Last night I went to sleep snuggled together with the other three hara that make up our ad-hoc tribe. This morning I woke up knowing that we're going to lose the only one of us that actually knows anything about being a real Wraeththu.
We four, we're fugitives. The Citadel Corporation had captured a Wraeththu called Ashmael, wanting to see if there was profit to be had from his evolved DNA, he showed them, now they are dead.
Gyvon (the har previously known as Human Specimen Fifteen), Petreon (Guardsman Peter Murray) and myself are the result, three wet behind the ears Wraeththu who were human teenagers less than a week ago. Gyvon and I were hostages for use in Citadel's illegal genetic experiment and Petreon had been a newly hired guard still in his first week of employment there.
After a few days hiding deep in the forests, we'd camped in a thin strip of woodland between the river Muskingum and route 666 just north Petreon's home city of Zanesville...I found the route name mildly portentous but hadn't yet decided whether '666' was a lucky or unlucky for Wraeththu.
That morning I paid closer attention than usual as Ashmael checked his traps for edible critters. The traps are on the small side mainly because Ash is used to hunting plump city rats rather than genuine wildlife. We'll probably need that skill later, judging by what I've foreseen over the last few days.
The other two were staying away from me. They sensed my gloom, and don't want to be contaminated by it. We've all become so much more sensitive to the moods of those around us, it takes some getting used to.
Ash returned with a gopher, which he gutted quickly and messily. It’s probably fortunate that we Wraeththu don't get food poisoning. That said, I was beginning to develop a liking for uncooked meat. Like sushi, its an acquired taste.
"What’s up Sixteen?" asked Ash sitting next to me "You look like someone died"
"I had another Precognition" I sighed "Ash. In two days time we will be living in Petreon's house. Just over a week later you will be on a plane flying to the European Free Corporate Enclave...I guess the euro-boys deserve their own tribes"
Ashmael nodded, my visions had proven uncannily accurate so far.
"We won't be going with you" I confirmed, dropping the bombshell "We have to start our own tribe right here"
I waited, letting the objections and questions wash over me feeling very ouana. I was the rock around which they would flow. I admit, its an odd emotional state to be in, as a human I was never this archetypally macho. Mood swings gotta love them!
Having had more experience with odd mental powers and outright magic than the rest of us, Ash didn't object.
"We must all follow our destiny." said Ash thoughtfully "If there is one thing I've learned it is to pay attention to the realities that humans aren't capable of seeing. We should all be guided by Sixteen's vision"
So, rather to my surprise, I suddenly found that I was now leader of our group. Typically, they wanted to know exactly what to do next, both of them slipping into a delightfully soume frame of mind, which I longed to take advantage of shamelessly.
"I'm not the bloody human Messiah you know" I grumbled finally
"Alright you hara. That’s enough." said Ash rescuing me "As we're destined to part company, I'm going to have give you as much of a start as I can as quickly as possible. Today I'm going to show you a few things. Tomorrow we're going to make a start on getting your tribe set up in town. Gather around and get into the meditative state that I thought you. Concentrate on the symbol of Ara, smell its shape, hear it's color"
Being able to sit still in a calm contemplative state was one of the first things Ash taught us after we escaped. As a human I'd never have thought that meditation could be so fundamentally necessary and pleasant.
Ash took a swig from the open can of coke left over from the evening meal and began his lecture "Throughout history tribes have kept a history. For primitive humans it takes the form of an oral history, for contemporary humans its semi-accurate TV docu-dramas. For us, the history is passed on as a communal sending. Normally this would take place over many sessions, as you learned our tribe's values and culture. Because of the time limit I'm editing this down to just things you absolutely need to know."
We nodded. Eager like cuckoo hatchlings, minds open, hungry for knowledge.
This is how our tribe discovered how to create its first magari he sent
To me it felt as if reality had just blurred. The trees that hid our camp from the highway ran together only to reform as the walls of some long disused factory. I was looking through the eyes of somehara called Eist-Ray......and then I was Eist-Ray
---
...The freak hailstorm was into its 2nd night, chucking down baseball sized chunks of ice that made going outside a suicide mission.
This was my opportunity. Everyhara was bored being cooped up in The Nest, and my offer to introduce them to the delights of the old dungeons and dragons game had been about the only alternative to picking fights or yet more aruna.
As a human called Ray I remember being obsessed with the game, and had had fantasies of becoming my character (a half-Elven sorcerer called 'Eist'). When the time, came it hadn't taken much seduction to make me cross over. It still stung a little to remember that Tiahaar Tanti had lied when he'd promised me pointed ears.
Going back for some dice, figurines and a rulebook had been pure folly, the half-sexed cops nearly got me. The more streetwise members of the tribe approved of my act of near suicidal thievery, even if they felt complete contempt that I should want to cling to the past or take something so worthless.
The game had been going for an hour, accompanied by the sounds of several couples rooning in the background. I'd only managed to attract three players, but they were really getting into it, a small group of chesnari and others had gathered around to watch or make lewd suggestions.
It was my character's turn, we'd just entered the lair of the evil humans and I needed to cast Miyacala's Charm of Perpetual Light (radius 16"). The others had role-played so well that I felt obligated to put a little effort into the incantation.
In one hand I had my Sorcerer Eist figurine, ready to move him three squares forward into the humans lair, I placed my other hand in the flame of the candle that we were using to illuminate the game and began incant
"By the flame of Chet Nar Asbo and the spirits of this dead place I summon the Miyacala's light!"
Suddenly every candle in the room went 'shooop' and vanished.
For a long long second there was utter silence and darkness. The grunts and cries of aruna stopped the participants sensing the energies of their passion being stolen.
All that could be heard was the rattle of hailstones against the roof far above.
In the inner distance I felt somehar stir as if aroused from sleep. In my hand Eist began to glow with internal light. I dropped it.
"What the fuck?" I gasped
On the rough hand drawn dungeon, the figurine was getting brighter and brighter until it was too bright to look upon directly.
I danced screaming my victory I was Eist-Ray the Sorcerer! I was supreme!
---
Reality blurred again and I was back in the woods, a few seconds later I was no longer Eist-Ray the happiest hara alive, I was just Sixteen a hara of little worth.
"You're saying that a rooning Dungeons and Dragons spell worked??!" exclaimed Gyvon
"By chance yes. That sort of magari needed some specific components. By pure good luck he also had the agmara generated by seven couples taking aruna in close proximity to draw upon as well. Once we knew this was possible every hara in our tribe started experimenting." he explained ruefully.
"So we can do this also? The tribal sending and the spell?" asked Petreon
"The tribal sending is like any other sending. The magari is trickier. I will give you some basic principles, but you have to experiment and find out what works for you. Things like role playing games, occult grimoires, voodoo rituals, religious texts, they are all like cryptic crossword clues any one of them might lead you to a useful magari but like most things human its mostly crap." Ash explained. "We can do more by invoking a Dehar, but that's not something to be messed with lightly."
Petreon looked deeply disappointed. I could tell the idea of being a Rehune was tempting to him.
Noticing the look Ash reached over and squeezed his slim shoulder.
"The point of this, my beautiful Petreon, is that the burned out downtown in the big city, where I'm from, is a really crap place to find that sort of book. Now from what you've said of Zanesville, it's exactly the sort of place that might still have a public library that doesn't require proof of corporate affiliation to withdraw a book"
"It does" he acknowledged grudgingly and then more speculatively
"And as I said, they wouldn't know that a har was anything unusual. Two weeks ago I was under the impression Wraeththu was just another name for a teenage hoodie."
"Now. Back into that trance everyhara, there's lot you need to know if destiny demands that you set up a tribe."
Sixteen, as tribal leader you will need further training, stay with me when the others are finished Ash sent privately
---
Eighteen hours later Ash finally let me take a break. My head felt stuffed, it felt as if I'd been a hundred different hara and had two hundred different adventures. If I were to write it all down it would have read more like the Arabian Nights than a How to be a tribe guide.
I had assumed that being a tribe was exactly like being a street gang, just a group of hara thrown together by circumstance and genetics. I hadn't foreseen the amount of ritual that our brothers had managed to evolve. It seems we have a god..a Dehar.. for every occasion and if we don't we can create one.
I held the concept of Dehar in low esteem right then. After all, human gods were never worth worrying about why should harish ones be different? The simple magari seemed far more attractive.
I glanced at the remnants of the gopher and our campfire. The memory of Eist-Ray's spell flipped to the front of my mind. I had 'fire' and the soul of the poor critter was bound to be near by. The only other component I needed was something to act as a vessel and a bit of determination...hmm?
A few moments later the dead gopher's agmara was glowing faintly within a river-smoothed pebble and I felt like I'd just gone without sleep for a week.
Naturally the others sensed the tiny ripple in reality and ran over to see what I'd done now.
Ash took the tiny stone from my nerveless fingers and tossed it to Gyvon who caught it one handed and showed it to Petreon.
"Well done. Now. What did you learn?" he asked sounding like a teacher demanding a homework thesis"
"I'm not attuned with elemental Fire. Eist-Ray had some sort of affinity that I don't have. It was vastly easier for him."
"Anything else?"
"I feel totally drained. It took a lot out of me" I admitted
"What will you do differently next time?"
I felt put upon and far too tired for questions.
"What you learned Sixteen." continued Ash pointedly "Is firstly, to have someone watching over you when you try a magari. And secondly to take aruna before you experiment rather than after"
"But I wasn't going to. Oh...OH!"
Ash set about restoring my agmara levels, laying me back against the damp grass and doing the things that allowed him to fill me with his rejuvenating fire. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Petreon set about seducing Gyvon as well.
---
Thanks to Ash's ministrations, I awoke the next morning feeling ready to seduce the entire human male population of a small city...specifically Zanesville, Ohio.
Today we would be making our attempt to infiltrate human society and begin to consecrate our new tribe.
Much to everyhara's delight, Ash insisted that we all take aruna before we did anything. Apparently we had to get our agmara levels up, ensuring that the momentous day began on a note of purity.
Once we'd finished, Ash pulled some Citadel-gard uniforms from the van and threw them to us. They weren't ideal, none of us had hair short enough to look right in uniform, but they would have to do. No one even suggested the possibility of a haircut.
---
I looked at Petreon and then back at the driveway that led to his parents’ house.
"I thought you were just a security guard not the vice president's rooning son!" I accused.
Petreon looked down at his feet blushing. "My parents believe their sons must make their own way. They also disagree with some of my lifestyle choices. I have my room here but I pay rent for it."
"This must be hard for you" I said, trying to think about what it would be like if I met my pious human family again.
"Hard? No. You hara are my family now. This is just a necessary chore, a loose end." he replied firmly
That might be true or he might be lying to himself. I guess I would only know if it were me and my family.
It had been decided that only Petreon and I would make contact. Gyvon's stripy skin was inhuman enough to cause comment and Ash needed to concentrate on the fogging minds and other magari.
We didn't have a set plan. It was down to the two of us to play it by ear, depending upon how much they'd been told by Citadel.
The house itself had eight bedrooms and was set in enough grounds to ensure privacy. One part of me wanted to just slit some throats and take ownership, common sense and the tattered remnants of my old human morality insisted that we were better than that.
As we pulled up I could see two teenage boys playing one on one basketball on a hoop fastened between two large carports. I watched them with a fresh predatory eye.
"My brother and step-brother. Brooklin is a year younger than me and Jurgen is my age."
"Brooklyn? After the bridge?"
"No, after some European soccer player. It doesn't matter, we'll change it anyway."
Seeing the Citadel van the shorter of the two humans pointed and then jogged toward us abandoning the ball. His Brother glanced around and then followed.
This would be the first test then and probably the trickier of the two encounters. From what Petreon had said he had been closer to his brothers than his career obsessed parents.
Brooklyn skidded to a halt as Petreon emerged from the vehicle with the sinuous grace which seemed to be in him at the instinctive level.
"Peter...?"
I exited on the opposite side of the vehicle. The question mark at the end of Brooklyn's greeting was troubling. Had Peter changed so much that he was unrecognizable?
"Hi squirt, yo Jurg." replied Petreon
"Peter!!" Brooklyn exclaimed in delight. "Man! We’d heard there'd been an explosion."
"Yeah. And your employer needs to work on its public relations." added Jurgen "They 'wouldn't comment' on casualties even a week later. Bastards!"
"I can't talk about that." lied Petreon following our script "Right now we're stood down awaiting redeployment."
He turned toward me and beckoned me over. "This is my lover, Sixteen, his real name is James. He'll be staying with."
That hadn't been in the script. Why do all my lovers take such perverse pleasure in taking me by complete surprise? Fine! He wants to see me squirm lets what his brothers make of this!
I slid my hand around his waist and briefly shared breath with him. The merging of minds revealed that Petreon had confidence that his brothers wouldn't have a problem with it.
I broke away and noted that both brothers had an odd expression on their faces, as if they desired me, but found the emotion new and surprising. It was surprising and flattering for me too.
Jurgen decided to hide his sexual confusion with gruff camaraderie.
"You and your boyfriends Petey! I bet you only signed on with the militia for that all male-male barracks experience"
I began to get a sense of which 'lifestyle choices' Petreon's parents objected to.
"You look different somehow." said Brooklyn running his eyes over his brother's body in a decidedly hungry way. "I almost didn't recognize you."
"Citadel's been issuing us with a new performance enhancer" I explained, "I know he doesn't look it, but Peter's probably a lot stronger than you remember" I replied giving Petreon's butt a playful slap.
"Where are mom and dad? I'd better bring them up to date." said Petreon
"Oh. Inside I expect, you know how lazy they are on a Saturday" replied Brooklyn rolling his eyes.
"I'll go get them" offered Jurgen sprinting away into the house.
I noticed that Brooklyn didn't say anything further until he was startled by the sound of a door slamming within the house.
That boy is even readier to come across than you were. I sent to Petreon
Yeah. A credit to my gene-pool, and he really fancies you he replied with pride I think Jurgen, could be seduced as well given a minimal amount of time.
I Certainly hope so
A moment later a female emerged from the house closely followed by a man.
Mrs Murray was the first female human I'd seen since my inception. Despite everything, it came as surprise that my brain was no longer wired up to regard her breasts as anything other than flabby protuberances.
Petreon's father looked surprisingly young. To have kids Petreon's age the guy must have mated whilst still a college freshman.
Petreon's mother flung herself all over her son. In response he patted her awkwardly on the back. I could tell that the physical contact was repellant to him and sent to him Act human
I returned my gaze to Petreon's father and was surprised to see yet another version of the dreamy lust look that was apparently the family trademark.
I began to wonder If our essence was going to be too powerful, like Tiahaar Vaysh had been in Ash's story. On the other hand if we could get all three males incepted quickly it would make things far more secure.
"Brooklyn, Jurg. I need to speak to mom and dad alone" said Petreon
The boys nodded and obediently headed back to their basketball hoop
Petreon repeated our cover story. In the back of my mind I could hear Ash chanting, calling upon the Dehar Lunil, willing them to believe. At first it seemed to have little effect on the female and I was beginning to wonder if the female's intellect was unreachable. But finally her face relaxed into bland acceptance.
At the same time I'd kept my eye's firmly locked on Mr. Murray. I still couldn't quite get my head around how he could be so enraptured by my beauty.
Obviously I hadn't had access to a proper mirror at that point. Once I had seen myself of course I changed my mind, in reality I really am that beautiful...I'm smolderingly dangerous and edibly cute at the same time.
They're under signaled Ash from the majhahn circle in the back of the van
Quickly I took a strip of fabric ripped from a bio-suit and tied it around the man's ankle. Petreon did the same for his mother.
The strips of fabric didn't look like much but Ash had spent the late evening weaving a powerful magari into them. It was actually a variant of an old voodoo curse; Petreon's parents would become relaxed and pliant. Not zombies, not quite.
The bindings would only hold for a lunar cycle. I figured a month was plenty of time to come up with a better solution.
Satisfied with our work Petreon and I headed toward the basketball hoop, leaving Ash to have a long chat with our human hosts.
His task was to convince them that Gyvon would also be staying and prepare them for future weirdness that they'd think of as natural.
Meanwhile Jurgen's last shot at the hoop had left the ball rolling toward us. I picked it up, bounced it a couple of times and caught the human's eye.
"What do you say, two on two? First to ten?"
Petreon's brothers nodded and we were soon wrapped up in the intensity of the game. The official rules might say its a non-contact sport. That’s not how the brothers played it. I now know how Clark Kent must have felt. It would have been the simplest thing to react faster, leap higher and aim better or even cheat and attract the ball to my hand ...but not if we wanted maintain cover.
At 9 to 6 to us, Brooklyn caught me with a flying tackle that left us in a tangle of arms and legs. To my surprise I found that the tackle had been a mere ploy of his to get close to me. Brooklyn inhaled the scent of my hair and ran his hand along my side before hurriedly scrambling to his feet to make it appear that nothing had happened.
"Sorry Mr. Sixteen"
"Tiahaar Sixteen" I corrected automatically
Then I winced as Petreon telepathically sent an image of a cartoon me with a rolled up sock in my mouth.
Fortunately neither brother was paying attention and neither asked what the word meant.
Bring them in. Dining room. Avoid the kitchen sent Ash
"Was that someone calling for us?" I asked.
The two humans, having heard nothing shrugged, but followed along when both Petreon and I clearly thought we'd 'heard' it.
---
"Lieutenant Ash? What are you doing here?" I exclaimed as if I were surprised to see him.
"Some sort of error in the hotel bookings. One of Mr Ash's men has nowhere to sleep tonight. So we agreed to let him stay in the guest room. Didn't we dear?" Mrs. Murray replied glancing uncertainly at her mate.
"Wha..? Oh yes that’s right" replied her mate distractedly
"I thought Sixteen was getting the guest room?" replied Jurgen, confused
"That’s ok, he'll share my room" replied Petreon giving my ass a squeeze in revenge for earlier.
"Or Mr Gyvon and Mr. Sixteen could share the guest room" said Petreon's father sounding uncertain.
Gyvon returned from the kitchen carrying a tray of cold drinks. two with ice, six without. Picking the drinks from the tray himself he ensured that Brooklyn and Jurgen each had one containing the ice.
The ice was a little special, it was another magari that Ash had prepared, similar to the first but with a much shorter duration (they'd need to be clean of outside influences when they were incepted).
It didn't appear to have any great effect.
Meanwhile Petreon's brothers were trying not to stare openly at Gyvon's facial stripe.
"Birthmark" he explained causing them to look away embarrassed that their inspection had been noticed.
I sensed it then a tingling up my spine followed by the draining feeling I'd learned to expect around magari. I glanced at him and then at the humans.
Brooklyn and Jurgen stood in position eyes closed.
"In Lunil's name I command you all to sleep" said Ash.
All four slumped into relaxed stances, looking as if a stage hypnotist had been at work on them.
"Carefully move away. Don't disturb them."
"Ok. Ground rules. We have precisely twelve hours to play with before these begin to awaken,” said Ash indicating the humans.
"This isn't hurting them?" asked Petreon nervously
"No. They'll be a bit disoriented when they come around but that’s probably to the good" replied Ash indicating that we should move out.
Once we were in the hall, Ash clapped his hands. "Now my darlings the clock is ticking and its time to hustle. Gyvon and I will get started on finding the most auspicious spot for the Nayati. You two get started on the protective wards.
---
We spent the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon setting up wards and charms all over the grounds and around the entrances to the house… a pebble here, a feather there, little things that wouldn't be obvious. Some magari would send a warning of hostile intent, some promoted good fortune, others allegedly protected from evil spirits.
Fortunately all the magari were of a very basic sort and we soon found that we had an affinity for certain ones. I found creating Stones of Warning easy, where Petreon's luck charms were better than either mine or Gyvon's.
It would be a lie to say we had become instant experts in things majhahnical. The failure rate was something like 70%. One of Gyvon's luck charms detonated spraying us with sand sized shrapnel and one of my Stones of Warning turned into a sort of green slime that ate into the ground continuing straight down, burning into the bedrock until it was lost from sight. The worst of these disasters was another of my Stones of Warning that shattered sending shards of flint into my shoulder and upper arm.
Swearing loudly, I plucked the shards out of my flesh one at a time and watched with considerable fascination as the freely bleeding wounds first dried and then healed closed. I was becoming accustomed to such failures and picked up another potential ward stone, thinking nothing more of the detonating flint.
By the time we had finished, I was beginning to notice a change in the ambience of the place; it felt like home. The Murray family didn't know it yet, but their house and grounds knew who they belonged to. In some esoteric reality where buildings had souls, those souls had become loyal to Wraeththu.
It was around 5pm when we headed back inside, Ash had sent warning that he'd just roused the Murrays and that we should be there to acclimatize them to our presence again and that we should say we'd finished tidying the garden as they'd asked.
"Hi, we just finished tidying the garden" I said
Mrs. Murray screamed.
Ash glared at me like I'd just ruined everything.
"Oh my. All that blood!"
Blood? I looked down at the crust of dark brown that covered my arm and naked chest.
"Its just a nick...right Sixteen?" said Petreon quickly
"Yes!… definitely! Just a nick, I caught it on a branch is all." I added hastily
"Brooklyn, show Mr. Sixteen to the bathroom and switch the heat on for a shower. I'll put the kettle on and make you a nice warm drink." replied Petreon's mother, the tiny strip of majhahn fabric around her ankle giving off a sort of aura as it struggled to keep her calm.
Sorry I sent to everyhara
Smooth Sixteen, real smooth replied Gyvon.
---
The shower, I decided was a blessing in disguise. The longer I took under the water jets, the more my blood-soaked appearance would fade from their memory.
Whilst I waited for the shower to heat up I took the time to check myself out in a proper mirror. Did I mention I looked beautiful? Yep, of course I did.
Of more clinical interest was my hair. I could see now that it didn't just grow on my head, also down my spine, like a horse's mane but with hair as soft as that on my head. Taking a few strands I experimented, weaving a shoulder length rat-tail of hair that started just before my ear its fringed end tickling my chest. Getting a second rat-tail woven to roughly the same length proved more difficult.
Satisfied, I turned to the shower and plunged into its steam-shrouded heaven. I always liked my showers to be as hot as I could stand. Turning into a Wraeththu had apparently upped my resistance and I had to turn the shower jet almost to steam before I felt the comfortable pleasure-pain I craved.
It wasn't just the blood that I soaped away, the subtle grime of a week living rough went with it. As I stepped from the shower and reached for a towel to wrap around my waist, I was quite self-absorbed marveling at the porcelain purity of my skin, I don't think I even have a mole left.
I turned to see that Brooklyn was standing in the bathroom staring at me with wide eyes.
We stood like that for a long moment, each deciding what to do.
"You're… beautiful" he said finally
I sighed with inward relief. Perhaps I wouldn't have to murder him.
"Can.… can I see 'it' again."
There was no question what 'it' was. I let my towel drop revealing the one thing humans were never allowed to see.
The expression on Brooklyn's face, said everything I needed to know. He wasn't human; he was an unhar, ready to join our ranks without question or doubts. I couldn't believe my luck...then again I'd just finished planting a few hundred lucky charms so by rights I deserved some feedback from all that luck.
"This is going to sound way weird" he said "But when I dream of having sex, I never think of breasts or even a cock. I always fantasized that I'd be seduced by someone whose cock was like a glowing flower. And then when we were playing basketball, it was like love at first sight, I couldn't even keep my hands off you, even in front of my brothers."
"Its called an Ouana-lim... and yes, I fully intend to seduce you."
Taking that as a permission Brooklyn reached down to fondle my Ouana-lim. Remembering Ash's dire warnings about how lethal its secretions were, I gently grabbed his hand and guided it to my chest instead.
"You aren't ready for that yet." I said
"But....I mean, I thought.. Sorry!" he replied blushing furiously, thinking I'd just rejected him.
"Oh don't worry, I do intend to make love to you Brooklyn. Its just that you have to know what you're getting yourself into." I said sitting gracefully on the edge of the bath.
Brooklyn's mind is very sharp.
"My brother's like you isn't he" he deduced "So you must have changed him somehow, mutated him?"
"Does that bother you?"
"What? No, of course not. Being changed is part of the fantasy."
"Ok, then...Are you, Brooklyn Murray, prepared to undergo a painful irreversible mutation to become one of us, for the sake of love...as your brother did?"
"Yes!"
I kissed him. Allowing his tongue to explore my mouth for a short time. Finally breaking away when it looked like his hands might get frisky again.
"We will hold an initiation ceremony in three days. Until then you must fast and meditate as much as you can without being obvious. It will make the transition easier"
Brooklyn nodded eagerly.
"Your family can't know about this"
He nodded again.
As a final check I tried to read his mind. It was like trying to catch a goldfish; his intellect was chaotically human and resultantly difficult to perceive. In the end I felt relatively certain that he sincerely wanted to be one of us.
I let him kiss me again as a final reward and then set about getting dressed. Sensibly Brooklyn left me to it and headed back downstairs.
---
I glided downstairs making a show-stopping entrance. Its difficult to pull off looking spectacular in just the bottom half of a Citadel-gard uniform, but I managed it well enough. Ash, Gyvon, Petreon and Brooklyn all stared. Jurgen and Mr. Murray glanced frequently but seemed embarrassed that they had found me attractive.
Meanwhile Mrs. Murray busied herself with providing us all with an evening meal. The talisman tied to her ankle had already blurred away her memory of my previous blood stained appearance. The humans also appeared to have forgotten that Ash had only been there to 'drop off Gyvon.'
It made for an odd meal, Petreon chatting easily with his brothers, Brooklyn refusing to eat, Gyvon looking uneasy amongst so many humans and Ash eagerly devouring everything within reach. I guess Ash's street instincts were telling him 'eat while you can'.
For myself, I decided to be a gentlehara and pick at my food delicately; hopefully counterbalancing Ash's scoffing.
The evening was equally surreal. The Murray parents went about their business trying to obey the talisman's command to notice us as little as possible.
Petreon began explaining his newfound views on a variety of environmental issues that good corporate boy Jurgen felt obliged to refute. That could have developed into a shouting match had Ash not sent Petreon a very firm no fighting
Brooklyn pretended to read but arranged himself so that he could peep over his book at me every so often...I thought that was delightfully cute.
Gyvon was still in a nervous shy mood and wrapped himself around me. The close bodily contact was pleasantly distracting for both of us and I had to think calm thoughts to prevent 'being cozy' turning into something more energetic.
A television in the corner spewed inane words and was largely ignored by all of us. In the case of myself and the other hara this was at least in part due to the irritating flickering of the picture. Seventy frames a second just isn't fast enough to deceive my eye anymore.
According to the TV the war with Venezuela was going well, Prince Michael Jackson the 2nd was intending to sue someone, and the Hawaiian Separatist Army had signed a surrender after all five volcanoes erupted, ripping the main islands apart.
I felt a sense of foreboding, like a gathering storm and wondered at human stupidity. The fact that 90% of the Hawaiian population had been wiped out was a footnote compared to the government's 'victory' over the separatists.
By mutual agreement everyone took an early night. My ouana had gotten itself in a twist and I desperately wanted Gyvon. The humans followed our lead obedient to the bewitchments placed on them. They would sleep deeply and not notice any screams of arunic pleasure.
Over the past couple of days it had kind of been our habit for Ash and I to pair off and for Gyvon and Petreon to seek each other's company. Gyvon set about reminding me that despite our previous human rivalry, he was a different har now and actually wanted to get into my pants.
Our aruna that night was slow and sinuous, our bodies slippery with the sweat of exercsion; thinking of all the majhahns around the place I opened myself and let the agmara flow outward feeding charms with extra energy before relaxing into blissful sleep.
"NO!" I screamed surging back to wakefulness and startling Gyvon who was still wrapped around me at the time.
PETREON STOP! I sent with all my mental power, trying to stop the tragedy that was unfolding.
Two rooms away I could sense the blood filled hypodermic hovering above Brooklyn's arm.
Everything will be much less complicated now that my family has been incepted. We won't have to worry about what we say in front of them. Brooklyn's the last one left to do Petreon replied calmly
I wondered how we'd been so stupid, nobody had thought to tell Petreon that inception wasn't a process to be taken lightly. The ceremonies surrounding a 'proper' inception had formed a large part of that extra session Ash had given me.
Brooklyn is already unhar. Did you notice he didn't eat this evening? That’s because he's fasting in preparation for his inception. Let him have the dignity of choice I sent as I charged into the room that I sensed was Brooklyn's
A second later Ash pushed past me and slammed Petreon against the wall, not bothering to keep silence.
"Did you inject your parents Petreon!... did you?"
"Yes… soon we will be..."
"Idiot!... You know nothing! Did it not occur to you that there are reasons why we do things the way we do! You three were incepted in desperate circumstances, its only the Aghama's will that any of you survived. It was just plain good luck that Gyvon and Sixteen had been on a starvation diet before those scientists injected them."
"I..."
"Jurgen has the best chance, he's young and fit; hopefully the toxins from the food won't prolong the althaia too much. Your father, he's going to be at serious risk, not only is his body older but his mind has been human for too long. His new emotions could drive him insane." said Ash emphasizing each word with a jab of the finger. Finally Ash's tone changed to one of compassion ".....and your mother...I'm sorry but she's dying. No female has ever survived inception. All we can do now is ease her passing."
Petreon looked appropriately horrified.
I glanced at Brooklyn who'd scrambled into the corner where his bed met the wall, the duvet wrapped around him...his eyes huge and terrified. We must have seemed extremely alien just then.
I put a hand on Ash's shoulder. "Back off Ash, the consequences are punishment enough"
Taking the syringe from Petreon's unresisting fingers Ash stepped back. "You're right, Sixteen...Ok hara we're going to have a rough couple of days with this. Petreon, you'd better explain it to them whilst they're still conscious. Start with your parents. Gyvon; go keep an eye on Jurgen. Sixteen, you're with Brooklyn here."
Brooklyn and I looked at each other for a long time after the others left, neither knowing what to say.
"I... Did you get all that?" I asked
"I think so. Peter fucked up somehow, put their lives in danger."
I nodded.
"What I don't get is 'why?' you'd already persuaded me and I figure by the way Dad and Jurg were looking at you at dinner, they'd almost been seduced too" asked Brooklyn, becoming less withdrawn
I was secretly very relieved that Brooklyn wasn't having second thoughts. Despite what had just happened he was still determinedly unhar.
"Peter loves his new life so much, he wanted to share the experience with you guys at the first opportunity. He thought he was giving you the greatest gift he could bestow" I said sadly "It didn't occur to us that he didn't know the risks."
I heard the sound of footsteps, and guessed that Petreon was going to Jurgen's room.
"You'd better come with me Brooklyn, you'd better see your mother whilst....whilst you can."
I felt like shit, and spent the next few hours with tears trickling down my face. It was all such a great tragedy. After the first hour Ash felt it best that Brooklyn be led away, his father and brother looked hideous and his mother...that was worse.
I guess the majhahn doped ice cubes from earlier helped a lot, he didn't complain when I led him downstairs and he was happy to rest in my arms, finally letting sleep claim him.
I looked down at him and could easily see the potential. He'd be a real heartbreaker when he'd gone through his own inception.
---
I was awoken the next morning by the scent of bacon frying. Brooklyn had evidently awoken first and was determinedly trying to act normal despite the mess we'd made of his family.
Silently I joined him, assisting by buttering some toast.
"I telephoned my dad's work" he said casually.
Ice trickled up my spine. I hadn't occurred to any of us to confiscate the Murrays' mobiles.
"I told them we're all coming down with one of the new viruses...I also spread it around our friends. We're unlikely to be disturbed for maybe a week or so..if we're lucky" he said still determinedly frying more bacon.
"You aren't going to let me see them today are you?" he added after a pause.
"Its best not to. The Althaia, the transformation process, is bad enough when you go through it, without having seen it before hand.
The smell of cooking must have reached the other three as they soon joined us. There was a tense moment when Petreon and Brooklyn saw each other, which ended when Brooklyn slammed a breakfast down in front of his ex-brother.
"How are they?" I asked
"They're both having difficulty, as I expected. There are some ceremonies that might help. You and Brooklyn will have to go into town and pick up some components first though." explained Ash
You don't want to keep him close by? I sent
This will keep him occupied replied Ash handing me a hastily scribbled list
"You can trust me" said Brooklyn, assuming that my silence had implied doubts "I'll do anything it takes to save them"
"Good" replied Ash flicking a credit card across the table at him.
"Where did you..!? That’s Dad's card"
"Your father thinks he's caught one of the new viruses. He understands that he needs 'medicine' he wanted me to have his card to purchase it. The pin number is 10583 expiry date next June." replied Ash "and these..."
Brooklyn caught the keys to his father's SUV.
It was obvious that he was seething with anger, and I wondered at the wisdom of this, but he soon calmed down and pocketed the keys.
"Shops open at nine. Better get ready if you're coming" he said, sharply reminding me that I was still naked.
---
Zanesville is set along the confluence of two river valleys with steep wooded hillsides hemming it in.
The geography of the city allowed Home-Sec to place their roadblocks at the pinch points, thus causing considerable rush hour delays as we passed through each one.
At first I was nervous that I would be detected as being non-human, but Brooklyn seemed confident enough. The reason was soon apparent, Home-Sec's local branch had clearly given up on searching vehicles properly, contenting themselves with a cursory glance at the back seat...as if we were likely to have machine guns just left there to be seen.
"Drive on miss"
I batted my eyelashes at him in what I hoped was a convincing way and eased out into the snarl of vehicles waiting for the next checkpoint.
A third security check, this time by the owners of the parking lot, was more thorough. The human had invested in a bomb sniffer and insisted on using it. He was unarmed, so what he'd have done if we'd really been Bermudan freedom fighters or Animal rightists I hadn't a clue.
I looked at the shopping list. A week ago it wouldn't have made much sense, but after Ash's intensive training session the uses of each item were blindingly obvious to me and I was even getting brief flashbacks remembering how a different 'me' had used the things.
Most of the items represented the elemental forces of nature and would look just like harmless household goods. Some of the items were going to be trickier to find or problematic at the roadblocks. I read the list aloud for Brooklyn's benefit.
"Natural sea salt, length of white cord(un-dyed), candles (various colors), dried herbs, feathers, calligraphy pens (one nib each of silver platinum and gold, electroplate will do), silk and cotton (various colors), hand-made paper, crystals, river pebbles, semi-precious stones (various). Five ceramic bowls safe to 400° C, and finally two knives. The knife blades to be 6" long (the more decorative the better)." I rolled my eyes "Where on earth are we going to find this shit!"
"Oh that’s dead easy Sixteen." replied Brooklyn easily "Just follow me"
Instead of entering the shopping mall he led me down a street of small shops that looked increasingly run-down and desperate. Toward the end the shops were boarded up and vandalized; basically similar on a small scale to the rotten hearts of the larger cities.
Our objective was immediately obvious; a single shop was still in business, its windows girded with half inch thick steel bars and its walls vandalized with accusations of devil worship.
"That’s a relief, its still here" muttered Brooklyn
Once inside the shop it was clear exactly why the Christianists had vandalized the place. Within seconds I had spotted that all of the items that I'd thought of as 'difficult' could be had right here.
I had never been in a shop like it before but it felt rather like I'd entered a console game shop and discovered that every game-cassette was new to me. With all these wonderful toys on display I knew that my hara and I would be regular customers.
I drifted over to an open cabinet displaying crystals and caressed a blob of amber, feeling it's natural aura boosting my self-confidence. The gem glowed a cheerful yellow as I channeled my reserve of agmara through it.
"C..can I help you ah..sirs?" asked the proprietor, a nervous looking Chinese man in his early twenties.
Quickly I closed my hand over the amber hiding its glow. My eyes flashed over him, appraising him. I thought immediately that he'd make a good har. That was probably just instinct though.
I wonder, are we hardwired to desire an increase in Wraeththu numbers? If Citadel were correct and we're the product of an out of control weapons program then probably yes.
I must have looked like a hungry wolf with my eyes on a nice plump goat. The proprietor swallowed nervously and began fingering a talisman around his neck as if it might have some protective power.
"I...don't want any trouble"
"We don't intend to cause any. We're just here for some supplies" I replied handing over the list with all the grace and poise of a duchess handing a servant a used wineglass. As if I were saying 'you have permission to touch my list'
It must have looked a bit odd as I was still wearing the military cut Citadel-gard trousers.
"Ah...of course" he looked at the extensive list and raised an eyebrow, Even if humans couldn't do magic, he clearly understood the uses to which his occult products could be put 'in theory'.
He looked at us again, slightly less nervously. "I see from your list that you mean no harm. You must forgive my nervousness. We are a family firm you see. My uncle has a store in Carmine City, he has heard tales, he has warned me of your sort."
I glanced at Brooklyn and wished silently that precognitions could be summoned at will. It would have been really convenient to know if needed to kill the proprietor or not.
"And what is it you think you know of 'my sort?' as you put it" I asked, relaxing further into my more manipulative soume side. I even managed to sound sincere and warm rather than lethal and icy.
"Uncle said that there was a new kind of customer coming to his store, young, long haired, beautiful and yet able to sense the tiniest flaw within his crystals. It was as if they were master jewelers. So radiant that they could be the Tolkein's Elves made flesh he said or a dragon in human form. He warned me that they were buying components for the very darkest rituals and should be treated with the deepest caution and respect"
I let out a mental sigh of relief. The proprietor knew nothing that Home-Sec or Citadel might believe, which meant I could safely consult Ash before doing anything messy.
"You have my word. I am not here to cause inconvenience Mister...?"
"Chen Ho Jin"
"Perhaps you could show us some blades" suggested Brooklyn who'd been looking at a novelty 'Klingon' dagger hanging on the wall behind the counter.
I could have kicked him. The last thing Jin needed to be thinking about was one of us holding a sacrificial dagger...I'd wanted to get to that later.
Fortunately my reassurance had calmed Jin down and he pulled down the rack or ornamental knives for our inspection.
Brooklyn immediately picked up the silly looking three-pronged Klingon thing and practiced flicking the button that extended its two spring loaded side-blades.
I already knew that the blunt steel and plastic thing Brooklyn had gotten hold of wasn't right, but he didn't yet have the senses that would tell him that. Unfortunately I had no real idea which of the remaining blades would be best just by looking.
Eliminating anything that had a plastic handle was my first attempt at narrowing the choice but it still left four blades.
Then I remembered an old book called Harry Potter Omnibus that I'd read a few years ago. It had been a library copy, but I'd 'acquired' it when I heard Citadel-Library Services were keen to have it burned as heretical. In the book the boy had chosen a wand by sensing which one felt 'right'.
No harm in trying, I thought. Closing my eyes I touched each dagger in turn, first the blade then the hilt. When I touched the fifth blade, my eyes opened and went wide in surprise ...it felt familiar, as if I'd used it a thousand times, the ridges of its snakeskin wrapped hilt fitting perfectly to my palm.
"This one" I said firmly holding it up so that I could inspect it more closely. It wasn't the most beautiful on display, but it's S-shaped blade had a grace and power that seemed blindingly obvious to my newer senses.
I almost expected Jin to say something like 'An interesting choice Mr. Potter there is only one other like it and it belongs to the Aghama himself.'
What he actually said was "special discount, for you only $3200 dolla' "
I was about to nod my approval when Brooklyn intervened saying we'd pay $1000 old dollars and no more.
I'd clean forgot about bartering. Until last week I'd used Citadel-dollars that could only be exchanged at the company shop at a set price. Zanesville apparently still used Old Dollars, despite their notorious value fluctuations. I made a note to ask Ash about money. Did we normally use the stuff, or was it just another trivial aspect of our old human life to be discarded?
In the end the blade cost us $2100 and even then Proprietor Jin didn't look at all displeased. I suspected that we'd just been fleeced, but comforted myself that as soon as Jin was persuaded to join us the discount rate would become much better.
As we exited the shop I let my mind wander. I couldn't wait to get back to our lair, thoughts of all the incredible magari's that we could now try out danced before my eyes.
I was an idiot.
Having spent my humanity behind the coddled walls of Citadel Corp, It didn't occur to me that downtown Zanesville was no safer than than any other un-patrolled zone. The streetkids didn't have the same lethality as a big city Wraeththu tribe, but we still must have looked like prey to them.
By chance Brooklyn was encumbered with most of the bags and I was carrying my nice soon-to-be sacred blade in its tropical hardwood case. I was still feeling rather soume in mood and my effeminate gait must have encouraged them further.
There were only three of them, so confident of dominance that the odds did not scare them.
"Looky here, got us a couple of corporate baby faggits buying incense from the chinky-boy" said the one in the leather jacket moving to block our path.
"Rich gayboy bitches" agreed the one wearing the delightful blue tie-dyed shirt.
"They are in serious fucking need of a haircut" advised the third, distinguished by a chain that pierced his ear twice and dangled in a loop. He toyed with a hunting knife, letting the sunlight glint off its polished blade.
"Put the knife down pretty boy." he hissed at me.
My pleasant after-shopping glow vanished in an instant and I gently placed the knife box on the ground at my feet. There was no question of using it on them, to do so would have made it worthless for its intended purpose.
By the time I'd bent over and stood back up I was firmly in an ouana frame of mind.
My change in posture confused them and they almost stepped back. They had thought us soft and were beginning to realize that in my case the softness was that of silk wrapped around steel.
Before I could do anything Chen Ho Jin came storming out of his shop armed with a broom.
Time seemed to slow as it always seems to do in times of mortal danger. Of course that isn't just an adrenalin illusion as humans believe. Time really is genuinely slower at such times; the universe is stretching in order to fit everything in.
I don't recall what Jin said as he rounded upon the knife wielding streetscum. Jin's entire rant seemed to compress itself into a single very long word that ended with an emphatic jab to the face with the bristle end of the brush.
Things should have ended there; I could sense their hot emotions as if they were the faintest perfume. For that one instant the streetscum's nerve was broken, humiliated he would have backed off and faced the laughter of his gang in private.
Unfortunately as Proprietor Jin pulled the brush away, one of the bristles hooked the streetscum's chain earring ripping it loose.
The Wraeththu histories Ash had fed us had inevitably contained a fair amount of the inner-city tribal mindset. Although I'd never experienced it in person, I kind of understood what it meant. Blood had been spilled, and that was that. There would be no backing down now.
The knife buried itself to the hilt in Jin's side before any of us could move. To their credit the other two streetscum looked shocked, no hardened killers these.
I would like to say that Brooklyn and I leapt into action in an instant. We didn't. Just because I'm Wraeththu doesn't make me a Hollywood action hero. Thinking up a response to something like that takes at least a couple of seconds for the best of us.
By the time I did act, Jin was on the ground, looking at his chest in surprise.
"You've heard of the Wraeththu? I take it" I asked conversationally
The three glanced at each other nervously; this wasn't the reaction they'd expected. I was supposed to scream or run or beg.
Oh, and they'd heard of Wraeththu all right. Somehara had gotten creative a while ago and used parts of a policeman to redecorate a certain national monument, it had made the news on all networks a couple of days before I was sent to the genetics lab.
"Out of respect, I will give you darlings one chance to walk away." I continued, my voice dripping with ice. It was total bluff of course. I thought I'd sounded pretty impressive though.
The knife lashed out.
I was actually quite surprised when I found that I'd instinctively caught the human's wrist between thumb and index finger, my finger digging into his pressure point.
The streetscum looked me in the eye and I looked right back at him. I maintained eye contact as I squeezed his wrist with all my strength.
"Was that the sound bones make when they crack?" I asked coldly
The knife slipped from the streetscum's nerveless fingers, clattering against the asphalt. He whimpered a bit.
"Fuck this!" said Leathers
A second later the other two had fled leaving me holding the knife-boy.
"Please!...don't... don't kill me!" he begged
I released my grip. It wasn't really a decision to let him go as such (I rather thought that he needed to pay with a bit more pain). Fortunately for him he took the freedom to move as permission to run like stink.
I let out a long sigh. Being an Ouana archetype takes it out of you, now that I could relax slightly I found wasn't able to stop crying, my emotional state swung like a pendulum, going high into a soume emotional state. After a few moments my emotions oscillated back to equilibrium.
I glanced down at Jin, he was breathing shallowly and was sat in an expanding pool of deep red blood.
I looked at Brooklyn and back at Jin "Oh crap!"
"And I don't suppose you're going to let me call the cops." replied Brooklyn sadly his voice taking on a slightly bitter edge.
"You don't understand. Its 'oh crap' because I just had a precognition. We're taking him back to your house."
"Oh!...Crap!"
---
Brooklyn thought I was insane. He got over his awe of me and told me so at length, all the way back to the roadblocks. After the roadblocks he was silent wide-eyed and thoughtful. I tried to explain about my precognitive ability, but he hadn't believed it...at least not until after the roadblocks.
I had 'foreseen' that we'd arrive back at the house without any difficulty; as a result I'd just piled Jin onto the back seat and driven. Any reasonable person...or hara... would have expected a checkpoint to be kind of interested in the presence of blood stained occult shop owners.
At the first checkpoint they were busy frisking the occupants of a car (with Florida plates), and the second checkpoint...well it looked to me like they were taking a very early lunch break.
---
Thanks to a brief sending, Ash, Petreon and Gyvon were waiting on the front step as we parked, rushing to help get Proprietor Jin inside the house as soon as we'd stopped.
Quickly I shared breath with each of them in turn letting them see my memory of our shopping trip.
"I can't let you hara out of my sight for five seconds" complained Ash checking the human's pulse. "He's lost a fucking bucket load"
"What do we do with him then?" asked Gyvon
"Pray to the Aghama that he's strong enough" replied Ash "Petreon, go to the cellar, clear the junk so that there's a large space in the centre of the room. We need it clear enough to us to stand in a circle around the human. Gyvon, grab the supplies and go help Petreon."
"What about me?" I asked
"Sixteen" he said resting a hand on each of my shoulders "You have a decision to make."
"I don't understand"
"There are two ways to heal him. We can take aruna and generate a healing force that will cause the wound to close up. Or you can incept him and the wound will heal itself during his althaia."
I almost asked 'why me? Why couldn't Ash make the decision himself?' Then I remembered that he'd be gone in just a few days and I'd have to make the call with every future problem we faced.
I looked down at the unconscious Jin, it would be dead easy to just wave a hand and have him incepted, change his destiny as If I were the Aghama himself....Just as Petreon had done to his family.
"Can you get him conscious? Enough to say yes?"
Ash nodded, it was plain that he approved of my choice.
Gently, Ash took his knife and cut Jin's shirt along its seams so that his wounded chest was laid bare. I watched in fascination, trying to 'sense' what it was that Ash was doing to the wound.
I crouched down "Mr. Chen. Can you hear me?"
His eyes opened and he almost began scrambling to get away.
"Mr. Chen...Jin. You tried to protect us. We are in your debt." I said trying to sound comforting
Slightly reassured he nodded weakly.
"You recognized that I was different, back at your shop." I started, and then stopped. It would be easy to ramble on, giving full detail. I forced myself to keep it brief.
"Look, there's not enough time to tell it all..basically you have two choices. We can heal the wound shut and let your body do the recovery as best it can...or... As you've proven yourself worthy...I'm offering you a chance to become like me, your wound will be utterly gone and your body will be become better in every respect. It will be different however. You will not be human."
"Will....will I.. be able to sense magics in my crystals...as you do?" he asked, confirming that he'd seen the jade glowing in my hand.
"Definitely" I replied
"Such a fine thing, to see real magic with my own eyes" he said faintly before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
"Its ok." Ash said "I was looking into his mind, he made the right choice."
"Am I the only person here that thinks he's the only one who's going to be doing this ritual fasting shit?" said Brooklyn
"Brooklyn, compared to the other three, you are going get a seriously easy ride. But I can see how it looks, the only one of you to actually want this is the only one who has to wait." Ash replied, "It's ironic, but in a few days you'll be happy that you went about this the right way."
Brooklyn sighed "So, is there anything I can do to help?"
"I advise you to meditate. Try to find an inner balance, visualize yourself as you wish to be." suggested Ash "That might sound a bit like doing nothing, but its actually quite hard and a necessary step to take."
---
Most houses I've seen have concrete floored basements, The Murray House was odd in this regard, the cellar floor was the flat bedrock itself. Clearly the builder had made a cost saving and none of the owners had felt the cellar warranted putting concrete down later. It might have been lousy selling point for a human household, but Ash seemed to think it was custom-made for Wraeththu-kind.
Our sacred place, The physical expression of our Nayati, was going to touch the raw Earth and still have the convenience of shelter and privacy. It beat having to meditate in the rain, Ash said, which was a point I could well agree with.
Creating a permanent Nayati is no simple task and definitely not one that ought to be performed by a week old Caste Ara like myself. I would put a health warning on this ritual 'don't try this at home'.
Ash had been concerned, but certain details of my precognition convinced him that 'destiny' would be up there filling in the gaps. Besides, its not like we had a choice, a Nayati was just too necessary, in some ways I seemed to be more certain of that fact than Ash was himself.
Ash had explained in detail what I had to do, but as I began laying out the components of the Nayati, I suddenly felt dissatisfied with the two simple concentric circles I was drawing. It felt wrong, not complex enough.
I stopped, realizing the truth, Ash's Nayati would only have called upon the Aghama alone...but none of the others fundamentally important Dehara. In fact he hadn't ever used the word Dehara either.
I felt a little disoriented. Others? What others? Ash had only mentioned Aghama, Origin of All Wraeththu. Why then did I think there were any other harish deities involved?
The answer was obvious, I was feeling the incompleteness because a precognition had sneaked in and pretended to be a memory.
I searched through my mind doing the mental equivalent of running my tongue over my teeth looking for the loose filling.
The memory of a book proved be the key. The cover of a well-worn leather bound book floated in my mind's eye.
A Grimoire of the Dehara
A treatise upon the diverse and porent Dehara of Megalithica, their summoning and aspects as used in daily life.
By Flick Har Sarrock
Going with my instincts I diverged from Ash's instructions, dividing the outer circle into quadrants and then writing the runes I would need.
The first rune represented a major Dehar and the second his etheric Nayati on the higher planes.. I thought of it as being like a series of homepage URLs.
Ash had made me memorize some summoning words for Aghama, I figured I'd play it by ear and use something similar for the other four Dehar, hoping that my unreliable future memory would guide me. On the face of it this wasn't that different from the luck charms.
I closed my eyes, entering the meditative state that Ash had taken such great pains to train us in. I looked at the faint grayish purple circle-like image that forms when you close your eyes and then imagined the faint shifting color was the paint with which I would visualize the etheric version of my Nayati.
Slowly the faint purple flowed until a primitive illusion, like a shakily drawn pencil-line drawing, depicting the room formed before my eyes.
Taking my finger I drew the first symbol in the air before me...it was an easy one 'Ara' the symbol of my caste and the gateway between realms. This was a part of the ritual common to both Ash's ritual and the future one and I felt confident in my execution of it. The symbol glowed brightly in the etheric air of my hand drawn room.
The next symbol was 'Neoma', the symbol of the next level, this one looked wobbly and uncertain, reflecting my lack of self-awareness, perspiration trickled down my neck and onto my chest as I desperately concentrated on stabilizing it.
A waft of precognition touched me then suddenly all the symbols and Deharic names were like old friends, that required no more thought than the writing of one's signature.
I proceeded quickly then, the first of the Dehar I needed was some entity called Aruhani.
As soon as the runes and the words of invitation were complete, one wall of my Nayati vanished, replaced with an alien vista, a black glass plane lit by a golden metallic sky. The wall, I realized, was acting like a 'holodeck arch'.
My point of view raced across the severe alien landscape zeroing in on a vast pyramid and then rushing through a maze of deep corridors until the other side of my wall showed a jungle arboretum, with an alter at its centre. Black Aruhani reclined on his altar as if it were a bed, posed as if he waited for a lover to come to him.
Everything wobbled for a moment, this wasn't at all what I'd expected, I realized, finally, what a 'Dehar' was. This wasn't small beer luck charms I was messing with here...That shaky Neoma symbol was probably all that prevented me from drifting off to another plane of reality entirely.
I took a few deep breaths calming myself.
I bowed deeply to the Dehar Aruhani and reached out my hand as if to pull him upright. On the other side of my wall the glowing purple outline of a hand reached to the Dehar.
Aruhani smiled encouragingly and allowed me to pull him upright and then through the wall into my hand drawn Nayati. Suddenly his quadrant of the circle took on the look of his world, as if he'd applied a CGI skin to my wire-frame graphic.
I concentrated on my breathing again, I felt I'd just opened the door to a lion's cage and I knew, with trepidation, that I had to do the same summoning for four more Dehara.
Once again the surge of future memory aided and steadied me, this time, I could feel Aruhani's presence, slightly impatient, willing me on.
Next came the Dehar Miyacala, his quadrant as white as Aruhani's had been black. When my hand touched his to pull him through, light flooded through the outline of my arm, filling out the illusion making it look real. I glanced at my spectral palm and saw the precisely formed sigil of Neoma there.
After Miyacala came Agave, burning in flames, like a harish version of Marvel's Human Torch and in the finally quarter Lunil, blue skinned and delicate, his quadrant of my Nayati filled with an inch of moon-lit water that stopped abruptly at the boundary of his realm.
They waited... Suddenly I realized that It was me that these great otherworldly entities were looking at. I had one last Dehar to summon, Aghama...the one I'd been casually using as a swear word (by Aghama) for the last week and the only one of the five I had any legitimate right to call upon.
There was no quadrant left, which meant he'd be right here in the centre right next to me, up close and personal.
I calmed myself again and drew the Aghama's sigil. Nothing happened.
Somehar tapped me on the shoulder and my visualization wobbled as I nearly lost it. Slowly I turned to see the flame haired Dehar grinning widely at his joke.
My mouth ran dry and I found it difficult to speak.
Aghama
"Well get on with it then!" he said cheerily "Do you have any idea how many of these ceremonies I have to attend in a day?"
I'd been expecting Zeus, thunderbolts and wrath of god. The difference between my preconceptions and the actual thing stalled me again.
"W..would you mind please consecrating this place in the outer reality, so that we can meet here in the future please."
"Please twice, he's polite, I'll give him that." pronounced The Aghama
Around the circle the four Dehar nodded agreement.
"He draws heavily from his future, calling us to his time. his training is not satisfactory" replied Lunil sternly
"He deceives, pretending to skills he has not yet earned" added Agave scowling
"He risked much summoning us into a time before we were named" said Miyacala "He is both wise and unwise"
Aruhani grinned " He's got passion though...He deserves his chance. Besides, Miyacala already slipped him the protective knowledge he needs to survive the paradox of this encounter, didn't you darling"
I looked at my spectral hand and the Neoma mark branded on it.
"Even so, there will be consequences" replied Agave gravely "Time must find its balance at his expense."
"He should be advised not to call upon our aspects again until he hears that we are truly named." said Lunil
The Aghama looked outward then, as if noticing his companions for the first time, a look of mild surprise on his face. I wondered then, if The Aghama was from my present, rather than the timeframe of these other Dehars. I wondered if the Aghama might be a little less omniscient than I'd thought.
Feeling the need to get away from the subject of my personal inaddequacies and the fact that my Nayati seemed to have accidenatally transcended time itself, I tried to lead them back to my purpose. "umm...If you guys wouldn't mind getting on and consecrating the place. Oh.. and then hanging around whilst we incept a wounded human, I'd much appreciate it."
"Priceless!" grinned The Aghama "Let it be so."
The other four nodded agreement. Whatever else the future held it was clear that the Aghama was still the big boss.
A second later the etherial Nayati faded to the back of my awareness allowing me to once more see the 'real' place. I was gasping for air, sweating from my first contact with the spiritual plane.
Remembering my role, I hastily nicked a finger using my S-bladed knife and rammed the blooded tip into a crack in the bedrock.
"With this Naqi I call upon the Dehars to make this place their own, an anchor between realities"
Like a domino-topple, agmara energy circled around the newly sacred place, fizzing invisibly along he salt-lines and converged upon the blade, bonding it to this rock and this purpose.
"To the Aghama I dedicate this place and to his service I give all hara blooded here!" I improvised rather theatrically, feeling that the ceremony needed a suitably religious flourish.
It could have been the Dehar speaking the word or it could have been the sound of something infinitely heavy thudding down.
The agmara pulsed outward from the Naqi like a ripple on a pond, dissipating before it reached the piles of junk we'd cleared to the edges of the room.
Hesitantly I reached down and touched the bedrock. Where the agmara had touched it, it had become utterly flat, black and smooth as a sheet of obsidian glass...it reminded me of Aruhani's realm.
Gyvon and Petreon were obviously amazed, cautiously inspecting the edge of our Nayati. After seeing my frankly dire attempts at creating luck charms this order of effect must have impressed them greatly.
Ash...Ash clipped me around the ear.
"Don't ever, Ever! Improvise!" he growled, and then added in a quieter tone "That was well done though."
With that, he swept dramatically out of the room. That's one of those things you have to love about Ash, he's a 'presence', you know when he's there and when he's departed, there's no quietly slipping in or out with our Ash.
A moment later he returned, carrying the unconscious Jin in his arms, as if he weighed no more than a small child. Carefully he laid his burden down at the centre of the Nayati next to the Naqi
I was to wield the knife and was about move back into the Nayati when a thought trickled into my brain from the higher realms. With fumbling fingers I quickly pulled down my pants and discarded them along with my shoes and watch.
"New rule guys. From now on nothing human-made inside the circle. This is a respect thing, the Dehara don't like synthetics"
They nodded, after my little rock smoothing exercise, they were happy to go along with something like that. Besides, it gave them an extra opportunity to admire me...am I vain or what!
Turning my attention to the job in hand, I pulled the Naqi from the crack I'd wedged it in, that single crack was now the only flaw in the Nayati's surface.
Jin's head flopped toward me. Had he been conscious I'd have been coaxing his mind into the ethereal part of the Nayati at that point.
I raised my left arm holding it parallel to the ground, holding the Naqi blade vertically above my head pointed in the direction of the sky.
This time the words were scripted; Ash had made me memorize them yesterday.
"Aghama! I call upon you to witness this union of Wraeththu blood and human flesh. I Sixteen, Acting Heinami of this tribe, seek your protection for this soul as he begins his journey toward the perfection of your image. The soul Chen Ho Jin is courageous and worthy, I commend it to your service"
Having said the words the only thing left was the painful bit. I'd intended to just nick my wrist a little nothing major.
What a hypocrite.
The Dehar Agave detests deception and wouldn't let me out of it that easily; a feverish zeal came over me. Slowly, deliberately I cut a deep 'Ara' shaped furrow that started at my wrist and ended way up at my elbow.
I lifted my injured arm pointing it skyward, letting them all see the blood running freely down my shoulder and across my chest.
I changed my grip on the Naqi and slammed it back into it's crack with all my force both physical and spiritual. Like the legendary sword in the stone only the designated Heinami of this tribe would be able to pull it loose on either plane.
Returning my attention to my task, I held the index and middle fingers of my hand together so that they formed a channel to guide the free flowing blood and then pushed them into Jin's open wound.
If he hadn't been injured I'd have done it differently, but I figured he'd stand the best chance if the blood started rebuilding the damaged part first.
I gritted my teeth and waited as the blood flowed quickly down over my hand into Jin's wound. I stayed there like that until the blood had dried on my arm and my wound had healed shut...roughly ten minutes.
Other things happened, but my mind wasn't quite ready for them... I think my brain needed an extra few minutes to catch up. That or I wasn't allowed to be distracted by it just yet.
"Sixteen..." wispered Gyvon "its enough"
He was right.
Taking several deep breaths I returned my mind to the Inner Nayati where the five Dehar waited.
"Thank you all for coming" I told them.
I focused my attention on Aruhani and then proceeded to draw the Ara symbol in reverse signifying the closure of the gateway, formally thanking and dismissing the Dehar.
Slowly the black and gold realm detached leaving only my crudely imagined room hanging in space. Repeating the process with each Dehar in turn I was finally left alone standing in the unformed mists of the etheric realm.
It was over. Finally I could relax.
I opened my eyes.
"By the Aghama's will" I said and then made my exit, striding across the cellar, up the wooden stairs and out.
---
They found me, sat naked on the front step, my head between my knees breathing heavily.
I didn't notice Petreon and Gyvon until they were sat on either side of me, huddled close.
"What... a... fucking... RIDE!" I babbled, "I actually spoke with Them, I could feel Them watching it all! They knew, They knew Jin saved us, They picked it right out of my mind. And They knew I wasn't a proper Heinami too. And that wouldn't do at all. So.. So they.."
I took another deep breath and used some mental trickery that I'd just learned to regain equilibrium. "That wasn't just a consecration and inception. The Dehara raised me a rooning caste level!"
They thought I was still out of it and hugged me closer, which I appreciated greatly.
I glanced at my palm, there was no sign of the Neoma symbol...not in this world.
The next two days passed quickly. Our three new hara continued their slow, slow, journey through the Althaia, each needing to be watched and occasionally washed. Even with the magari we occasionally used to dim the pain, Ash thought that their Althaia might last several more days.
In the spare moments we continued to practice creating simple magari, and alternating with more meditation practice.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn prowled like a sleek mountain cat his desire to become Wraeththu dominating his every waking thought. Even his mother's death didn't seem to bother him greatly from his intention.
Because of the way I'd been incepted, injected against my will by a cold-hearted scientist, I'd never seen or felt a reaction like it. I found it difficult to understand how anyone who hadn't shared breath or taken aruna could possibly understand how completely 'better' everything was.
Obviously the evidence of my eyes and Ash's relaxed attitude seemed to indicate that, whilst not common, Brooklyn's reaction was not unheard of either.
If we have this effect on many boys, our numbers will quickly become vast. Naturally the thought of cities full of Wraeththu was deeply desirable.
I wasn't at all surprised to be awoken early on the third day of Brooklyn's fasting, by a desperately eager unhar.
"Its time, Tiahaar Sixteen. I sense it" said Brooklyn
"Bollocks!" I said ungraciously, rolling over and trying to get back to sleep.
Unfortunately, I'm not really that cold hearted and I found that I couldn't return to sleep.
"Alright, alright. As soon as the others are ready, we'll hold the ceremony. Now pass me that comb. I must look a fright"
Instead of passing it Brooklyn, sat cross-legged behind me and began easing the comb through my silky smooth mane hair.
Ah the luxury. I wondered briefly if I could make the unhar's brushing of the heinami's hair a tradition...but thought better of it, not all unhar were going to be as willing as Brooklyn.
"I...have a big favor to ask" he said shyly.
"Yes?"
"After the changing"
"Althaia" I corrected
"After....I'd like it to be you"
I felt a warm glow then, anticipation mixed with a subtler emotion.
"If only all favors were that easy to grant. Of course yes." I replied, casually.
He hugged me then, surrounding me with the stench of human-male.
Wake up hara. We have a ceremony to perform in half an hour. I sent to the others.
"You'd better go prepare yourself Brooklyn. We'll be waiting at the Nayati in half an hour." I instructed.
---
I have to admit that we'd done a pretty good job on the earthly half of the Nayati. The junk had been cleared and the sacred space now looked the part. Candles now ringed the circle of flattened stone and its surface was scattered with fragrant petals.
Now that I had the knowledge of the Neoma caste and knew what to expect, the summoning went much more easily. It still seemed 'wrong' to be summoning The Aghama and not the others, but after those ominous warnings about fucking with time, I wasn't going to improvise a fucking thing. I did manage to refine the domestic details of the inner Nayati though. I included the outline of a comfortable seat for the Aghama to use.
If The Aghama was surprised to be alone he didn't show it or comment upon it.
Once The Aghama was comfortably installed (he liked my chair and clothed it in an ever-shifting rainbow swirl) I returned my awareness to 'normal' reality and waved the others in.
They all filed into the chamber, with Brooklyn arriving last wearing his harhune robes. Actually the 'robes' consisted of a family sized white T-shirt that reached half way to his knees. (We'd had a big debate over whether he should wear the thing; I was only persuaded when I was assured that it had been hand woven in a Polynesian sweatshop).
Brooklyn hadn't gotten close to the Nayati before and was clearly amazed at the smooth rock, kneeling to run his finger across its surface as he entered.
My own 'robes' consisted of a small amount of silk, (most of the colored silk we'd purchased had been dyed chemically and was inappropriate for the ceremony). Having checked myself in the mirror before setting out, I was certain that my minimal robes left me looking striking and exotic.
I'd run through this moment over and over during the wait. Obviously I had to use my knife, but it struck me as a bit messy and unhygienic, a hypodermic would be the cleanest way to get my blood into him....but I'd never used one and besides I'd heard you could accidentally inject an air bubble that could stop the heart. Then there was the issue of where to cut him open, I had to get my blood in quickly before it dried, but I didn't want him to promptly bleed to death either.
Ash had been no help at all, saying only 'its your tribe, do what you think best.'
As it turned out I needn't have worried. The Aghama knew I was here and what he required of me.
As before, as soon as I'd taken the Naqi in my hand and said its name the frenzy of the ritual took over.
I knelt in front of Brooklyn, almost within touching distance and held my arms so that they were pointing down and diagonally outward, one palm flat the other hand holding the knife.
Without needing to be told Brooklyn mimicked my pose.
Gently I took the Naqi and cut deeply into his palm along the crease that a palmist would call the 'life-line'.
He winced but held himself steady.
I then repeated the cut to his other hand.
As with Jin I called upon the Aghama to watch over Brooklyn and then slashed both my arms from wrist to elbow and raising both arms above my head so that my tribe could witness my blood flowing. I then lowered my hands so that I mirrored Brooklyn's stance, waiting for a few moments until the blood had trickled onto my palms covering them in a gory read.
The self-mutilation no longer bothered me, the scar from Jin's inception had completely vanished the same day.
"Hold tight" I whispered and clenched hands with Brooklyn, the blood trickling down my arm and into the two open wounds.
Grabbing his spirit I took us to the inner Nayati where the Aghama waited like a judge at a trial. I wasn't really a party to the conversation between him and Brooklyn, but I did notice that Brooklyn's spirit form seemed somehow more balanced and harish when The Aghama finished with him.
The Aghama turned his attention back to me and nodded, a signal that I should carry Brooklyn back to the Earthly realm.
Minutes ticked by. I looked him in the eye, hoping that I gave off a look of 'calm reassurance'. He told me later that'd I'd managed to look like a vulture regarding its prey. His grip was firm and unflinching; he was determined to be an equal in this.
I blinked and then noticed that Brooklyn's arms were wrapped in a webwork of inflamed veins and that he'd begun to pant heavily, my blood rushing to infuse every cell of his body.
Clearly the Inception had 'taken'
I helped Brooklyn to his feet and led him to the edge of the circle where Petreon and Gyvon were waiting to take him from me.
Once they were gone, I flipped back to the inner Nayati with casual ease. That's one of the things about a Nayati, you can't afford to leave one active. I wouldn't like to think how pissed off Aghama might get if you left him hanging around in a Nayati for a couple of days.
Once I'd seen Aghama safely on his way, I turned my attention to the way things had gone. I couldn't imagine that the day could get any better.
I was of course entirely correct, that was the high point of the day. Our new brothers were still a mess and still needed constant care. It's just as well they are too far out of it to pay attention whilst the foulness of humanity is expelled from them. The end results are worth it, but watching an althaia, its enough to put you off your food.
---
Two days later again and its evident that three of our four new hara will complete their althaia on the same day, although its not the ones I had have assumed it would be.
It looks as if the whole 'starving the unhar' deal actually works, good ol' Brooklyn's body got on with it, becoming the second to finish the umm 'flowering' stage of the althaia, right after Jurgen.
As for the other two, Jin would be probably be third later that evening. As well has healing his wound the althaia had changed him quite a bit physically, he appeared slightly younger, taller and his eyes seemed slightly larger, glittered with a beautifully captivating inner light (when they were open).
The last of our new hara Mr. Murray... 'David'... Was taking a lot longer to go through it, he was still at the disgusting 'hot, cold and incontinent' phase. His change was going to be the most radical, although his body was currently a crusty oozing wreck, his face had cleared up....he didn't 'look' older than fifteen. He muttered nonsense in his delirium. I assumed that that was normal enough, I'd done the same myself, but Ash remained deeply concerned.
I'd just finished showering, to get poor David's putrid smell out of my hair when Gyvon barged in looking urgent.
"Jurgen wants to speak to you"
I nodded pulling on a bathrobe "On my way"
Jurgen was in his room wearing a t-shirt and a loose pair of boxer shorts, he'd been fit and muscular before and it was evident that he was now thinner and taller, his muscles less obviously defined.
He paced the room like a cornered animal. It was clear that his althaia was over and he was now filled with that nervous coltish energy that precedes first aruna.
"They tell me you are in charge"
"I guess so. Ash knows more, but he'll be leaving us soon"
"You ordered this done? You ordered them to mutilate me!" he raged suddenly
"Actually I didn't. Your brother decided to do that all by himself" I replied with bitter irony
"Bull-Shit! Why were you in our house if this wasn't exactly what you had planned from the outset!"
Ok, I admit, he had me bang to rights on that one. I glanced away, not able to quite meet his eyes.
"I thought so!" he sneered
It was quite clear that his mind had swung out into the ultra-ouana a bit like Gyvon's had during his althaia. Fortunately it wasn't quite to the same degree.
"Trust me, its not as bad as you think it is" I replied trying to calm him and coax out the soume aspect of his character.
"In what fucking way! My cock's been shredded, I've lost my six-pack, I need a haircut and I keep wanting to bloody cry!"
"Jurgen" I said firmly "Have you actually looked at yourself down there?"
He blushed "No. I don't need to look. I can feel it wriggling I know its changed"
"Jurgen. You are still thinking like a human. I was exactly the same...I didn't want to acknowledge what had happened either. But the thing is, your brain is already hardwired up to think of your ouana-lim as a deeply erotic thing."
"My what?"
"Your wriggler" I clarified. "I guarantee, looking at it will give you the same feelings that looking at a playboy centerfold used to"
He hesitated clearly caught between obstinacy and curiosity.
"It's your body. Sooner or later you'll need to piss and you can't exactly do that with your eyes shut for the next sixty odd years"
The logic was inescapable, and Jurgen pulled open the elastic of his shorts and forced himself to look. It was almost comical, the look of teeth gritting distaste melting into an expression of wonder and unconcealed lust.
Gotcha.
I averted my gaze as his hand explored his differences. I figured he'd seen sense and was finally coming around to a proper state of mind.
"Ok...so its pretty. That doesn't mean you were right to do this. Home-Sec need to be told about you bastards!" he growled reaching for the bedside phone.
This was hardly turning out to be the happy aruna filled day I'd expected it do be.
I grabbed his hand before it touched the receiver. He pulled free with a startling strength. Desperately I grabbed him again and we struggled, Jurgen wrestling to break free, me trying to get him away from the rooning phone.
As we wrestled, things gradually slipped toward the erotic, I found my self-slipping into the soume role, succumbing to the desire to be overpowered and ravished. Given the situation that was the last thing I needed.
For a brief moment we were face to face his lips within range. In that instant I knew that I had one tactic that he couldn't know about and had no defense against.
I darted forward and filled his half open lips with my breath.
He had no choice, sharing of breath is an instinctive thing, like sneezing its not something you cannot not do.
He breathed into me.
We are Betrayer and Victim, but also Savior and saved one.
We fear what we have become and we revel in it.
We need something that we don't understand and we understand exactly what we need.
We separate.
My vision clears and I can see him looking down at me a look of amazement on his smooth face.
"No more phoning Home-Sec?" I asked
"Convince me!"
His Ouana, which had helpfully poked through his boxers during our tussle, had flowered nicely pushing the fabric aside. For myself, my bathrobe had long since fallen open.
Grasping his buttocks firmly I pulled him down onto me.
"What th....." were the last intelligible words he uttered as I showed him the things within that we'd not quite gotten around to telling him about.
A couple of hours later he rolled off me and grabbed the phone. For an instant my heart froze, had even the aruna we'd shared not been enough to convince him.
Jurgen held the handset triumphantly above me and then savagely ripped the chord from its base. The discarded device clattered against the far wall.
He leaned into me, ready to share breath again.
---
Eventually we separated. I was mindful that Brooklyn would be ready soon and in fairness, even though I'd promised him, It didn't seem right that I get 'all' the fun. Having showered and washed Jurgen's fluids away I sent to Gyvon that as I'd taken his place with Jurgen it was only fair that he would be the one for Brooklyn instead.
NO came an instant reply filled with frustration and hurt. I didn't recognize the flavor of the mind-touch, but it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to realize that the ever precocious Brooklyn was the sender.
Putting my bathrobe back on I went I went to Brooklyn's room, where I found that my entire tribe had gathered. Even Petreon and Jin were there holding hands and glancing at each other in a romantic way that suggested that I hadn't been the only one of us doing his duty for the tribe.
Jurgen was also there, leading the pack and having a heated, but whispered, conversation with his stepbrother.
I gathered from Jurgen's words that he thought Brooklyn was being 'picky' and to just get on with it.
Ash arrived just behind me, having been in the furthest bedroom tending to David.
Once he understood the situation he intervened "I'm not of your tribe. But if it were me, I'd let the poor har choose who he wants to take first aruna with. It will, after all, be a special moment for him"
Gyvon and Jurgen both looked unhappy, but Petreon nodded his agreement.
I didn't allow my own preference to influence my decision, I really didn't. It might have looked selfish but Ash was right.
I turned to Gyvon and Jurgen and placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
"Why don't you to get to know each other, Jurgen hasn't tried being Ouana yet" I said with a very theatrical wink.
Jurgen smiled brightly, clearly eager to explore and Gyvon, after the briefest hesitation, grinned back.
"Good, that’s all settled then. Now off you go you lot, this isn't public entertainment"
As I closed the door I could hear Ash’s voice fading into the distance, saying to them. "Actually, in one tribe I heard of it IS a public...."
I lent my head against the door for a second and then turned to look upon the most beautiful har I'd ever seen...ok I'd only ever seen seven hara but he was still the best.
Unlike his brother, we'd had the time to fully explain things to Brooklyn before Althaia, as a result he'd not bothered with clothes and had already placed himself in a languorously soume frame of mind.
"I didn't mean to create a scene" He said shyly
"Forget It. I Just wasn't thinking. I did give you that promise. Ash was right, its your choice to make. And if I'm honest I'm glad that you picked me."
I blushed....I probably sounded like some trashy romance novel.
"Sixteen...I know." he replied stepping close to me and taking my hand. "I've dreamed of this moment for fourteen years. It was always going to be you, even though I'd never seen your face until a week ago, I knew."
He reached up slightly and exhaled, the sharing of breath was so powerful that our lips didn't even need to touch.
We were one, we were whole. Destiny had its plans and we had a part to play.
Our precognitive ability flared to life swirling through time showing glimpses of small serious looking not-children and odd football-like eggs that caused great surges of protectiveness within us. Sixteen had known that we would have offspring and now Brook knew that we would too.
"Oh Brook!" I gasped as soon as our minds were sufficiently untangled.
It felt odd, even though we were no longer sharing breath, I could sense a link with Brook, through which his love for me trickled in a tiny yet steady stream.
"Do you feel it?" I asked waving vaguely at my head.
"Yes Sixteen. What is it?"
"I'm only two weeks older than you love, I haven't a clue" I admitted
"We can ask Ash later" replied Brook dismissively; it was clear there was only one thing on his mind.
He stepped back toward the bed pulling me by my hands.
"I am The Brook...come bathe in me" he said.
I bathed long into the evening.
---
The Dehar's warning about 'consequences' had completely slipped my mind.