by Aer-ki Jyr
“You’ll learn. My own telepathy took a while to get the hang of, and you’ve got a good teacher with you, even if he is a bit of a prick sometimes. Sorry thing is I was assigned to a special ops team with him for three years straight and now I’m hopelessly infatuated. Don’t let that happen to you. He’s sworn to being a dull badass for his entire life.”
“Three long years,” Tyrenk amended as he kept hold of Esna’s hand and her mind. “But as annoying and juvenile as she is, Raena’s tech skills are worth it. Now please prove me right by figuring out what the junk I brought in is.”
“I’ll see to it personally.”
“She bothering you?” a voice said from behind them. Tyrenk smiled sarcastically and half spun around.
“A little, but nothing I’m not used to,” he said, seeing the ViLord approaching.
“Just having a little fun,” Raena said dismissively. “I didn’t realize my energy discharge could chain from one person to another. My mistake.”
“Live and learn. Is there something you need?”
“A ride back home.”
“I told him we could retask one of the scout ships.”
The ViLord nodded. “Easy enough. Are you Esna?”
“Yes,” she said, finding herself under inspection again.
“I heard about you. You’ve come a long way. We’ll make sure you get clear. The Viks aren’t going to catch up to you again. The next time you see them will be of your choosing. Is Rammak with you?”
Esna frowned. “No. He didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry, I thought he escaped with you.”
“We got hit on the way out of Tauntaun,” Tyrenk explained. “Crashed onto Darlek and lost most of our people there. Only three of us made it out.”
“What were you doing in Darlek?”
“Passing through. We had to take the ship down to the planet or get blown away in space.”
“By what?”
“A Kaeper.”
“What were you in?”
“An evac ship…it was faster.”
“What race?”
“Kat’vo.”
The ViLord shook his head. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Well it did. The ship was trailing Morgan’s fleet then came after us. We were able to run through a few systems, but it caught us. We rammed it then took our chances on the ground. Esna suffered a spontaneously Fornax development, and I’m keeping her finger off the trigger so long as I don’t get poked,” he said, glaring at Raena.
“I’m glad you made it,” the ViLord said. “You’re a victory for Star Force just by being alive. Gaining a psionic makes you even more valuable. Where are you taking her?”
“Somewhere she can train without worry.”
“I’d suggest Canderous.”
“Why?”
“They’re wanting psionics in a bad way. They’d take special interest in her…assuming she wants to fight and not just get away from the war.”
“I want to fight,” Esna said before Tyrenk could say anything, “but I’m too weak to help.”
“Canderous will want you. I guarantee it.”
“Alright then,” Tyrenk said with a satisfied nod. “Canderous it is. Can you get us to a seda that isn’t going to get hit?”
“I can have a ship run you all the way to Stargate. Will that be good enough?”
“Perfect.”
“You want to hang around here a bit or get going? We’ve got three ships on standby.”
“The sooner the better,” he said, with Esna feeling him squeeze her mind tight before telling her to hold it together for a moment telepathically, then he let go of her hand and walked a step towards Raena. “Bye then,” he said, spontaneously grabbing the Protovic and pulling her into an awkward kiss that lingered for several seconds.
Esna blinked, not sure what was going on, but when Tyrenk released her he didn’t waste time and spun around, grabbing Esna’s hand and pulling her with him as he left. She saw Raena’s face go from one of surprised pleasure to annoyance as she balled a fist and punched her leg in frustration.
“You jerk! Now I won’t be able to sleep for a month.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, not looking back as the ViLord smirked and walked with them.
What was that? Esna thought, not knowing for sure if he would hear her.
Just some friendly teasing. Don’t try to understand. There’s a lot of history between us that you’re not aware of.
She was your girlfriend?
No, Archons don’t date.
Then why’d you kiss her?
Because I can, he said, leaning over and kissing Esna on the forehead. And because it will frustrate her for days to come.
You want to torment her?
I want her to learn better emotional control. Exploiting her weakness is a way of teaching her. Everything we do has a purpose, even if she is nice to kiss.
11
October 13, 4812
Interstellar Space (mid jump)
Flea-Class Scout Ship
Esna sat in a small room towards the back of the .9 mile long starship so she would be out of Fornax range of those nearby as she ran through a mental drill Tyrenk had taught her. She’d done it so many times now her brain felt like it was unraveling, but she didn’t stop. He’d told her to go through it 120 times each day, but she’d stopped counting after 200 and was still going, pushing herself as far as she could but soon a tear worked its way down her face, startling her.
She didn’t know what it was from at first, then how much her head was hurting dawned on her and more tears flowed. Soon her control was gone and she melted into an emotional crash, sobbing against the pain in her new brain tissue and the weight of everything that had happened in previous months falling on raw emotions. Too exhausted to punch anything, her anger turned into despair and left her just sitting in a world of hurt until quiet footsteps walked up behind her.
“That’s why blocking out your emotions and stuffing them into a corner of your mind unseen is a temporary skill,” Tyrenk said, sitting down next to her in a cross-legged pose mirroring her own. “You have to deal with them eventually, because they’re there for a reason. Tell me what’s going through your head.”
Esna offered him her hand, but he didn’t take it.
“Too easy. You need to face this, so explain it to me.”
Recoiling her hand to her lap, she didn’t say anything. Tyrenk waited, and when she realized he wasn’t going to change the subject or leave she felt she had to say something.
“My head hurts.”
“That’s nothing new. Tell me what is.”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Then tell me something. A piece of what’s going on.”
“I’m pathetic.”
“This I know.”
Esna glanced at him, not having expected him to say that, then she returned her gaze to her lap as another tear dripped down onto her shorts.
“I’m a mess,” she admitted. “I was holding it together, but now…I don’t know. I just lost it.”
“You’ve been hit with a lot, and a good natural reaction is to lock yourself down to weather it. When you get in the clear that lockdown becomes unnecessary and often pries itself loose at unpredictable times. Just let yourself feel it, whatever it is. That’s the first step.”
“What’s the second?” she asked with a sniff.
“Asking why. Be curious, about yourself, others, and the universe in general.”
“What did you mean about that Protovic when you said she needed to learn emotional control?” Esna asked, seeming to change the subject but Tyrenk didn’t object.
“Some people lock onto an objective and hold to it without thinking about why they’re doing it. Reana is fixated on me. It’s mostly a friendly joke, but there’s an unhealthy undercurrent there that she needs to address. She hasn’t and fangirls whenever we bump into each other…which isn’t often, but with all the time we don’t see each ot
her all she has is her imagination. People can get lost in those mental simulations, so when I kissed her I gave her a real experience to outrank them. Hopefully it’ll wake her up and she’ll realize I’m hot, but not deserving of the fangirling.”
“Can you even mate? With a Protovic, I mean,” Esna asked, now definitely changing the subject.
“The parts line up more or less, but we can’t reproduce and the pheromones don’t connect.”
“Did you know she was there before we arrived?”
“I knew she was in Ghostblade, but no, I didn’t know she was in that fleet group.”
“Isn’t that kind of odd you running into her?”
“A bit, but when you’re over a thousand years old you get to know a lot of people.”
“How old are you?”
“1127.”
“You have any other would be girlfriends out there?”
“A few. Archons aren’t shy, we just know where the line is between being friendly and getting attached. Others don’t. And you’re dodging.”
“I know.”
“I’ve learned that when I get overwhelmed I have to let the galaxy go, stop caring about it and everything outside of my own body. Shrink my vision down to the boundaries of my skin and deal with the minimum possible in order to find my path again. I suggest you do that now.”
“How do I do that?”
“The pain you’re feeling, how much is physical and how much emotional?”
“A lot of both.”
“How many times?”
Esna cringed. “More than you said.”
“Your tissue is new, overloading it is going to get painful. Trust me and do what I tell you, no more, no less. When you get more experienced you can ignore my suggestions. Right now that’s not a good idea unless you know something I don’t.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re punishing yourself, not me. But that’s physical, and that’s you, not others. That pain you have to deal with, but what about the rest?”
“People died because of me, Tyrenk. Yammar and Innit are probably dead too. I don’t even know for sure. All because I’m a Human and they took me and my brother in. I’m still not ok with that, but Rammak and the others are dead because I slowed you guys down.”
“Yes and no, but put that aside for now. What’s done is done, good or bad, so I need you to pull yourself into yourself. They aren’t with you. They’re wherever they are now. Let them go. Let Star Force and the V’kit’no’sat go. Let this ship go. Just be you, in your body, sitting here right now. Do that and I think the challenge before you will become manageable.”
“I can’t let it go.”
“Then there’s your problem. You’re living a lie that you can’t shake.”
“It’s not a lie. They died because I couldn’t keep up.”
“I mean the part about not letting it go. There’s nothing to hold onto because they’re gone. You’re deluding yourself to think they’re still here. It’s just you and me in this room. No one else. Stop chasing phantoms and look at what is right here, right now.”
“I can’t…I’m sorry. I just…can’t.”
Esna felt a hand on her head, expecting the Archon to reach into her mind again and give it some badly needed structure…but he didn’t. He twisted her head to the side and smothered her with an unexpected kiss that he didn’t relent from. He followed it up with two more rapid fire, making her head swoon to the point she forgot everything else as she relished the feel of his body as he tipped her onto her back and pinned her to the ground, letting her breathe only briefly before kissing her again.
That went on for quite a while, then he pulled back a few inches while still on top of her. She was breathing hard, shocked and pleased at the same time.
“See, you can do it. You’re living in the moment and forgetting everything else,” Tyrenk said, his breath hot against her face as his presence was still having a strong influence on her. “Learn to let go and move with events as they happen. The past is important, but it can become a plague if you dwell on it. You exist in the now, and if your focus isn’t here then your mind is wandering,” he said, kissing her again before finally retreating off of her.
Esna sat up, her head spinning as a smile worked its way onto her lips despite her previous emotional state. “So if I stay messed up, you’ll kiss me more?” she asked sarcastically.
“Not if it doesn’t work,” he countered, returning to his cross-legged pose that he melted into so easily, demonstrating a flexibility that Esna did not have. “Now answer my questions quickly and honestly, no dodging.”
“Alright,” she said, sitting back up and scooting closer to him, enough that their knees lightly touched.
“How bad is your head?”
“Not as bad as before, but it’s not good.”
“What do you need to do to correct the problem?”
“Rest…and not push so much.”
“Learn when to push and when not. Sometimes you need to. Who are you?”
“I’m Esna.”
“Who is that?”
“I’m me,” she said, not sure what else to say.
“Why are you alive? What is your purpose?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“None of us do, in the beginning. We’re born into this universe randomly with no instructions as to what to do, how to do it, or what not to do. We have to find our own way, figure things out as we go. What have you figured out about yourself?”
“I…I want to fight. I don’t want to be protected.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with being protected?”
“I want to earn my place,” she said, half yelling. “I’m tired of being carried.”
“Why? If others can do it for you, what’s the problem?”
“I don’t…I don’t want…to be helpless,” she said, with her dour mood returning like a wall hitting her in the face. “I want to be able to stop…”
“Stop what?”
“Bad things from happening.”
“You’ll never stop them all,” Tyrenk said quietly and calmly, acting as a counterpoint to her chaotic emotions. “If you try, if you mentally tie yourself to the fate of the galaxy you will drive yourself insane because there is too much misery, too much injustice. At best we can solve some of it. It’s impossible to get it all, and even if you could more would pop up.”
“Then what do you do?”
“Take a breath, take a vacation, take away all the responsibility and distractions, and figure out who you are before you try to do anything involving others. Before an Archon can help solve the galaxy’s problems, we have to solve our own first. We have to become perfect people. That doesn’t mean we always win, but it means we never hold ourselves back, never sabotage ourselves. We have no internal conflict. Our conflict is with the galaxy and all things external. Right now you’re fighting yourself, so let go everyone else and get yourself in order.”
“But how?” Esna emphasized.
“Who are you?”
“I’m no one.”
“Archons don’t waste their time on ‘no ones.’ Who are you?”
“A lost…broken girl.”
“Better,” he approved. “Broken how?”
“People around me keep dying and it’s my fault.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. If I wasn’t there they wouldn’t be dead.”
“That doesn’t make it your fault. Did you cause their deaths?”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Then why feel responsible?”
“Because I’m baggage that’s getting in the way.”
“Not anymore. You’re not holding anyone back now. You’re in the clear, so what are you worried about?”
“I don’t…I feel like I can’t move on until I fix the past. I know that sounds stupid, you can’t change the past, but that’s what it feels like I need to do.”
“It’s called a Mulligan.”
“What is?”
/> “When you screw something up so badly you can’t fix it. You admit it to yourself be declaring a ‘Mulligan’ and resetting. I’ve had to do it before, when I took on more than I could handle in training. I tried, like you have been doing, to push through it. Sometimes I was able to make it work, but sometimes I was in so over my head I just had to curl up in a pain riddled ball on the floor and let everything go. Just focus on healing myself and seeing where I was, what assets or deficits I had, and work the problem from there rather than tie myself to some objective and measure myself off my distance from it.”
“What?”
“If I believe I’m supposed to be somewhere else and I’m not, I’m going to be uneasy and unstable the further I get away from that point. But if my destination point is myself, I can never be drawn away from it. That’s part of the reason why Archons don’t develop bonding pair relationships. We always remain individuals rather than tie our emotions or identities to another person…for if that person is separated from us, harmed, captured, or killed, it will affect us. We will be incomplete. But if we accept that the galaxy is a crazy place that we can’t control and we are but a tiny dot in it, and that dot is independent from everything else, we can have control over the dot so long as the dot isn’t tied to things we cannot control.”
Esna sighed in series, almost panting as she couldn’t control her breathing. Her body was shaking uncontrollably but her mind was steady enough to realize the truth in what he was saying.
“I don’t want to stop feeling. I don’t want to abandon people.”
“You don’t do either. When you can help someone you do, but when you can’t and they’re gone, what exactly are you holding onto? An illusion, nothing more. Allegiance and loyalty aren’t a noose around your neck, they’re beneficial. If something is dragging you down, then it’s not. Which is happening to you?”
“Definitely dragging down.”
“Then the emotional bonds you’ve formed are bad bonds. Raena has a small bad bond, you have huge ones. She was persisting through hers, because she is very skilled in many areas, but she still needs to rework or lose it. You need a complete realignment, and it starts with your mind containing only you. No one else in the galaxy exists. Figure yourself out, then determine how you can interact with others. If you can do that, then you have a chance of figuring out how to form beneficial bonds that won’t be a hindrance,” he said, leaning over and kissing her gently one more time. “You can do it. I can feel it. But it won’t be quick and it won’t be easy. And it isn’t something someone else can do for you. Keep to yourself until you figure things out. I’ll be here when you do.”