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The screaming didn't stop right away. It couldn't. That was impossible. The screaming had become her whole world. There were no other colors or sounds or experiences. The rutted forest was gone, as was the burning sea of sand, and the hot, dark blood beneath her. The worm's corpse, the Aavan, Risa's face. All of it, gone, all of it replaced by one, endless scream. For a time, she wasn't sure whether the scream was even hers. It was everything, time included, and had been for much longer than she.

And then something changed.

She wasn't sure what it was, and couldn't have put a name to it if she tried. There was some small, soft break in the scream, an ephemeral reminder that things existed outside of the scream, beyond the scream. The threw herself at it with everything she had. The scream continued on around her, and she held on all the tighter.

And then, little by little, the screaming faded, becoming a dry, gasping sob. She was vaguely aware someone was holding her, touching her. She was vaguely aware there was a her to be held. The sobbing became quiet, hoarse whimpers, and other sensations began to return. Her throat hurt. She was afraid. She could feel another presence there, keeping the screaming at bay.

She did not know how long she sat there, curled into a fetal position, a weary scream dying on her lips. She wasn't sure she ever wanted to know. But slowly, slowly, she began to return to herself -- and to Mori.

The name was there loud and clear and bright now, whether she liked it or not. It was he who was holding her, he who had provided the seed of calm, just long enough for her to find her way out.

The questions, the horror of it all, that was still there. That she had killed so many so effortlessly...that would cost her. That she had done so with a power she ought not to have had was all the more disturbing. And the implications of Risa's death...

Rora shuddered, a quiet whimper sounding in the back of her throat. But it was all she had the energy for. As Mori crouched there, keeping the horror of the power classes and the killings and Risa's death and what it all meant at bay, physical sensations began to assault her. Whatever she was, whatever she had done, it came at a cost. Dismantling the worm, impaling it. Uprooting the trees. Crumbling rock.

Her stomach churned suddenly and she pushed away on unsteady feet to be sick as far from the carnage she had caused as she could manage. She was will, retching and coughing and retching again, until her stomach was empty and her vision swam. When she returned to Mori, her plea was simple.

She wanted to ask what he'd done -- what she'd done -- how he had once again saved her from the brink of her own destruction. She wanted to ask him why, and whether he could do it again. She wanted to ask if she was the one who killed Risa.

But the calm he'd provided kept those thoughts at bay, and so she clung to this new, physical anguish, easier by far to deal with.

Very quietly, and as humbly as she'd ever spoken to him, she said, "I don't want to be here anymore. Please. Please, Mori."
 
He held her as she quieted and he hadn't cared how long it took. Time was irrelevant when you were connected to someone else. It meant nothing, was nothing, didn't matter as long as your mind and emotions and will were consumed with the other person and Mori had never done things halfway. There were members of his species, talented Bonders who could reach out to more than one mind, who could hold on to themselves through it all, who could have entire conversations with someone else while they helped another Aavan come to grips with something. They didn't take it personally, not to the exclusion of all else.

Mori wasn't like that. He didn't have that kind of reserved way about him. When he did something, he put his heart into it, whether that was rage and destruction or care and help, it was the same. It was HIM and it always would be. He'd never be able to separate his actions from his emotions and there had only been a handful of times in his life when he'd truly wanted to. This was not one of them. He held Rora and he kept his mind hovering just within her own, offering nothing but those two emotions. He didn't search her mind, didn't pry or try to take anything from her. He only offered, he only gave, but it was inevitable that some of her immediate emotions, desires and thoughts would come through.

The horror and despair, the pain and fear was still there, but it was beating against a will, a shield that would not move. It was beating against Mori and until Rora decided to take that step out of his security, it wouldn't be coming in. She'd know it was there, ready for her to join it, but she had a choice and his will, his comfort would long outlast the initial onslaught until perhaps it was a bit easier for her to face.

Her knew when she had to leave his arms and why and Mori let her go without protest. The connection didn't break. It wasn't like a Temporary Bond, but rather a One-Sided Bond and the two were very different. Unless she mentally pushed him out, he chose when he left, and it was HIM pouring into her. Very minimal was coming from her side and therefore it did not take contact or effort from her to keep the connection going. So Mori rose, but he let her have the space she needed - though, part of him wanted to go over and rub her back or hold her hair for her, but he refrained - and when she came back, he knew it wasn't to snap at him, he could feel that faintly, too.

Just as he could hear the whisper of the strongest thought in her mind right now, howling around him still.

Risa.

It was the biggest darkness in her head, the biggest terror, agony, grief to face and part of Mori was truly angry that even in death she was causing destruction. But he didn't speak on her. It wasn't his right to do so, especially not while he had a corner of his own mind in her head.

No, he listened to her spoken words instead and while the Aavan knew - he KNEW - he'd told himself that he wouldn't trust moments of 'weakness' with her, that they meant nothing, every word of that seemed to crumble into dust in the face of her pleading. She was so very pale, trembling still even if she knew it not. Blood streaked her face and covered her hands, and Mori found the cold around his heart that he'd constructed in the last few days melting away all over again. He might regret it later, he knew. She might turn on him....but if he didn't try now...what reason would she had to perhaps change one day? Not giving her the chance would be extremely unfair.

So the Aavan spoke gently back to her, his words nothing but truthful and as she'd called him by his name - something he was admittedly more cautious about this time - he called her by her own. "You don't need to plead, Rora." His form shifted up then and his muzzle moved down so one of his large eyes was looking directly at her, somehow still very soft and kind even in his more massive form. "You never have to plead."

His tail came around slowly then, the end wrapping gently about her waist and ribs in two coils for more support before he lifted her, speaking as he did. "The sand will burn your feet. You're going to have to ride. I'm sorry." He knew it was probably the last thing she wanted, but he set her in the natural hollow between his wings and neck, a place where she'd sit quite easily and his tail unwound from her frame, having a mind of its own as the very end brushed against her cheek and hair in an almost tender gesture of comfort before the Aavan set off into the sand then. He was admittedly more than wary and still scared of what lay out in the endless desert but right now he had something far more important to care for, his mind far more occupied with the connection to her own, maintaining it.

And besides...no Truscor was going to come close to this place, not after hearing the death shrieks of one of their kind, something that had to have baffled them.

So Mori moved out into the desert and toward a rock formation about twenty minutes away at the pace he could walk. There would be shade there and he'd let Rora rest as she needed to. He also knew that he'd find food there. Odd as such a place it would seem to find food. But the desert held treasures for those who knew its secrets.
 
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The rock formation Mori had spotted wasn't far, or at least not at his pace. Even without the sand burning her feet -- and she could feel the heat even hovering several feet above it, nestled into the surprisingly cozy area on the Aavan's back -- it would have taken her thrice as long to walk it. The destruction of the sand monster had taken quite a bit out of her, and she was only now beginning to understand the repercussions of her instinctive actions.

She didn't mind. It kept her from dwelling on other things.

She let the comforting presence in her head keep the bad thoughts away and tried to focus on the sensation of riding an Aavan. He was right. That is was a cultural impropriety didn't matter. But the idea of having one less thing to take up her thought...she shuddered despite the flushed her rising up from the sand and Aavan both.

The journey was not a long one, but Rora was nearly asleep by the time she felt him slow beneath her. She battled against the pull of unconsciousness, frightened of what lay beyond her own subconscious, but slaying the desert creature had left her feeling weak and shaky, as though she'd run very far, for a very long time, no food or water or rest on her person.
 
Mori stopped at the large rock protruding up into the sky and he circled it until he found the shade it was casting off, moving to the very edge of the outline so that when the shadows moved as the suns did he would not have to continually move Rora with it. The Aavan wrapped his tail back around her gently then, the coils careful to support her lulling head this time as he brought her around and set her on the cooler but still warm sand, laying her down. Instinctively his nose came forward then and he sniffed at her tiny form - compared to him - going so far as to nuzzle her just slightly and the sand around her, making a slight divot where she lay to make sure she was more comfortable. It was something Aavan did for Aavanlings and while Mori didn't actually think of Rora as a child, due to his size, he could do much the same things for her.

Realizing he was doing it, however, the black Aavan drew back and if he'd been in his smaller form, he might have blushed or appeared sheepish. As it was, he looked away whether she was looking at him or not and instead moved for the rock, his keen violet eyes studying the face of it and his nose working. He rumbled with some approval when he caught the scent of what he wanted and with a strong leap to get him away from the sand and an even stronger flap, he moved upward on the rock surface, stopping at a certain point and then starting to tear into the sand rock with powerful claws, vaguely making sure that any rocks that fell we swept away by his tail so they had no chance of harming the Cerebra below.

His claws reached into the hole he'd widened after a moment and a creature ran out, chittering and barking at him angrily, but it was even smaller than Rora was and couldn't harm him. He ignored it and instead pulled out what the animal had collected. Round and blue, they rolled around in his paw, about five of them, like small oranges. He landed again, careful not to drop them and then shifted down, moving to Rora.

He knew she wanted to sleep, but Mori knelt by her and he reached out, smoothing her hair back as much to wake her as to soothe, to let her know who was near her again. His mind was still within her own, keeping the darkness at bay even now and he would continue to do so until she told him to do otherwise. He didn't care how ragged it made him in the long run. It would be worth it if he could protect her from this terror even for a little while. And he was tired of questioning why he felt such a way. Better to simply accept it for now.

"Rora. Come on, little rainbow, you need to eat one of these first. Then you can sleep. Come on..."

The fruit contained water within it, so it was food and liquid both and he wanted such in her fragile body before she slept, to keep the desert from sucking her dry. It would easily do so if they weren't careful.
 
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Rora had, despite her best efforts not to, nearly succumbed to the pull of sleep when a smaller Mori knelt beside her. "Don't..." she murmured quietly. On instinct, she shied away from his hand, though it was not fear this time, but muted defiance. A small frown creased her brow, and she turned as if to seek further solace in the sand, whimpering.

It was several moments before she heard the word 'eat' and remembered at one time, at least, she had wanted to.

She wrenched her eyes open with some difficulty, and made herself sit up with a bit more, the latter requiring a moment to fight off nausea and fatigue before she blinked and looked around.

The small blue fruits he held were foreign to her, and she blinked stupidly at them before understanding he'd found her food. Again. She ought to say something here. She was supposed to say something here, only...only she couldn't remember what. Her brain felt muddied and far away. She frowned and tried hard to remember what it was.

"I..." she started after a moment, then coughed a little, her throat run ragged from...from...before. "'Sokay. 'm not hungry," she mumbled after a moment, staring at him through half-lidded eyes. "I think you should eat them, 'kay?"
 
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Annnnd there was the Rora he was more familiar with again.

Mori closed his eyes for a moment and simply willed himself to breathe for a minute, fighting off the sting of rejection and frustration again. He couldn't just leave her this time to vent steam and he wasn't actually angry, just...disappointed? Why? What the hell did he actually have to be disappointed about? There was NO relationship, of ANY kind! Why couldn't he get that through his thick skull!? She didn't want him. She made that more than clear every time he tried to do something for her and like a pathetic, kicked cur he just kept coming back to her, desperate for any kind of attention.

That's how it felt in these moments when he was brought back to the reality of their situation and once again the black Aavan cursed his inability to just not care. Why couldn't he just stop caring? Why did he keep coming back? He wasn't this weak and while, yes, he'd been starved for affection of any kind for six years, he'd also endured it. Why was Rora any different, why did he keep expecting things from her she was not going to give?

Why couldn't he just make a decision on what his mind wanted and just stick to it?

Mori sighed, reaching up and rubbing at his temple with careful fingers as he opened his eyes again. I was somewhat hard concentrating on two things at once; his mental connection to her, limited as it was, and now the logical part of his mind that told him to just leave her to her own devices, at least physically, and call it good. He'd obviously overstepped the boundaries of helpfulness again. Her words didn't curb the unhappiness, only furthering his frustration because, dammit, he knew better what to do in these situations and if she'd just stop being so freaking stubborn and listen to him-!

Patience.

Yelling at her wasn't going to make her comply. Then again...he didn't know what would make her comply, but he did know it wasn't that.

"If you don't eat something now, you're going to get sand-sick later and you're going to be miserable. A lot more than you are now. Just eat one."
 
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He was angry with her, and for reasons she couldn't understand, this was terrifying. Rora didn't know, couldn't understand what he'd done so keep the screaming darkness away from her, but he was doing it still, and she had no doubt that if he stopped, she would succumb. And what if he didn't deign to pull her out again? What then?

There was a sudden flash of that first night back at Risa's courtyard, when she'd forcibly cut off the connection forming between Mori and the Nuathal. How he'd screamed. What he'd felt. Would it be like that if he left her?

Was it possible she deserved it?

But, gods, she was tired. She knew if she could only rest a moment, she could eat a forest full of strange blue fruits. She'd do whatever he asked if only he promised to keep...keep doing whatever it was he was doing. And to think she'd thought herself a prisoner before. Before, he might have only killed her. Now? He held the keys to her sanity.

"I...I'm sorry," she started cautiously. "I only..." This wasn't her at all, this vulnerability, this weakness, this pleading. It was only that she needed to sleep, just a moment. Find her right head, and then the rest would come together.

She was keenly aware that blood was drying on her hands and felt the darkness the Aavan was keeping at bay tremble precariously. "I--I can't," she said after a moment, staring down at her fingers. What it was she couldn't do, she wasn't sure. Remember? Forget? Eat? Sleep? She knew only that she felt helpless, and that she hated it.

"I can't."
 
Dammit.

He hadn't meant to scare her. That was the very last thing he wanted to do right now, not when he could FEEL how very much the darkness wanted to consume her, how very much she was clinging to the safe place his own mind had provided. He didn't want her to associate his presence, his help with bad emotions like anger and fear, and desperation. No. That was not what he wanted. For reasons beyond him, that were making him act like a complete fool as far as he was concerned, he wanted her to trust him. He didn't understand why it was so important to him, why he was so keen on that one goal.

She was just a Cerebra.

But she was unlike any he'd ever met....and it had nothing to do with her looks or her power, but something far deeper, something mysterious that he couldn't grasp yet no matter how he tried. All he knew was that like a moth to a flame, he was drawn to her. He couldn't help it.

So the frustration and irritation drained away just as fast as it had come and the Aavan's violet eyes watched her with true worry and yet he simply sighed after a moment. He set the food down and didn't say a word as he shifted back up and his large form stood, walking around her in a tight circle twice before he laid down, having flattened the sand enough to suit him. His body was curled around her own in a circle big enough for her to completely stretch out and still barely touch both his curled tail and his side at the same time. He formed a wall around her and his head came to lay down inside the curve of his tail, forming a complete circle.

Just as his mind did around her own, protecting her within and without.

"Sleep, little rainbow. Two hours and then I'm waking you to eat and you will, even if I have to hold you down and drain it into your mouth." He was only half jesting. "I'm not having you puking down my scales because you're sand-sick." Right...that was the reason. Large violet eyes closed, but he would not sleep. But out here his ears were his best asset and they'd warn him faster than his nose and eyes would. No, his senses were alert and his mind was busy within her own, not intruding anymore than it was, but certainly kept on its metaphorical toes by the wily nature of the insanity, the darkness and malice inside Rora's head. It would exhaust him over time, but it would be a long time - days - before he would start to show the effects in any way Rora would be able to detect as an Empath.

He still felt it worth it...no matter how frustrated, angry or confused he got with her.

Such an odd predicament his own nature had gotten him into.
 
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She'd wanted to joke back, or apologize, or thank him, or something, but as soon as he gave his permission, she was sleeping, curled in the sand on her side, the top of her head just brushing his belly. Her last thought before she drifted off, allowing the post-Telekinetic exhaustion to consume her completely, was that she wasn't afraid. Or at least not in the way she would have been. She knew she would have to deal with the darkness soon, maybe sooner than she'd have liked. But for once in her life, she could at least prepare for it.

And maybe, with the Aavan -- with Mori -- she could even beat it back.

---

She slept somewhat fitfully, despite the exhaustion, though she was not plagued with the nightmares that would normally have abounded. There were traces here and there, mostly strange picture-visions of more places and creatures she'd never seen. And in every single one of them, Mori. It was strange now. Every time she thought the name, there was not confusion or nostalgia, so much as a fierce desire to protect, and more than that, to be close to him.

And he would need it, too, if the nightmare-visions were to be trusted -- and why should they be? Rora was an Empath, and a feverish, exhausted one at that. She half woke once, sitting up abruptly, drenched all in a cold sweat, to blink dumbly at her surroundings before tottering over to Mori's scaled belly and curling right up to the Aavan, as if her nearness could protect him from the world, before promptly succumbing to a fitful sleep again. But she could not help feeling something dark was coming for him, for both of them maybe...and odd as it was, she had no intentions of letting it get through the to the Aavan.
 
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Mori knew they'd had a lucky break with the absence of more Truscor and the sky was to blame. They'd been crossing the desert for three days now and the clouds overhead had been dark and ominous, and that was enough to make most creatures wary, even the biggest. Just clouds themselves were enough. This planet didn't have them, not unless a rare, huge storm was building, brewing. Mori wasn't just any animal, though, not even just any Aavan and he knew that it would be a few hours yet before those clouds might produce anything significant. But he wasn't going to complain about the lack of large snake-like predators with multiple mouths and towering bodies.

And for Rora's sake he wasn't going to complain about the cooler temperature. It wasn't cold - though, it did get to a near-freezing at night and Mori woke slowly, lethargically when the suns rose and he couldn't sleep for longer than two hours at night without waking and walking around, making sure his blood didn't slow too greatly, his body providing a cocoon of warmth for Rora, keeping her from freezing completely - but it was definitely not hot anymore.

The wind had started to pick up in intervals and the Aavan kept his wings folded at the first joints but lifted as well as a type of barrier for Rora as she stayed on his back. Technically she could walk now, the sand being warm and not scorching, but there had seemed to be a silent agreement that they were make a great deal more time when he could walk at his own speed without having to wait up for the Cerebra and she'd stayed on his back. Still, even the black Aavan was starting to slow after three days of no food but the small mammals he could get to skitter out of the rock formations they passed. Hardly a swallow to an Aavan but it was keeping him lucid, even that small amount of protein, but his body was NOT ready to endure another bout of starvation after the last one. It was unfortunate that he couldn't hunt at night as his core temperature dropped much too far for him to have any energy at all. That was when most of the desert animals came out, though.

And Mori would never admit it - he had pride, too at the stupidest times - but his hold in Rora's mind was starting to hurt. If it had been a Two-Way Bond, it would not have. They'd both be working together, but as he was working alone, it was much more strenuous on his own will, emotions and the Aavan felt that sapping his energy, focus faster than even lack of food and water did. The Aque fruit were abundant for Rora, but they could only touch at Mori's needs and there was yet another reason why Aavan did not walk across the desert.

But they'd already had to hide from one patrol ship two days ago and that meant he couldn't fly. The storm had kept anymore from flying over, though, and Mori looked up at it now with true curious wonder. He hoped it truly did storm. It had been so many years since he'd seen a storm and that included before his captivity. He looked down after a moment and back out to the desert, shaking his head slightly as the sand seemed to swim and shimmer before his eyes, flashing black like...damn, like Rora's mind.

That was happening more often now, his mind finding it hard to see reality without her own mind's influence.

A low growl rumbled in his chest, able to be felt as a vibration in his scales under the Cerebra's legs and he shook his head a bit again to attempt to clear his vision before moving forward once more, only partly succeeding. But who cared? It wasn't like he was going to run into anything.
 
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It had been a strange few days, and it was only the last two that had been really clear in her memory. She'd been quiet and lethargic after defeating the desert-snake, all the more so for the episode of panic and fear that had followed. She'd slept most of the first day after that, waking just long enough for Mori to force her to eat some of the strange fruit he kept finding, and even then, just enough to keep her from what he called sand-sickness.

It was halfway through the second day before she was fully lucid again, and by that time, they were nearly halfway across, the cool green of the trees almost equidistant both in front and behind. She wondered idly how long they'd been traveling, how long Mori had been caring for her. It made her face flush to think of how childishly weak she'd been. But between the dreams and the post-battle fatigue, she'd been so far out of it, she hadn't been able to protest.

Moreover, she wasn't sure that she wanted to.

But she could feel him slowing now, and knew at least part of it was her fault. He appeared to take his job as her charge and captor very seriously. She'd awoken, dazed and chilled in the middle of the night more than once to find him circling her slowly, keeping her warm. She doubted her weight had anything to do with it -- she might have asked to walk on the first day, but she'd spent most of it sleeping on his back, and after that, it had become a sort of unspoken agreement -- but she couldn't help but feel rather guilty.

She didn't need to probe into his mind to feel the exhaustion growing, and though she couldn't place it, she knew the a great deal of it came from whatever mysterious protection he offered her. He'd put it forth after she'd killed the desert-snake, and had not since redacted it, not even when he slept. She wondered what it cost him, knew he couldn't keep it up forever.

But the idea of facing the horrors behind the wall...

She hadn't thought about the incident since that first afternoon. Part of that was exhaustion. Between the warm sun and the gentle rocking motion, she had grown shamefully accustomed to sleeping on Mori's back. But a greater part, she knew, was his protection. Would she sleep so easily when he was gone? The thoughts were simple enough to avoid when he was there. But without him...

She could not help but remember the Cerebrae village at the far side of the desert was looming closer each day. She knew she would not be able to find help like his there.

She pushed the thought out of her head with a shudder almost immediately echoed by the Aavan beneath her. Frowning, she looked down and tentatively extended herself into his mind, retreating as soon as she felt the exhaustion there. He needed to rest. For longer than a few hours a night, and with more in his belly than bits of gristle and bone.

That she cared about his well-being meant nothing. He was the only thing keeping her same at the moment, and she meant to protect her own interests first.

She said, speaking for nearly the first time in almost two days, "How much longer can you keep going?"
 
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Her voice startled him slightly, truly so, and Mori jumped to the side slightly like a skittish horse might but his wings flared up with the movement, both in reaction and as a natural barrier to keep Rora from falling off his back as he quickly shifted his weight and body to stabilize her. The fact that the voice had belonged to her registered nearly as fast as his movement had come and now he gave a slight shaking shiver as if to rearrange his scales in the same way one might their clothing before his head turned, one violet eye regarded the Cerebra with interest to her question.

How much longer could he keep going?

For a moment he knew the immediate answer; As long as it took.

And then he had to wonder just what her context had been...and what his own was. That answer had been much too quick when he didn't actually understand what she meant by the question. So what had his mind immediately jumped to? As long as it took...for what? To get to his people? To get out of the desert? No...no that had not been it. As long as it took...to get through to her. Yes. Yes, that sounded right, that fit and yet...he knew it was so utterly insane that he should not even be contemplating it. She was Cerebra. He was Aavan. There was no chance, no hope for anything there. And just what exactly did this nagging voice in his head, giving him such absurd ideas, think she could be to him?

Suddenly there was absolute silence at that question and Mori inwardly glared at his deep subconscious thoughts and instincts. Right. Typical. Play difficult the minute he needed a real answer.

And Rora was still waiting for hers, one that he was pretty sure had nothing to do with his.

The Aavan sighed, pretty sure he knew what she was speaking of and he turned his head back forward again, knowing it would do nothing to hide his emotions or true state from her. The truth was that he was exhausted, every limb feeling ten pounds heavier, hungry, thirsty and his head hurt constantly now, only growing worse as the days grew longer. He was finding it harder to know which direction he should head in, often having to correct his own course as he weaved back and forth across the sands, leaving a drunken trail behind him that didn't really register until one looked back and saw the path he'd taken.

"As I am? Probably another day, maybe two." he answered truthfully.
 
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She nodded, as if she hadn't known what he was about to say. And she hadn't, not directly. But she'd long since suspected he wouldn't last much longer the way things were. And while taking her weight off his shoulders -- both literally and metaphorically -- wouldn't help him find food, it might at least guarantee they both reach the other side of the sand sea in one piece. Or mostly.

Rora swallowed hard and made herself speak as evenly as she could.

"Alright," she simply. She should have stopped this long ago, but she'd been so tired after the fight...and quite frankly, scared of whatever else there was. But it was better to ease off whatever safety he was offering her now, then to let it crash, wasn't it? When he finally went down, she wouldn't be much help if she was a screaming wreck.

Not that she was obligated to help, per se. It just seemed the wiser option. They both had stakes in his survival, after all. Hers were just less straightforward.

"When we stop for the night...or...wherever you think is a good place to rest, I think you need to...tell me what you're doing. And then stop doing it. Better you have a handle on it. Maybe if it's gradual, it won't..."

She trailed off and shrugged. "I suppose it ought to be somewhere safe. And maybe...maybe we could split a night watch so you can...whatever it is you do."
 
Her words made Mori's head tilt a bit, glancing back at her again in a curious way. He was honestly just trying to determine her motive at the moment. He would comply with her, yes, but he still found himself interested as to why she'd suddenly started to question what he was doing when she'd been fine with it the last three days without question at all. Well...then again, he was starting to waver on his feet more often and she'd been sleeping more than he - a lot more - so it was probably safe to say that she was far more stable than she'd been before the episode with the Truscor and was now better able to understand what he was doing. And if this battering darkness was something she felt all the time...having a reprieve from it might have truly helped her state of mind a bit, too. Chances were she was now more prepared to deal with it if given in doses.

Or perhaps he was only projecting the ways of his own people on to her.

Rora had proven to be a puzzle he couldn't solve easily and this might just be another piece he didn't understand but was trying to. Either way, she was right even if her point had been a silent one; he wouldn't last much longer like this and it WOULD be better to gradually ease off his shielding to keep them both from the whiplash abrupt departure would bring. The Aavan finally nodded a bit and looked away, back at the desert and the sky beyond, though, a rumbling kind of chuckle moved through his body, making it vibrate a bit more forcefully than when he gave soft growls. "You can stay up if you wish, I can't stop that, but it's not going to help me. I move around so much at night so that my blood and heart don't stop. My kind are cold-blooded so we have to have warmth to be able to move and live. Well, all but the White Aavan, but that goes along with their ice power. They don't much mind the cold. I'm not a White Aavan, though."

Mori yawned then, a whine in the sound before he shook his head a bit again and looked up to the sky once more. "As for what I am doing, that's simple. I have a sliver of my mind within your own, two emotions created by my will that are acting as a barrier between the light part, the functioning part of your mind, and the darkness....the...power and insanity...malice..." He trailed off, at first not entirely sure what to call it and then more than sure what to title it as, but still not truly understanding what it was, not truly, or why it was there.

If she were an Aavan, he'd say she was out of balance and needed to find some peace within herself, but he didn't know if it worked the same way with Cerebrae. And he was not about to ask. It seemed like the kind of question she'd snap at him for. Better to just accept that it was there, he didn't understand it and she was ready to face it now when it came time to stop.

It was getting rapidly darker already and yet somehow warmer again, too. Mori knew that was the lightning in the sky. It was like fire, cooking the atmosphere and casting sun-like heat over anything the clouds covered from the canopy above as it built in intensity and got ready to pour itself down on the planet. It would unleash itself, soon...very soon. But it also meant that tonight would be one of more sleep for Mori if he was lucky as the temperature would not drop so suddenly and significantly.

"My mind isn't really getting much from your own. It's not a Two-Way Bond like my kin have or even a Temporary Bond like with the Nuathal, so you aren't connected to me and I can't stay in your head unless you allow it. You have been, so I stayed. As soon as you want me gone, though, I have to leave. It's your choice when I do so or how fast I do so. I could leave on my own, but you weren't ready."
 
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To no one's surprise greater than her own, Rora snorted, pushing dark hair away from her eyes and a streak of bright pink across one cheek.

"Simple. Right."

She turned her gaze up to the rapidly-darkening sky, watching the clouds swell and writhe, and trying not to flinch at the word 'insanity'.

There was a storm coming. And she had known it now for nearly a week.

Rora had seen three storms in her life. They were not very common, but the ones that did come were large and spectacular. The first time, she'd been very young, no more than four cycles old, and ill when the storm stuck. It would be another twenty cycles before she even thought to link the storm and the illness; at the time, it had been labeled the result of a visit by a sick Matron. She had vague memories of waking in the middle of the night to thunder and lightning and howling winds and tottering, feverish, into Sumilah's arms. Sumilah told her later she must have been sleepwalking, because what she'd said had made no sense, only, "I hear it. I hear it in my head," over and over and over again.

The second time, she'd been maybe nine or ten cycles old, already far into her Empathic abilities, already embittered by her separation from the other Cerebrae, and too young to be reintroduced to the normative classes. Back then, she had been quiet and sullen and lonely, given to drastic mood swings based on who came to speak to her and when. Most people who knew her would have called her a very serious, very emotional child.

But on the night of that storm...even know, the mere memory made her want to giggle. She had been so...happy. Ecstatic, really. Uncontrollably so. Her tutors had noticed it early in the day, when the wind started blowing. She was unfocused and prone to fits of inexplicable laughter. They'd called it nerves and sent her home. Later, she couldn't sit still to eat, and by the time the rain had started, she was vibrating with energy. For four hours, she'd been bouncing off the walls, running the other Cerebrae, most of them frightened by the storm, ragged. One Matron, who'd taken as her partner an especially intuitive Prodigy, finally realized young Rora could feel the storm, was feeding off its energy like an over-charged dipstick.

Eventually, they'd sent her out to preliminary training with the youngest to-be Keepers. She'd kept up with the strict physical demands for two hours, a slip of a thing just half their size.

When the storm ended, Rora had slept for eighteen hours straight.

The third time had been on the eve of her sixteenth cycle day. Again, she'd felt the storm building, and again it created an almost toxic, undeniable energy inside of her. This time, though, the excitement was not joy, but manic fear. Insanity. The storm was too much to handle. What made this different from the first, she couldn't say. Perhaps it was only that she'd been expecting, for the second time in her life, some respite from the utter chaos of simply living with the other Cerebrae, forever inside their heads. But that storm had provoked a horrible feeling of insatiable paranoia. If she stopped moving, she would die. If she moved too quickly, she would die. If, if, if...and all of it ending in a death that would tear her apart at the molecular level. So much energy, so much destruction...anger and chaos incarnate.

She'd last fifteen minutes before staggering, shaking, into a Whisperer's Den and begging to be sedated.

She couldn't pretend to know what this storm would bring, and wasn't much sure she cared. Whatever it was, it couldn't be worse than killing the desert-snake. Or --

"I'm ready," she said abruptly. Mori hadn't commented on the storm yet. In the city, they were an affair, but even the worst of them couldn't stand up to the buildings erected there. In the desert, though...

"Whether you plan to seek shelter, or just...push through the storm. Whenever we stop, you need to...to leave me on my own. I'm ready. It's time."

On the horizon, the pale sand swirling against the dark sky painted a pretty picture. The storm was growing, and she wasn't surprised in the slightest. She'd dreamt about the storm on her second night with Mori. The same night she'd seen the sea of sand they walked on now. An Empath, and Telekinetic, and now a Dreamer.

Perhaps she truly was insane. The thought made her smile faintly.

 
The storm. Right. She was a Cerebrae. She'd need shelter from such a thing. The thought hadn't really occurred to Mori yet, but now that it had, he found himself scanning the desert again and then the sky, with a new kind of intensity. He'd been content to let the storm break when it pleased, and he still was, but now he knew it would be wiser to know when it might for Rora's sake. So he stopped, knowing that Rora probably wouldn't question as she'd rarely questioned anything he did thus far, and he lifted his head to the dark canopy above. A small sphere of lightning gathered above his nose then, streaming from around his eyes and his neck - but coming from no lower where Rora was - until it the orb had grown sufficiently big enough to satisfy him. It shot off then rapidly and disappeared into the clouds.

Mori waited then and his violet eyes had gone glazed, cloudy as the white-blue sphere created flashes in the darkness above them, moving this way and then before it suddenly broke away from the storm and came back down to the Aavan. Upon touching his scales and being reabsorbed back into him, Mori shuddered in pure pleasure, feeling the energy the lightning orb had gathered from the storm itself. It wouldn't last long, not in such a small quantity, but it was welcome nonetheless and it gave him information about the tempest above that would be useful. Such as the storm would not break for another two or three hours yet and it wasn't a malevolent thing. It was playful and mischievous, wild and happy. It would be a good storm. A very good one.

His first storm had been at the age of six. He remembered it so well because that was the first time his lightning powers had emerged. He'd been miserable, almost sick the entire night, raging with pain one moment and weak and feverish the next. It had called to him and whispered things he could not hope to understand at his age and he'd just wished it would stop. His mother and father had gotten him through it, but as he was the first of his kind in many, many years, they had not entirely known what to do. The storm had triggered him, though, and storms would continue to be both the bane and blessing of his existence.

The second storm he remembered so significantly had been in his twelfth year and that was the year he'd gone into puberty. Everything had been heightened, but absolutely wonderful for that one day, those four hours. He'd learned to play with the storm that day, to speak to it, become it, understand it and it had fed into him and he into it. He'd made it greater and it in turn had taught him things his people could not, secrets he still kept to himself even now. The rest of the Aavan remembered it as the tempest that didn't want to end and Mori had been saddened to see it go, but more than looking forward to the next one. Unfortunately, it didn't come until six years later and on one of the worst days of his life barring the capture of his sister.

He'd been eighteen when his mother lost his next litter of siblings. They'd died upon birth, too early, too weak and that was the day Mori had discovered what kind of connection he had to all of his people. Most Aavan felt grief within their family groups, shared it mentally with each other outside their groups if they wished, but Mori....he'd felt them all without trying. The grief of his entire tribe, the anger of his father and the heartbreak of his mother, the death of his little siblings and the loss from his two older brothers. He'd felt them and the storms had come, had raged. Mori, to this day, was still unsure if he'd summoned that one or not, but had been furious and black, just like his mood.

But this storm....this would be a good storm, it had told him so and the thought reassured Mori so that when he looked back at Rora, there was a light, a glitter of happiness in his eyes that had not been present before.

"I will find you shelter. It will be as you want it." he finally assured her, his information gathered and decision made. The Aavan started to walk once more.

---

It was about two hours later that he finally found another rock formation at the edge of a rapid cliff-like dip in the desert sands. Mori didn't hesitate to take a leap, wings flaring out to glide down to the desert below. He landed with nary a sound or a hitch in step and then moved toward the formation, circling around it to see if there might be some way to make a shelter for the female on is back. He found a shallow groove somewhat above the ground in the rock and Mori wrapped his tail around Rora absentmindedly, placing her on the sand and then moving to the rock-face, assessing the depth of the groove and then finally starting to tear at the stone as he'd done many times before to find food. This time he was more precise, making a wider overhang out of the groove. It took time in which he concentrated at nothing else to scoop out some of rock-face to make a shallow shelter big enough for the Cerebra.

In the end it resembled a crudely shaped box with a roof and floor, and only one side at the back and two half-sides at the side. It would work well enough for the storm and Mori brushed at it with his tail to get the loose stones out before he looked to Rora, ignoring completely the blood leaking from a few of his clawed toes from the hard tearing and digging he'd been doing.

"Do you want me to start leaving your mind now?"
 
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Rora had said nothing since making her request, not even when the Aavan stopped to...to what? Communicate with? Feed from? Interact, at the very least, with the storm brewing overhead. It had been strange, and yet the brief burst of glee it brought him was enough to make her smile almost shyly when he conveyed his gleaned information about the storm.

She was once again half asleep by the time the Aavan found a suitable place. How he'd done it seemed less remarkable than why. She couldn't only guess his reasoning for having found some place to rest each and every time she needed to, always with food and shade...whatever she'd needed, really. And while she was growing tired of the sour-sweet blue orbs, she couldn't deny she'd somehow survived most of their journey across the sand sea, despite having started it beyond certain she was going to die. She had the Aavan to thank for that, too, she supposed.

And therein lay the reason for this new exhaustion, different and deeper than hers had been. An exhaustion of the mind, not the body (though she could feel his aches there, too). Was it all his magic for her, she wondered? If it caused him such pain, why keep up the link? She was undoubtedly grateful, if grateful could even be called the right word. Curious, more like, though she'd sooner have kept the connection over answers, had she a choice. But still...for all his hatred toward the Cerebrae, if that's indeed what she had felt back before Risa had...why did he choose to help her at such cost to himself?

Or perhaps it was not help at all. Perhaps it had seemed such in the fevered intensity of those first few moments a few days ago. But maybe, when he left, it would be all the worse. And he knew so much of her now, could call by name the wretched anger, grief...madness raging inside of her.

By the time he'd finished his outcropping, she was sat staring calmly up at him, having settled with her knees to her chest in a small divot in the sand. She'd woken two days ago in one much like it, with no memory of having gotten there. It was strange, but oddly comforting. And less...difficult to explain than the time she'd woken sleeping against his belly...

The thought made her blush, and when he spoke, she looked away without thinking, her gaze falling on one bleeding paw. Her own hand gave a small twinge of pain at the sight, and she was briefly overwhelmed with a strong, almost unbearable urge to --

But it was gone before she could name it, and then his words were sinking in, and she was bracing herself for the worst. She didn't want him here for this, she realized. What if she couldn't control it? What if it was worse than she remembered? What if even a touch of the blackness was enough to consume her, and she couldn't fight her way out, and he was there to bear witness to it all, her vulnerability, her breakdown, her bone-deep wrongness?

Her jaw came together with an audible click. She dug her the nails of her stinging hand into her palm.

"Yes. Go on. Just...just get it over with."
 
She reacted just as he thought she would and Mori watched her for a long moment, noting the tension in her face, the rigidness of her body, but more-so than anything he felt the bracing, almost panicked, fearfulness of her mind. She thought she understood how this worked, but in truth she understood nothing about it. It came to Mori then that her own people had not helped her. They expected her to control a force - emotions and feelings - that she never truly could as one could not control what another felt. They wanted her functioning, useful and yet gave her no kind of reprieve from the constant information of every moment, every minute, every hour, every day. There was no network of minds around her, shielding her, helping her learn to find balance in herself before she started to filter in others.

There was only the chaos.

In Aavan culture, the youngest were shielded by their parents. Their minds were connected to the two adults and able to connect with any other Aavan, but such outward connections were monitored, filtered by the mother or father. It was to protect, to help the young one's mind understand how to differentiate between their own thoughts and emotions and someone else's. In time the young Aavan grew strong enough in self that even when in deep bonds they did not lose that sense of self to everything going on around them or in them.

Such had not been taught to Rora. He could feel it, recognize it now in the way her mind was so resistant to him actually leaving and scared of the darkness that awaited, a shadow of her own mind that had been fed and allowed to grow and fester due to the constant plague of information and emotion she received without end and without filter. Such was what Mori understood and such was what he wanted to tell her, explain...and such was what he wanted to help with - and he knew he could! - but he knew...she didn't trust him....and such a thing would require trust in the extreme.

It saddened him and the Aavan sighed even as he shrank down, moving toward the curled Cerebra. He crouched in the sand before her and still paid no attention to his bleed fingers and nails. He honestly didn't really register to the sting they were trying to send to his brain. His violet eyes meet her green and his own were steady, calm and admittedly softened toward her as he spoke in his deep way.

"You don't need to be afraid, Rora. I'm not just going to leave and you're not alone."

And whether she realized that or not, such was a good thing. She'd been alone far too long.

Mori closed his eyes then, black hair falling forward as his head did slightly and his mind focused on hers, on the small connection he had there. It was like he hovered over the shield he'd made, over the light inside that shield and watched the darkness without; a bird over a fortress and a battle field. With an inward sigh, he let the defense he'd made start to break up just slowly, doing nothing more than creating holes. The darkness giddily seeped through them, but not in the overwhelming wave it would had performed had he just dropped the walls completely. No, he was going to do it gradually with a large time-gap in-between each level of departure to try and give Rora adequate time to deal with whatever would plague her and perhaps let it resolve or drain away...or stay, but such were her choices.

He wished he could be more thorough about it, help support her while she sifted through all of it, help her accept or push it back, understand it even as he protected her from it....but such was not how this bond worked. That was a different one entirely, a Heart Bond, and that was one he was sure she would never, ever accept. He wasn't even sure such a thing was possible between an Aavan and a Cerebra.
 
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"I'm not afraid."

The words where sharp and quick as a whip, spoken almost without the Empath's permission. She immediately felt guilty: not because she didn't mean it -- she did, and she wasn't -- but because after everything, she rather supposed she owed the Aavan a debt. She had no real reason to hate, or even dislike him. And yet, she idea that the two might be growing closer filled her with an inexplicable dread, rivaling the fear of the swirl of shadow and darkness in her mind.

No. Not dread. Loathing. That was it. Yes. Probably.

Swallowing her pride, she took a breath to apologize -- and held it. Whatever small part of her had wondered whether she would know when the Aavan began to leave her mind was shut up immediately, swept away in a...no. Wait.

The blackness was back. She could feel that, could feel it with a horrible familiarity that echoed mercilessly through every fiber of her being. It was cold and hateful and bottomless...but it was also, somehow, lesser. Filtered or stripped in some way. She looked sharply to the Aavan, crouched just in front of her, really very close, and how had she not noticed yet? She'd be lying if she said she couldn't feel the strain protecting her was putting on him. It would have been easier to back out of her mind completely, let the darkness jump her like it wanted to.

But he hadn't. It hadn't.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, light headed with oxygen deprivation or giddiness.

"I..." she started, and realizing how tight her throat was. She couldn't remember the last time she cried. She wasn't about to start now.

She stood so abruptly, she nearly lost her balance, turning to watching the storm growing on the horizon even as she acclimated to the black. The terror was almost instant. She could feel it screaming at her in muted tones. The desert-snake. The trees, the Keeper back at Risa's...Risa herself. Rora closed her eyes, suddenly anxious she would be sick. But the feeling passed. The screaming faded. It would be a long while in sorting them out, but in little pieces like this...

She could hear, could feel Mori waiting behind her, though she didn't yet feel ready to face him.

She said, "Th-the storm is getting closer." And then, a longer pause, a quieter whisper: "Thank you."
 
Mori had felt her move away, but he'd not opened his eyes to watch her go. The Cerebra was a strange one and he was rather done questioning her actions, especially when she didn't even seem to know her own mind. She was, quite frankly, a mess. Worse than the storm above them in her chaos and winding maze of emotions and thoughts, secrets, darkness and light both. She didn't know herself so how could she hope to know why she did anything or even remotely understand why HE did anything? Sure, she could feel the emotions behind his decisions, but if she thought that was the only reason people made decisions, the only reason he did the things he did...no wonder she was confused a great deal of the time.

And how he knew all that, felt it....he didn't know.

He KNEW the connection he'd made with her was not two-way, but somehow he was getting things from her, wisp of emotions, mostly impressions that he could not explain...like some part of his mind, or maybe hers, was trying to make sense of the other, reaching out even in a limited away...as if they weren't even aware of it yet, only seeing the side-effects.

Or perhaps that was just what he was seeing, but then again...Rora seemed a bit preoccupied.

Her words made him smile a bit, though - he didn't smile much anymore and hadn't for years - and in answer he only gave her a flare of light within her mind, making the darkness pause for a moment, as if it truly could not figure out what he was even now. It came back, though, filtered through and Mori lowered a bit more of the shields, but somehow the trickle only sped up slightly and it came to Mori that this darkness was still Rora's mind. Still intelligent, learning and it had obviously learned in a short period of minutes now that it wasn't going to be allowed to swarm. It had been beating against him for days without a yield in his walls and perhaps now it was recognizing that even as the walls were coming down. It brought some satisfaction to the Aavan and he finally opened his eyes, his mind still on his task, but able to do more than two things at once as he'd been taught to do so by his people.

Having an entire tribe in your head kind of forced such a coping skill.

"The rain will break in an hour or so. It's going to be a short storm, but intense. There's a lot of power in it." he offered back quietly, looking up at the dark clouds with what could only be described as fondness. He wouldn't be hiding in a shelter when it came, but he did hope that in the next hour he could have mostly eased out of Rora's mind. Giving one last look to the clouds, he closed his eyes again, finally sitting completely and crossing his legs under him instead of crouching. This was going to take a while and some concentration, but he'd do it and keep a steady reign on leaving the Cerebra's mind.
 
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