Born a Monster

391 291 – Family

Manakuru complained.

I sent.

I sent.

I scanned the ward, wondering why I hadn’t seen it earlier.

Because OF COURSE they had multiple healers. When people woke up with a System notification they had a rating four illness, why not get themselves treated? Multiple sick people at the same time, each with their own disease? Of course, there was a spirit around to cause that.

And so, the tribe was now on alert, and ready to crush said spirit if it so much as looked in their direction too hard.

And, if I had so much as attacked any of them, they’d be on guard against me, too.

Manahuru said.

I sent.

.....

Still, I turned my nose southward and followed it. Even without a navigation pin, it was easy enough to find the pool.

One. Two. Three. All there, and not a trace of food left. They’d even eaten the bones. It was a simple matter to gather more fish; I’d work on my actual goal tomorrow.

I slept just on the other side of the coral that night, made a report to Manajuwejet that I was taking a long path toward the vengeance upon the Starmane Clan. Otherwise, it was a calm night.

I woke due to the storm that was rolling in from the south before dawn. Well, that might churn the surface, but it didn’t mean a thing where I was heading.

Permit me a moment of naturalism. The remora is a small fish, sometimes called a sucker fish. Although the most famous breeds use sharks as their transports, there are others that will ride whales, manta rays, or even sea turtles. And, it turns out, much harder to find in temperate waters than in tropical.

I gave up after six hours, returned to the estuary. One. Two.

No.

Where was three? I felt something trying to crush my toe, in a small but broad pincer.

An audacious move; bold and daring. Or so I found it at that moment.

He? She was trying to avenge her brothers and sisters, perhaps? Whatever her motivation, she hadn’t harmed either of her remaining siblings.

Gently, gently, I pulled the flexible coral thing off my foot talon, placed it back into the pool, hidden near the others.

Okay, then.

I sent a group invite, which they ignored.

I asked. Gently, the way I would have asked Gamilla. I didn’t know what they had evolved. Killing them by trying to communicate was... nowhere near my intention.

sent toe biter.

sent left coral.

sent right coral.

Okay, I’d been preparing for that manner of response. I’d been about that communicative at... what was their age? Oh, dear. They were large for their mental development. Already at Brawn rating one for toe biter.

What if none of them had any recognizable mental ability?

Well, that fear chased itself around and around my head for a while, until I nudged I Eat Fear For Breakfast.

Okay, then. Picture time. Why was my mouth dry?

No, focus. I sent them pictures of the fish I’d caught, while looking for ramoras.

Toe biter sent back pictures of the protein and oil nutritional tracks.

Left sent me an image of a yellow and blue fish, flat and disk shaped.

Right sent me an image of myself, distorted by the water’s surface, dropping in yesterday’s fish.

Okay, they each had a different understanding, but all of them showed at least rating zero thought and awareness.

I placed two fish near each of them. Six servings of food, three nutrition per serving. The rest could wait until morning.

I slept in the pool that night, between the newborn and any possible threat from land. I had nightmares that they devoured their food and came to eat me as well.

I awoke with two of them chewing on my tail and one my left foot. They ignored my group invite again.

Gently, I pried each one loose, attached it to my left forearm. Sending them the feeling I had when my Amphibian Lungs had unlocked, I gently lifted them from the water, moved us all outside the estuary.

They bombarded me with familiar sensations of smothering, but none of them let go. Biter even seemed to clench harder, as though to wring oxygen from me.

The early birds circled, but none were so foolish as to approach me.

The sensations smoothed out when I returned them to the water. Ugh. I wanted to FORCE them, but I also figured I was terrifying enough to them.

sent Right. Since he was in the middle just then, I needed to come up with better names for them. Okay, Biter, Fearful, and Glutton to start with. I’d come up with better names later.

Okay, so Glutton wanted fish.

I sent to them, with an increased feeling of pressure from my palms. And then, I engaged Titanic Swimming.

Biter pinched down as though attempting to hurt me.

Fearful sent disorientation and confusion.

Glutton sent the sensation of water being forced down his throat and out through his lungs.

But each of them held on tightly. And here I’d been worried about the remora’s adaption for hitching a ride.

I didn’t get a fish, but instead a manta about the size of my torso. I gulped down a bite or two, but let the others fill their stomachs. I presume both real and virtual, from the amount they ate. Although each of them was barely a serving themselves, each of them devoured four before listlessly rocking back and forth with the tide.

I finished off the few bites left, and cradling the three between my left arm and torso, swam at normal speeds back toward the shallows. I could fight off one shark. Possibly two. But I couldn’t defend my siblings while doing so.

I was so very, very hungry. Yet I never considered that each of them was small enough to swallow whole. A blooming sage bush near the shore would not be so lucky.

I ran for it, ripped it out of the ground, and hauled it, dirt an all, into the shallows.

One, Two, Three. All here. All safe. Only then did I begin devouring the plant.

Glutton inquired.

I sent back the icon for herb, offered him a few sharp leaves.

he sent back, after his first bite. He refused to eat more. The others were stirring, and had the same reactions. Nibble, and reject.

Any parent who has raised a child knows the reaction. Well, I knew absolutely they weren’t going to be able to digest the wood, so I didn’t offer them any.

The flowers, though...

Biter sent, and the other two sampled. I plucked the remaining flower buds, both blooming and not, parceling them evenly between the kids.

All of us thus fortified, they were able to grab hold and ride as I swam for the mouth of the broad river.

Crap. Were they ready for this?

I sent them the icons for Amphibian Lungs, the sensation of breathing air. I didn’t dare leave them without that evolution; the river had been full of eels. Eels that bit. Might one or not, I wasn’t leaving them exposed to that.

And so began training that I myself had done without the aid I now provided them. It was heartless, it was torture. I would put them on land, keep them from reaching the water until they almost passed out. I didn’t need my telepathic abilities to feel them suffer.

Then, into the water again, until they caught their breath, then back on land, an arm’s length away from breathable water.

It was Fearful who caught on first. For me, the evolution had seemed near instantaneous. Once he started, it took him twenty minutes. When I placed him back into the air, he coughed up water, and took in a panicked breath. And then another.

He moved first to Glutton, the closer, and then to his sister. Whatever means they used to communicate, it was effective. Both of them began their own evolutions.

I sent a group invite, and was unsurprised when it was rejected.

Fearful sent.

Biter sent.

asked Glutton.

Yes, they had all earned flowers, and they were in bloom. I carried them away from the riverbank, and placed them near flowers.

sent Fearful.

Pain? I checked. Nothing more sinister than tiny bits of grit. But how had those felt, before I’d developed a thicker skin?

Ugh.

Thicker skin, another thing I’d have to teach them how to grow.

I was a terrible parent.

Yes, I made sure to ask it if it were Aware or sentient. It wasn’t.