§
As the travelin’ party set off through the deep woods, headin’ not back toward Narses but westward, aimin’ for Lower Pendor, I waited for the old hag to answer my question.
Maybe it ain’t so clear for someone who ain’t part of a weird existence like us, what it was I was askin’ her. By all rights, we previous incarnations shouldn’t exist. A person rememberin’ their past lives should just be just that: a person rememberin’ their past lives. Like the princess rememberin’ her life as Robert. I can’t rightly say I understand how we came about, we ghosts of past lives who can think independently from the princess. So I can’t say how likely it is that another being exists out there, the same as us.
But we exist, and especially Fan Li exists, and she had the ability to think separately from the princess even when she was not ‘awake’ in the spiritual vessel. I don’t claim I understand where she was, but I imagined her somewhere, on her own, thinkin’ in a deep dark space.
I began this conversation with the old hag figurin’ she had a nasty secret she was hidin’ from us. I didn’t expect to hear somethin’ like that.
I like the expression I learned from Robert’s memories. Fan Li’s silence, as he would say, was deafenin’. I had the impression she didn’t want to answer.
And that bothered me a lot. Our memories are shared. I should be able to remember her thoughts, especially the most recent, provided I have the capacity to remember them.
What are you, exactly, Old Hag? Are you actually part of us or not? Is Fan Li really one of our incarnations? Or are you a stowaway?
That’s what it was, what was botherin’ me. Right now, her thoughts wasn’t connected to mine at all.
– This humble scholar is most assuredly not a stowaway. This Fan Li is the reincarnation of Rhugau, who was the reincarnation of you, Captain.
Then you know what is botherin’ me, and you know you need to explain it to me!
She was silent again, almost long enough for me to explode at her, but she answered, not long before my fuse ran down.
– You have a right to know. It is impossible to dismiss that fact, Captain. Please accept the apologies of this humble sage. The secrecy was most assuredly without malice.
This time, I could feel her again, at least somewhat, at least enough to know she was puttin’ her thoughts in order.
I chewed on my gum and waited. Fortunately, it wasn’t for long.
– Captain, you understand what sort of existence Kanon is? That she was originally a part of us and split away?
Aye, I understand that. Are you saying that’s what you are?
– It is more accurate to say, at least at this moment, that such is the nature of what this Fan Li was, while waiting for Her Highness to retrieve me. And what this Fan Li becomes again, every time this one goes to sleep in Her Highness’s vessel and my personality and memories fuse with those in the old vessel.
The old hag was gatherin’ her thoughts again for a few seconds, so I just waited with replyin’.
– After my death, that Great Senior interrupted our soul’s journey through Samsara to strip away my Spirit Core, my equivalent of a Golden Core which grew upon entry to the Fifth Stage of Cultivation. It did not vanish, nor dissolve, nor pass into Samsara. That Great Senior could possibly explain what did happen to it, but this scholar cannot. However, what can be said is, the thoughts of this scholar, and the thoughts of all those who had gone before this one, remained within it.
The thoughts of… I don’t follow.
– It wasn’t an empty shell. It had access to all memories that connected to it. Those belonging to this scholar, and those belonging to everyone else. In other words, you and the other prior incarnations. And those memories could take form and become aware. Not just this scholar, but everyone was in there. Stuck in the void, deprived of all sensation, merely awareness, alone and disconnected. That very state that you feared that this small one had experienced was experienced by all.
Then why don’t I remember it?
– Because the moment this small one noticed the other minds sharing the vessel and the terrible effect the deprivation was having on them, it became my vital task to protect them. Or rather, to protect your other copies. The only means to prevent it from driving all my former incarnations mad was to forcibly keep you asleep until a means could be found to fashion an environment in which we could all interact. This scholar had not yet succeeded, when my consciousness suddenly woke within Her Highness. And since this scholar is preventing your doppelgangers in the vessel from connecting with your minds within Her Highness, they remain asleep for now. Only this scholar remains awake, to protect them.
So you really have been awake all this time? Through Robert’s life and through however much time it took before he reincarnated, and up until you woke up here?
– I was. And I still am. When I woke within Her Highness, my consciousness within my old core reconnected. Whenever I ‘awaken’ within Her Highness, the doppelganger and the mind within Her Highness automatically merge and become one again, until the next time I ‘sleep’. While I am awake, I have to suppress this knowledge in my local thoughts so that you do not find out about it.
But why do you do that?
– Because you might reconnect with the old vessel as well, if you learn from my memories the method of how to do it. Then, your image in the old vessel will go through that hell again and you will inherit the memories of being in that hell the first time, whenever you ‘go to sleep’ within Her Highness. And this scholar would cease to have the ability to protect your minds there, once your images gain access to the vitality of the living. Please accept that, for now, I must protect you in this way, at least until I have completed the imaginary place I am trying to prepare for you there.
§
I came awake in my bath with my skin crawling, immediately feeling all of Sirth’s troubled thoughts and suspicions in my gut. I’m not sure what woke me, but it was probably Fan Li, deciding I ought to be awake and hearing everything. So I did so, right on up until Fan Li’s admission hit me in the gut and I sat straight up.
Mireia, who was still studying her notes, looked up with concern.
“My Lady? What’s the matter?”
I shivered, then pursed my lips and shook my head. “It’s difficult to explain.”
No, it was impossible to explain, to her or anyone else around me. For decades during my lifetime, and who knew how long between her lifetime and Robert’s, she had drifted alone in a void, alone with her thoughts, fighting a battle to keep these other minds from going insane…
I pulled myself up onto the rim of the bath. It’s a wide tile top rather than a simple lip like a tub, so I could perch there like a classic mermaid.
“Towel?” I asked Mir.
She put down the notebook and came over to dry me off. Once she had my upper body dry, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face into her hair.
She giggled. “My Lady, it’s barely an hour past Afternoon right now. It’s a little early for this.”
Meaning it was around four.
“Just dry my hair. I just need someone to hug right now.”
I wanted to explain to her, but I didn’t know how. It was probably some of the memories that Fan Li was trying to hide from us, by keeping them bound up in the other half of her mind. I’m sure they had leaked into our side anyhow. Sirth had felt it, which caused her to demand Fan Li admit to it, and I could feel it too. The vast loneliness Fan Li experienced, while drifting in the dark like that.
But of course, my Tiana side also insisted on analyzing it strategically. Could we use this? Could Fan Li contribute all the time, while leaving my spiritual vessel free for me and the rest?
– No. This small one must fully form within your mind in order to interact with your world.
Sirth didn’t accept it. She fired back instantly.
– You can see and hear what’s going on here, even when you are not awake!
– Incorrect. Upon going to sleep, this humble scholar merely leaves behind a sleep guardian technique, such as one might use while sleeping to alert of danger.
Both I and Sirth sent back strong feelings of doubt, causing her to mentally sigh.
– That is not actually a falsehood. The sleep guardian is only able to perceive to a limited degree. This scholar adapted it to grow the vessel in order to awaken one’s consciousness in an emergency, but it cannot relay what it has perceived until this one’s consciousness awakens. It is merely this one’s ability to quickly absorb the situation upon waking that tricks you into believing this scholar can watch while asleep.
“Should I remove my dress so you can feed, My Lady?” Mir asked as she laid the towel aside. My long hair had soaked it already, and she would need to go fetch another to make any further progress drying it.
She sounded hopeful. A brief laugh escaped me, raising my spirits a little.
“I’m not hungry at the moment,” I told her. “And it’s only been a week since you fed me.”
Her arms enfolded me. “Rhea told me you have to feed more often, now that you’re pregnant. You’re…”
“… eating for two,” I joined in as she said it. She giggled again.
I could compensate by tapping my blood core, but that was beside the point. It was better to feed.
I brushed her hair and nodded. “She told you the truth, but you need to sleep after feeding me, so we should do that toni… tomorrow night.”
She leaned back. “Why the change?”
“You have an appointment with His Royal Highness, remember?”
“Why are you so insistent on that?” she demanded.
“Well, I’m not insisting. If you honestly don’t want to, then stay here with me tonight. But right now, I feel like I stole your first time with him. I’m trying to give it back somehow.”
She shook her head, smiling. Then covered my mouth with a kiss. We shared that only for a short while before she broke away, laughing nervously.
“We’d better not continue doing that. I’m starting to remember last night.”
I blushed a little as her comment stirred up similar erotic memories for me. And a need to not quite stop yet. I pulled her in again. “Just a little longer.”
She didn’t fight it, and frankly, her hand found my bosom this time. But I knew what she meant, that it was a bad idea to continue, and made myself let go of her lips after a decent interval.
“I can’t believe I’m kissing a mermaid,” she giggled.
“You have mermaids in your world?”
She shook her head. “Only fantasy stories about them. But they look a lot Merrow, or like you, right now.”
I nodded, remembering her mentioning that their only intelligent species had been humans, dragons and a sort of Sasquatch-like race living in the wilderness.
“Do you turn that way often?”
“Only in large baths,” I told her. “Or if I need to swim.”
“Can I?” she asked, reaching her hand toward what would be my thigh in human form.
I allowed it, and she gently caressed me. My tail is not scaly, since in this form I am physically half bottle-nose dolphin, not half fish. Frankly, that half of me looks exactly like a dolphin, down to the smooth rubbery gray skin, tending toward white in front and darker in back. She shook her head, smiling, as she felt it. Then her hand went to a questionable spot.
“Is this seam what I think it is?” she asked, with a teasing voice that was failing to sound innocent.
I blushed deep red the moment she said that. I had pretty much forgotten it, since it’s almost invisible unless one gets up close.
“What happens if I rub it?”
I had hugged her for comfort, not erotic purposes, so I grabbed her hand while reminding myself again what time it was. While transforming my tail back into legs, I told her, “We’ll discuss that some other time, Mir. I need to give Rod an update on the situation out there. Please ask my maids to come in to dress me. I need to go find Rod.”
She burst into a merry laugh, then kissed my cheek.
“At once, My Lady,” she promised me, and left to go fetch them.
With my convenient distraction leaving the room, Fan Li’s conversation with Sirth came right back into my mind. If I laid aside Fan Li’s troubling experience within her old spiritual vessel, I was still left with an important question.
Fan Li, I asked, If your Spirit Core belongs to us all, can you return it to us? Can it merge with the spiritual vessel we have now?
