We Are Forever (Rishi's Wish Book 2)

by C. M. Martens

  Before that, she'd sparred with Atkins, another whose prowess on the killing field was matched only by a select few. She'd even killed a couple of the Ophiuchus' Soldiers, another feat that told of her extraordinary abilities. In a matter of months, she'd gone from a spaz throwing up in the bushes to a warrior who could stand toe-to-toe with the best of the best.

  A wash of empowerment pulled her posture straight, dampened her negative thoughts. She hadn't respected Hamal's perspective. She hadn't had the awareness to understand why he pushed her. Too busy hiding, she hadn't been capable of tapping her potential or even understanding what that potential could be. Not then.

  Soon after their arrival in the mountains, Castor caught up with them. Reunited with his brother, Pollux’s tendency for moody withdrawals ceased, though only because that was Castor's role. His apathetic watchfulness was the balance to Pollux's eager instruction.

  Together, they'd showed Dee a laundry list of new tricks.

  In direct contrast to her physical training with the Twins, Asellus taught the art of sitting around. At least, that's what Dee first thought. After only a week, she could admit the benefits from calming her mind, from becoming the master of her thoughts rather than a bystander pulled along by the constant changes of her psyche.

  There was still a long way to go, but her nightmares had calmed, and her ability to let thoughts float away rather than catch her up in their mess was enough to make coming here worth it.

  Asellus was a quiet woman. As tall as the Twins, her round face, older than the others, held small features. A busty upper body balanced out her willowy frame, and the same motherly demeanor Amalthea carried shown from Asellus’ caramel eyes.

  Despite her calm, Asellus wasn't patient with Dee's ideas on appropriate sleeping times. Dee's usual late night to late morning schedule was fast obliterated in this place. If Dee didn't show up by dawn, someone would be there to pull her out of bed.

  Experience proved the reality of that.

  Dressed in thick woolen socks, tight leggings under baggy fisherman's pants, and a dense, coarse wrap-around jacket, Dee hurried to where Asellus would already be in session.

  2

  The panorama of glass allowed dawn’s light to brighten the room. Dee hurried, ignoring this lower-level view that matched the one from her bedroom. Here, the tall windows buffered the sharp wind, but she wouldn’t be distracted by it. Not when she was so late.

  The Rishi’s knees hung over the edge of the lofted second floor, telling that the matron had already nestled into her practice. Stripping her warm outer layers to throw them towards hooks set near the door, Dee hurried faster.

  This second story, dedicated solely to contemplation, was where Asellus spent most of her time and where Dee spent each of her mornings. At first, Dee had dreaded this time, the forced stillness, hating the whirling thoughts she couldn’t escape. Nervous energy, spawned from ideas she didn’t want to face, made it impossible for her to sit still. Compartmentalized thoughts were too eager to slip their cage when faced with nothing but blank time. Her brain didn't understand it. Her body didn't recognize it. Sitting and staring out the window seemed like nothing but a monumental waste of time.

  On the third day, she hadn’t shown up.

  When a small, weathered woman had come to collect her, speaking a language Dee didn’t recognize, Dee knew this non-activity activity was non-negotiable. Rather than continue to argue with a woman she couldn’t understand, Dee followed with leaden feet, mind stewing in a vat of frustration.

  She'd come a long way in the week since then.

  Today, with light tread, she climbed the narrow stairs pressed against the mountain-side wall. With gratitude and apology, she pushed through the demarcation of quiet and stepped onto the plank wood of the floor. She wondered if this dense cloud of serenity wasn’t some kind of magic spell. Or maybe, it was just some residual projection from the Rishi’s constant attendance. Either answer Dee would believe.

  Pollux joined them this morning. He sat with closed eyes, legs folded in lotus position, facing the Eastern window, so Dee looked at his right side as she passed. Asellus' position was at the Northern station of the landing, so close to the edge of the railless floor, a glance might convince she levitated over empty space.

  Dee pinned her gaze to the back of the Rishi’s head, knowing the matron’s eyes would be open, staring blindly into the sky before her. Dee hadn’t gotten over how creepy this was. She didn't understand how Asellus could be so detached from the world while still conscious of all around her. Dee could barely sit still and concentrate with closed eyes.

  She smiled, remembering those first days when she showed up with delusions of demanding answers she imagined were rightfully hers. Each morning, those questions would fall away, erased by the peace of the room that eroded her grand plan.

  It was this calm Asellus tried to teach. It was this calm Dee tried to find, and hold even after the practice was complete. It was this calm, Asellus explained, that would allow Dee to glimpse the true state of things.

  Even now, after learning to enjoy these morning sessions, Dee wasn’t sure she understood what the Rishi meant. She wasn’t sure she understood what the Rishi meant by much. Not everything had changed since coming to the mountains.

  Dee’s smile morphed to a grimace when she thought about the day of her meltdown. It was that third day, the day she'd been dragged from her bed despite arguments for why she wouldn’t benefit from whatever this was, that burned her with embarrassment.

  That morning, volatility was held from boiling over through effort that left her limbs trembling. The soothing nature of the room assisted in keeping her caged anger from exploding, but, like a spiteful toddler, Dee had refused to sit as was required.

  Her inner-voice had egged her on, its position that she was long over-due for an explanation compounded by the idea that she should no longer be content to live by the dictums of whatever inner-squabbling was going on with the Rishis. At first, not as confident in her abilities to not die as her ego, she’d held back. But, pressed under the pressure of Asellus’ meditative silence, her thoughts continued to snowball until she exploded in a geyser of emotion.

  Asellus' calm mask turned to watch her rage with sympathetic eyes without interruption or interjection. Pollux, standing from his relaxed repose at Dee’s words, had remained at the far side of the room, arms crossed over his chest while leaning casually against the wall, eyebrows raised in a mixture of disbelief and mirth.

  His amusement at her expense had redirected her rant towards him. A tightening around his eyes as he absorbed her scathing remarks was all there’d been to determine that they’d had any effect.

  The pair’s silence had pulled the wind from Dee’s tirade. With no feedback to respond to, embarrassment settled over her until it stifled her bluster to oppressed quiet. Deflated, too mortified to walk past the pair whose non-response was more impactful than any words might have been, Dee followed Asellus' gesture to take a seat with minimal hesitation.

  Wallowing in the shame of her rage, Dee had found her first moment of detached perspective.

  When the Rishi finally spoke, her words broke Dee from the meditation of following a giant bird float on the wind. Dee kept her attention on this rather than turn ashamed eyes to Asellus.

  "It is more difficult to see oneself as individual in this place. A conducive point for this task."

  The kindness of the Rishi's tone insisted Dee hold back the lashing words that sprang to the tip of her tongue, her tenuous calm overridden by the wash of frustration that forever circled her mood.

  -What the hell is she talking about? Just kill them all and be on your way.-

  Reigning in the bite of her inner-voice kept Dee distracted from contemplating Asellus’ words.

  When the hush continued past comfort, Dee squirmed against the pull to speak. She’d spewed more than enough. Her ferocious rant still hummed in the air, and she had no idea what to say to such a nonsensical st
atement.

  Asellus spoke again. "It is something even we have forgotten. Existence plagues us all."

  She pointed a long finger ahead of her, tracking the motion of the bird Dee watched. "The Hornbill does not worry about its place. It simply carries out its duty, knowing in its essence those things it must do to flow with the world around it."

  The Rishi lowered her arm and tilted her head as if studying some new curiosity. "Human nature has always acted at odds with that innate sense of belonging. A nature that has bled to infect those of us who remain." She sighed and added softly, "So far we have fallen."

  Her attention turned back to Dee, voice pitched like she was handing over some secret. “For a long time, I was hopeful for our return to who we were. Now, I feel we are too trapped in this construct to ever escape."

  These words had brought Dee's attention from the window to Asellus’ face, hoping to catch context for what the Rishi spoke in her expression.

  -Is she a little bit mad?-

  The idea generated another level of anxiety to settle in Dee's mind. She'd thought there couldn't be more apprehension, but this adventure was teaching her never to construct ceilings for anything. Regarding her emerging powers, this was a good thing to learn. Concerning the crazy surrounding these Beings, not so much.

  Dee resisted the urge to glance at Pollux to see if his expression might help her decide how many grains of salt she should add to Asellus’ words. But Pollux wasn’t necessarily on her side, so she’d refrained.

  A staggering wash of loneliness had threatened her at that moment. Hamal’s presence had given her a sense of companionship. With him, she’d no longer had to hide what she’d become.

  Then, Daniel had stepped in to buffer her next stage of assimilation. She’d even begun to feel like she might fit in. While at Amalthea’s, Daniel had played a critical part in raising the blinders from Dee’s eyes about what she might be.

  While in São Paolo, things happened too quickly for her to have time to be lonely.

  She was good at being alone. She was an only child. Her mother died so long ago she couldn't even miss her. She was independent. Her introverted nature had kept her removed from the socialite-narcissism that was common of her generation. She'd been close with her father and had found a friend in Mike when she was at the age when real best friends found their roots.

  Even so, there was a difference between being introverted and being sequestered. Especially with the knowledge that her life was in the hands of these extraordinary Beings who may, or most likely not, have her best interest in mind. It would have been nice to have someone to look to for support on her level, even if it was only Daniel who claimed not to be in the loop on the things that mattered.

  "What does your life mean to you?"

  Caught off guard, Dee's tongue froze in her mouth.

  What did her life mean to her? Was the Rishi asking if she cared if she died? Or was it a question of purpose? Either way, she wasn't sure how to answer.

  "I know I don't want to lose it,” Dee stammered.

  Her answer from that day echoed in her thoughts. She really didn’t want to lose it. She didn’t want to die, but she also didn’t want to live under the thumb of another. She wanted to live, rather than hide and run from constant unknowns.

  As she took the half-lotus position that was comfortable to her, she noted the others' hand positions. She mimicked the mudra they’d formed, curious at its use. Fingertips of each hand held together, she laid hers in her lap, rather than attempt to keep them raised at heart level like the Rishis.

  There had been a classroom session after her rant day. So much information about mediating, there was little she could recite back. The focus on seeing and feeling the world around her was outside her sphere of understanding. Maybe outside her care to understand.

  She did remember the hand positions were called mudras, though she didn't remember what any of their uses were. Connection with the Divine. Connection with the self. Connection with other things she hadn't even tried to retain. At the time, there'd been no sense that she would care about any of this sitting around.

  After a few deep breathes, she closed her eyes, changing her breathing pattern, so she was holding each breath for a couple of seconds before forcefully exhaling. Feeling as centered as she had learned to be, she switched this pattern to steady in-and-outs, paying close attention to those moments in-between, when the breath ceased as the inhale turned to exhale.

  Her mind wandered, thoughts of her journey with Pollux filling the blank slate of her mind.

  The farther they'd traveled from São Paulo, the more withdrawn the Twin had gotten. Forced to accept his quiet introspection, wondering if maybe the separation from his brother wasn't causing it, she refused to consider it was regret for saving her that plagued him. Whatever it was, the infatuation he'd held for her at their first meeting was overshadowed.

  A bell chimed, its echo shattering her thoughts, a reminder to focus her attention on her breath. Some days will be more comfortable than others, Asellus had told her. Evidently, this was a day for distraction.

  Inhale.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  Pause.

  Exhale.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  Pause.

  Answers.

  Dee continued to expect them and continued to be disappointed. Worried about finding out what was going on, she hadn't wasted time considering how to disentangle herself from a web she could barely make out the threads to.

  Now that things were more explicit, in their convoluted way, she thought her priorities might have to change.

  -Or be created.-

  The point from her subconscious was valid. She’d had no priorities before, only an apathetic attempt to do as she was told in the hope she'd be freed because it was the right thing to happen.

  The bell chimed again, and her attention snapped from introspection to breath.

  This time, a smile tugged at her mouth that a mere instant had passed before her thoughts fell to distraction.

  "The trying is causing your failure. Relax, and let the mind do what it will. When you find yourself drifting, don't judge it, don't be angry about it, don't be humored by it, simply bring your thoughts back to the breath."

  Dee didn't open her eyes. Instead, she pictured Asellus’ patient manner explaining a thing the Rishi had long mastered. As old as she was, Dee wondered if maybe Asellus hadn't invented the practice.

  It was this vastness of time stretching back to the Rishis’ origins that Dee’s thoughts now moved. She allowed the abstract of the infinite draw her mind to blankness. She let the beat of her heart draw her focus, so she was pulled into a peaceful state as exhilarating as it was calming.

  Her heightened hearing made the sound of her heart easy to find, its steady drum anchoring her attention in her chest. She envisioned the circulation of blood the organ drove. This circulation expanded to a sense of greater connectedness to her surroundings. The movement of the liquid in her system synched with the movement of the wind outside and the water cutting through the mountains and on and on.

  The tendrils of oneness crept on her, so she barely noticed its genesis, reminded of the Twins’ story and what it revealed about their origins.

  The image she'd seen of Sabik Han was of a large, bronze-skinned man whose well-defined physique screamed strength. It hadn't been his perfect form, naked to the world, that drew her attention, but rather, the feeling of what he was trying to do. It hadn't been well explained in the telling, and Dee wondered if the others even knew the Ophiuchus’ true goal. Whatever it was, it had failed, and the direct result was their immortality.

  Tying them to the Earth. She remembered that point distinctly. The point that Sabik Han had thought their technology was taking over what they were and wanted to fix it.

 
The bell chimed again.

  This time it brought Dee back to her focus with no aggravation or laughter to further distract. Her sense of calm remained as her awareness floated on the reverberating sound that faded to silence.

  Silence.

  Tying them to the Earth.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  Silence that was akin to darkness, as the warmth of a thick comforter covering one from a cold night fell around her. Darkness, as chased by the light, when the realization that all is well, that all is on its path and no other way could be or has been.

  Tied to the Earth.

  Golden silence. Teaching silence. Silence connected directly to the source, to that energy that threads the world and its creations as one.

  Minutes or hours or decades passed; there was no deciphering.

  In this time, darkness faded to the brightness of new dawn, hope, and the promise of granted dreams.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  This fading linked directly to her awareness of her physical body seated in this physical place as the sanctuary of her mind let her ego resume its life in her.

  Tied to the Earth.

  The blankness of her mind conjured an image of the planet as seen from space, the moon’s grey sphere just visible near its green-blue parent. She observed waves of energy, though she couldn’t explain what form they took that she was able to perceive the invisible lines that moved around and through the sphere in circular patterns that spawned and vanished at the poles and equator.

  Zooming in, pinpricks of illumination, their locations changing, sometimes in line with these energy patterns, sometimes taking their own path, were seen.

  As in a dream, Dee understood what she was looking at as some intuitive force inside her awakened. The Rishis were tied to the Earth as literally as a tree was rooted to the ground, or as the oceans pulled their vivacity from the planet’s core. This literal connectedness explained their power. Able to draw directly from the vast potency of the world, their power would be infinite, as would their life.