?"* the man of wild bone soup was interested.
*"Sea Swimmer is our cousin. He told us about it moons ago,"* the big female shrugged. *"Those killers catch and kill any creatures they can from long hard floaters to eat or cut apart. The floaters are harder than any shellfish shell. He's heard their dreams of capturing and killing those in the human city and grounds so that they can plunder and destroy my mountains and forests. If you humans can't fend them off, our People will have to fight them when they threaten our home. Sea Swimmer says he's been leading his People away from this area. He believes there will be new fighting soon where the water will boom and kill many of the water dwellers."*
*"Can you tell us where these killers are massing?"* sweet bean curd pastries mashed.
Uh-oh. I think my brain was about to crash.
*"Cliff sea caves,"* was the green tree rebrash. Pie. Ply. Chip fly. Re pie.
Whazzagizzle.
Nuffnuff. Bain shuddown. Kickemallout.
Silence.