Reborn From the Cosmos

Arc 8-25

My hand snaps out, grabbing her by the throat, the slight pressure of my grip meant as a warning. I’d hate to kill her before knowing their story, but I’m afraid I might have to as the feel of my fingers clamping over her neck doesn’t stop the woman, this Rey. I ready myself to squeeze, knowing how little effort it would take to shatter bone and end her.

But she doesn’t attack. Her limbs wrap around my neck and her legs cross over my waist, but there’s nothing hostile about it. The opposite even. She buries her nose in the crook of my neck and rubs against me like an affectionate pet, a poor approximation of a purr rumbling out of her chest.

Well.

I swipe off Rey’s hat with my free hand, annoyed with the way the bill is digging into me, before sweeping my gaze over a stupefied table. Shock aplenty, though it’s tinged with amusement and exasperation amongst my clan while the others look horrified. Maxine is especially shocked, watching us with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. I guess that means this isn’t normal behavior for her. “Flattered as I am…get off.”

“Starchild.”

I slam her onto the table, uncaring about the food and dishes sent flying. The room erupts with noise at the sudden violence, one half of the table squaring off against the other. I don’t give it the slightest attention. She knows. Something that should be impossible but there is no point in denying the obvious. What did she see? What did she hear? When? How? What is she?

Rey doesn’t fight my sudden violence. Instead, her body goes completely limp, those unsettling pools of darkness gaze up at me with an expression I can only think of as adoring, as little sense as it makes.

“Make us whole.”

“Lou.” A hesitant hand touches my shoulder, but I don’t turn toward Maxine. I can smell the anxiety rolling off her, a combination of a sudden sweat and something else that defies description and can only be interrupted by the base instincts lurking in my subconscious. “Rey is…they say something in the sea grabbed hold of her. Something that left a part of itself in her.”

“A sea parasite?” I mutter back. I know of creatures that burrow in the body, sapping its strength for their own, but this isn’t some malicious internal bug. This thing spoke. It recognized me. Or, worse, it can see through me and into me in a way beyond the physical.

“Strange things lurk in the waters,” the merchant says, clearly knowing as little as I do.

“Seas take it,” the closest pirate mutters. “Er, miss? Ya might want to get away from Little Crazy there. She’s dangerous when she has one of her fits. It looks like she or them damn voices of hers like ya, but that can change quicker than a tide. Best you throw ‘er into a small room with a sturdy door, if ya have it.”

“She’s not moving until I get some answers,” I reply, a bit of bark in my voice. Does he know? Is he trying to get her away from the group before making a break for it? No, they’re exasperated, not afraid or excited. One of them has already gone back to the food. “What is this thing inside her?”

“A spawn from the crotch of the nastiest sea witch and the Abyss itself, I say,” the helpful pirate mutters. “Damned if we know. The water makes people crazy. Deeper you go, the worse it gets, and whalers go the deepest of everyone. Who fucking knows what crawled into her ear? Then her mother got involved and the saints know what she did to the girl. On top of that, Rey’s was already crazy before things startled fiddling with her head. Gonna have a tough time finding the right thread to tug if you want to unravel her.”

Rey, or I suppose the things inside of her, let out another of those odd rumblings but the sound suddenly cuts out. The placid expression on the woman’s face tightens into a fierce scowl, looking almost beastly with her strange jaw.

“Gahhhhh!! What did ya do ta me?!” she roars before uselessly flailing. With her size, I bet she’s used to having the physical advantage or at least not coming up short too often. It must be frustrating watching her slaps and punches hit my arms with all the effect of a stuffed toy assaulting a stone. Until her body seizes. I almost retract my hand when something crawls under the left side of her face. Then she goes limp and that hissing voice returns.

“Starchild…this fool is not us…we would never—"

Another brief seizure, more things crawling under her face, and then the scowl is back. “If ya like her so much, why don’t ya get out of me and crawl up ‘er—"

Another switch. “Blasphemous! We will—"

Again. “She’s not even that great!” Excuse me? “My Maxie is a hundred times better!”

Whoa. Her what? Who? I turn to the merchant, raising a scandalized brow as she flushes and dodges my gaze. The coast really did corrupt her, haha.

“Feed us! Then we will eat this ignorant—"

“Will ya bastards shut up fer a sharks damned minute?! Fuck, ya get one crush and I can’t even use my own—"

“We will hollow you—"

“Keep it up and I swear I will gouge yous out and eat ya! See how yous like it! And you, fancypants!”

“That’s me, right?” I ask, caught between disgust, amusement, and incredulity as I watch her war with the parasite. “If you’re asking for help, I don’t—"

“Not that! What’s yer thing with Maxie?”

She’s quite literally struggling for her life, maybe her very soul, and her priority is inquiring about her, what, crush? Fling? Saints bless her. “We’re friends. Nothing more.”

A triumphant smile curls her lips for a moment before it’s wiped away by the parasite seizing control and releasing a disgusting blend of a shriek and, for some saints forsaken reason, what I recognize as a mating call. Ugh. Why do I know that?

[That would be because of me, my summoner], Geneva whispers into my mind. [I thought it crucial in determining how you wish to proceed. The inhabitants of her body are quite taken with you.]

I’m calling bullshit. You did that for a laugh, didn’t you? Sigh. Just, help me with this.

Following my unspoken desire, Geneva appears at my side, one of her dainty fingers touching the squirming Rey on the brow. Immediately, her struggles stop, eyes fluttering shut as she goes limp.

“She dead?” the helpful pirate asks.

“No, just pacified.” I carefully set the large woman back into her chair, watching her with narrowed eyes as a finger taps my chin. What a thing to drop into my lap. You ever seen anything like this?

[If you mean intelligent life that parasitizes other intelligent life, then yes, many times. However, if you mean this being, I’m not sure. It is either familiar with your true nature, which is a mystery to me, or it possesses startling insight. Without the use of mental affinity.]

Which only makes it that much more impressive.

“I’m so sorry, Lou. We’ll leave as soon as—"

“She’s going nowhere,” I say with a wave toward the sleeping pirate. “At least, not until I learn more, which may be a while. You came at a, uh, inconvenient time. I’d invite the rest of you to stay as well but the estate if full to bursting.” I don’t even have room for the estrazi, though Little Water didn’t mind being made to take refuge in the city’s ruins.

“At least allow me!” Maxine says quickly. “My presence is…calming to her.”

“Uh-huh. Didn’t know this was your type.”

There’s that blush again. “She’s not—we’re not…it’s complicated.”

I pat her on the shoulder before retaking my seat. Only then do I notice the rest of the table is quiet, having been paying rapt attention to the show. Orum especially looks interested, his eyes watching the sleeping madwoman with the tiniest furrow between his brows.

Alana is the first to make a comment, muttering to herself as she picks up her fork. “If whatever’s inside her crawls out, I’m burning it.”