Chapter 15

Turning Tides

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Jo-Laina tied her pocket to her waist and her world opened even further as she did. With Argimos gone from the cave, she no longer had his vision, nor needed it, but his vision had nothing to do with her perception. A Prim’s perception of her surroundings does not come in the same way as a normal human being’s perceptions. A Prim gains her perspective by feel, but not by touch, a feel that comes like a sixth sense, accumulated by the receptive neurons not just in their brains, but also throughout their entire body. A Prim does not need to see an arrow as it speeds toward her, much in the same way that a ballplayer’s perception on Earth, isn’t limited to just his sight as a ball speeds toward him, but he also uses the mechanics of his ears, an invisible guidance system from within, to help him predict where to place his glove. She feels the arrow coming and can dodge it with her speed and grace, or can draw her sword and deflect it. Her perceptions of a living body don’t come by seeing that person’s skin, their eyes, hair or clothing, but by ‘seeing’ the essence of what lies within that person. She doesn’t need, nor would it be possible, to see that essence with her eyes, but she ‘sees’ it with her heart, with her soul. As Jo-Laina placed her pocket on her side, her perceptions were wider than they had been before. Once it was there, where it belonged, she had a sense of a world (or a place) beyond the one that surrounded her, beyond the mountains that they stood on, beyond the trees that lie to the east of the mountains, and beyond the Black City tucked between the forest and the other end of those mountains. She had a sense of the place in which she had just left. She had a sense of the grey itself.

However, what she didn’t have were the weapons that she had come for. The pocket itself may be of help, but there were supposed to be weapons.

She loosened the drawstring that held her pocket closed, reached inside, and grabbed the only item that she felt within. A bracelet.

Jo-Laina pulled it out, with a touch of disgust, because she didn’t know how a bracelet was supposed to help them in this situation. She didn’t think offering jewelry to the Shooktah would help much. They didn’t seem to be the type to be impressed by gifts. She felt her way around the rim of the solid metal band and felt no clasp, felt no latch, and it seemed just barely large enough for her wrist, but not large enough to slide over her hand.

She wanted to put it...

As that thought crossed through her mind, it opened. She slid it over her wrist and thought about it closing. It obeyed her command, forming snugly against her wrist, and a new perspective washed down her spine.

She felt connected to her pocket, and connected to the grey.

She began to walk toward the entrance to the cave, not knowing still exactly what to do, but ancient Jo-Laina had told her that figuring it out was up to her. She was going to trust her instincts and face the Shooktah. Having weap...

A change began to occur as the thought of weapons started to cross her mind. She could feel the loose clothing she had been wearing change as she continued to walk. It went from loose fitting, to tight like skin, the handmade shoes she stitched from leather by Panpar himself, began to change to firm boots, almost knee high, and she felt something beginning to form, both around her chest, and her waist, perhaps a belt, perhaps not. She continued to walk and as she did, she could feel the weight of weaponry being added. Two sabres across her back, a bow behind and to the right side of her back, daggers clinging to the belt across her chest, a whip, a garrote, a bolas, and arrows on the left side of her back.

This is much better, she thought as the air began to change from dank cave, to the smell of death on the field, much better indeed.

There were things that needed to be righted and deaths that needed avenging. Jo-Laina’s heart still felt heavy in her chest over the loss of the two men that she had come to love so much and she would not be satisfied until those that killed her friends were just as dead.

There were still three Shooktah pushing desperately against Belimos’s shield, but one had turned his attention on Argimos. He hadn’t made it half way to the others before that Shooktah had turned his efforts on him. Argimos was standing still, which meant that he must also have his shield back up.

Jo-Laina continued to walk forward, toward the ongoing skirmish, and the Shooktah immediately abandoned their attacks on Belimos and the others, and on Argimos, leaving him to make it to Belimos and they quickly combined their shields.

Perhaps they abandoned those attacks because they noticed the difference in the way that Jo-Laina was dressed (and she was indeed, dressed differently), perhaps abandoning them because of the weaponry that she was suddenly armed with, weapons in which she didn’t have before, or perhaps it was because of the gleaming look of disdain in her silver, blind eyes, burning like hot coals stoked in a furnace, aimed toward all of them, or maybe even perhaps it was because of the sudden confidence that this child-like human seemed to have, a confidence which was before not present. Whatever the reason for their sudden change in priorities, the fact remained, that they no longer seemed concerned about anyone else but her, each of them withdrawing from their previous task, each of them directing their staff directly at her, and each of them firing as rapidly as their weapons would fire.

This was exactly as she had hoped for, because she was ready to dance.

Her music originated from the Shooktah, from their weapons, feeling that music inside of her, like a drum shaking the floor, reverberating off of a wall, and echoing against her bones, and this music made her feel alive, forcing her heart to thump, and her mind to grasp every nuance of everything around her, whether she could see and hear it or not didn’t matter, she was aware. She was aware of every muscle in her body, every tendon that bound them, and every hair on her skin, aware of every ball of fire as it left every staff. She was aware of every point in which those balls would impact, whether they would hit her or miss, and she was aware of every move she had to make, to deflect, to dodge or to absorb, because she was also aware that her new clothing could absorb some of those impacts.

However, her song was different from her music. The song that her mind sang to her was a song of memories. Memories of Panpar and his stories that they robbed her of hearing, of the stories that he would not be able to tell to her people, and of the stories that used to calm and comfort her before she fell asleep. Memories of Greegus, with his laugh, starting deep in his gut, lifting up through his massive chest, before it finally left through the opening between his beard and mustache. Memories of the kind eyes that didn’t seem to belong on such a massive man, a man that could kill the deadliest creatures in the forest one second and tell a joke that put your stomach in stitches the next. Memories of that gruff, dirty, massive man, who could be so scary that he often had to sleep in barns while the others were invited in. Greegus often repaid that unkindness with a song from a voice that could charm the birds into joining in with him. But memories also of her bolainin, of her little meerkin, Picket. The way his soft fur felt as he curled against her neck at night—the way that his earls would lay back against his head as he hissed whenever Greegus tried to pet him. She thought of what it was like to join her mind with the simplistic mind of an animal, feeling only instinct, without thought.