She was never alone. Not on her Broken Planet. Not when Aleph flowed through every surface. Aleph was not some mystical fuel that provided these aliens with the ability to get to her home, nor was it a mystical substance that allowed amazing feats of strength. It was life. It felt and moved and flowed, it was what helped direct her through time to confront the Uras, didn't it? It was what led her to Harec and the Raiders. It had its own volition and it was, most probably, Iune's closest friend.
Aleph, by the way of the Distant Ones, and Iune spoke frequently, even if it did draw confused or distressed looks from her new corporeal companions. They had met Aleph, they had intermingled and been lended its strength, how did the group not feel Aleph's presence as she did? Even the others of her race had trouble understanding her feelings about the substance, but she had never really came in strong on the argumentation. They would rabble and rail against themsleves until they sorted the arrangements. Aleph would direct them, even as they found themselves in conflict with their more primitive and natural urges. Humans were interesting enough. Like the Carthail Hounds that could be seen in the wilds near where she once lived. (I envision something the size of a small bear, omnivorous, similar in size and shape to the Acolytes but living instead of uras creations.) They had very little forethought and overtuned aggression. Their entire existence seemed to be climbing up through the pecking order by whatever means necessary.
Harec, had somehow tamed so many of them, and set them against the yolk, to actually get some work done for the betterment of everyone involved. It was admirable, it was that trait that had drawn her vision in the darkness, that made her hope that they could be saved from the devestation the Uras implicitly threatened to unleash upon the universe.
The rag tag crew was a perfect example of Aleph's charisma. Each of their lives diverted towards this cause. Doldren was a terrorizing menace, but found himself working with others on Aleph's behalf. Iune's sanity might have been slipping, but she could 'smell' the cruelty dripping from his pores. He was self-entitled. He felt that he deserved life itself, and that was the quality that had driven his rapacious appetite for death. He had been born the weaker of two brothers, and his insecurity had driven this conversion into cruelty. Beings had become whet stones whose only use was to sharpen his abilities. He no longer even felt empathy or compassion, where he might have..at some time. Iune could hear the Distant Ones' warning about Doldren's predilection, but if it came to it in the end, she would flood his mind with her own will, if only she could maintain her sanity in the mean time.
She had worried she'd have to overwrite the will of many of the crew when first she had arrived, but Aleph had swayed them, they were even friends...for the most part. That was what showing teeth with raised cheeks meant again, wasn't it? The eyebrows gave something else away...wide or furrowed. They thought her a lunatic?No. They knew she was a lunatic. She wasn't though, not really. It was just really difficult to communicate when she could not hear herself through the chorus of voices in her ears. There was Doldren's sneer. She had been thinking about ...what was it again? People? Murderer. Group. Aleph's Will. Harec. Oh yes. Oh yes.
Even the beastial HIVE had been swayed by Aleph's will. There the Distant Ones were ominously quiet, but the Distant Ones were capricious often saying things that were obviously unfolding. Iune felt this as attempted humor delivered through fractured voices and avatars across time. Perhaps,when speaking through the voice of past Weavers there was not enough sounds having had been that could articulate the way she would understand, but the empathetic link she shared with them was more telling. The feelings of dread and anxiety were often tempered with determination she knew herself not to be capable of in her own addled state.
Stalwart Peace must be the way she could describe it, and manage it. No matter the situation lately, she knew they could not fail, for death meant the end of a journey she had seen far past, but now, tetherless, always drifting she could only see the shadow that was cast just around her and all others by the Uras. Her friends...She shook her head...not able to keep on one train of thought to a conclusion. It frusterated her, whenever she remembered being absent minded.
Considerable skill aside, they should all be dead with the insurmountable odds they were facing, yet, here they were. Plotting the fall of General Maramalde, and allocating the last...
She let out a silent shriek as the memory of that green trimmed horrorscape invaded her mind, how small she felt floating in those Aleph streams confronted by this evil, and something about this mission summoned up those feelings of dread. This was why she was here, this was why should found them...true evil was trying to manifest itself to destroy that which she loved...Life itself. That stalwart peace only wained when the darkness was near. It was nearer now than it had been since her direct encounter with it in the stream. Physically, anyway. Her feet finally felt the hand carved stones under them, they had brought her to the common area of the hideout, where Konstantin and Harec usually spent all of their time. She had not formerly been aware that she had been moving to a specific location.
"The Fifth Council is already searching for the presence of the last protector, though there seems to be stealth technology cloaking their presence." The human girl had been watching the monitors at Konstantin's request. The cyborg turned from his tinkering to squint at the monitor.
"Da, The Council will not be tricked for long, we need to move now."
"We must find him, let's move." Harec was always near, seeming to come alive when there was a goal at hand, but dwelling on things silently in brooding thought when they were at the hideout. Iune had not seen him lured out of the serious, terse demeanor.
"The Aleph...is sick." Iune's voice rattled from the corridor which she was approaching from.
They were trying to hoard Aleph. They were not protecting. They were stealing. Uras could be an immune response to the parasitic nature of their ancestors and now to the humans... Could it be? She couldn't connect the thought, but it seemed to resonate with her. Was her best friends sick? Were they a sickness? What? Where are we going?
"What was that Iune?" Harec asked, turning, his infused eye dimmed with the expression in his brow. She could feel him trying to understand something, but she could not seem to place what he was trying to figure out.
"I was speaking? We must find the Protector. I will come to see the child, I have seen him...somewhere." She could see the fractured mural of protectors. Yes. A child.
"Somewhere." She repeated aloud, and then turned to walk towards Cortez's impromptu hangar... Dread infused peace settled into her gut, assured weariness. She had started seeing everything as its own contradiction, and now she felt nothing but contradictions. The universe was an amazing..terrifying..dull...wonderful place.
