‘I already had the answers?’ 

Well, it wasn’t as ridiculous a notion as it might seem. As Rairok said, I lived his life. I should know what he knows. The problem was that he was hundreds of years old, and his life flashed before my eyes in a few heartbeats, or so it seemed to me. Only a few moments stick in my mind.

The reason I was now sitting cross-legged on the cold floor of the cage, eyes closed, roaming my mind according to his instructions. That was the easy part. What I had a hard time with was searching my body - no lewd stuff - for memories, or in other words, instincts buried deep down.

According to Rairok, our memories were more connected to our bodies than we realized. Smells, tastes, sounds, pain, it all mattered. And so did emotions, like how happy I was when I gained my freedom, or how terrified I was when I was in danger of losing it again. But this time, it wasn’t about my feelings and emotions. It was about Rairok and how he felt when he learned the truth: terrified to the core, refusing to believe, at a loss for what to do.

He described what to look for in great detail, so much so that I had second thoughts about learning the truth about the ‘darkness’. Only for a moment, though. My will to know was stronger. So I searched.

Unfortunately, all I found was a cold biting me in the ass and an annoying itch between my shoulder blades. I had no choice but to ignore the cold, the itch I got rid of by scratching it with my wing.

This memory thing was a hell of a lot harder than I had imagined.

“How long does it usually take, Rairok?” Stella asked in a whisper. It didn’t matter; because of my huge ears, it was as if she was sitting next to me in the tavern, trying to outshout the regulars. I know I wouldn’t have anything to complain about if I had concentrated on what I was supposed to, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Even a newborn fawn takes only a few moments to find the love its parents share with it,” Rairok said, and my ears twitched in annoyance. “Although those are only a few selected memories. Sharing a whole life with a newborn fawn might hurt them. But they learn quickly, and within a few years...”

“A few years?” I blurted out. “Are you saying I’m trying to do something that takes your kin years to learn?”

“Trying?” Rairok paused, not at the fact that I was listening, but at my choice of words. “If thou were really trying, thou would have thy answers by now.”

“But you just said...”

“That it’s not safe to share our entire lives with the newborn fawn; that it takes several winters for the mind and body to develop enough to bear it. Thou are young, Korra’leigh Grey, but thou don’t strike me as a newborn fawn.”

My tongue itched with a witty reply on the tip of it that I could very well be a fawn in comparison to him.

Well, I swallowed it.

“Based on what you said, Rairok, you can choose what to share with each other,” Stella said, the hint in her voice obvious even to me. “Couldn’t you share with Korra what she’s trying to find?”

A damn good question.

“And what difference would it make from telling both of ye?”

I knew the answer: none. It was the easy way that would teach me shit and make me a liar. It hadn’t been half an hour since I had asked Rairok if he would be willing to teach me the ways of the Witty Deers.

“Thou should know that sharing only a part of your life with another is disrespectful, very disrespectful. It expresses thy mistrust of the other. Is that what thou want me to do, Korra’leigh Grey?”

I wanted so badly to say yes, that there’s nothing wrong with not sharing everything with me. After all, when I would ask someone how they were doing, I didn’t expect them to start telling me about their whole day, let alone their life. But the beasts saw it differently than the humans, and I knew it.

“No, Rairok. I don’t want you to do that.”

“Then gather thy thoughts and try to recall what I told thee.”

With a frustrated groan that only amused him, I shifted my weight, stretched, took a deep breath and - got rid of the itch on my knee. That one was really annoying. Nevertheless, with nowhere else to focus my mind, I concentrated again, trying to find the feelings Rairok had described to me and trigger the right memory. His memory, to be exact.

The whole thing was quite strange. When we connected, we became one, his life became mine and the other way around. But when we separated, it didn’t stay that way. I was me again. I had my own memories and his drifted into the distance. Not away, though. They were etched into me like instincts, or better yet, ancestral knowledge.

‘Holy shit. This can’t be it, can it?’ With that realization hitting me with the force of a train, I rushed to check my ‘offline’ system.

 

Ride of Ancestors

Active II (Deviant - 30%)

Whether man or beast, all are born with instincts built on ancestral experience. However, the scope of this deep memory from which your instincts can draw, is much broader than that of others. With them, you can gauge the strength of your adversaries, let them guide your steps in battle, dominance, and love, or simply let them find your way through life.

Tier II - You have learned to draw on the knowledge of your ancestors. Yet what you touched was just the tip of the iceberg; primal instincts hardwired into your very core and used to their best potential. Those instincts aren’t all that make us who we are, though. You are now able to reach beyond the limits of your instincts and glimpse the knowledge your ancestors gained in their lifetime while honing their bodies to their very finest.

 

That last sentence in particular was awfully close to what I was trying to accomplish here. And yet...

I hissed at my shortsightedness. In this Echo of the Past, there was no easy way to activate the skill, and back when Stella and I were trying to get our shit together, this wasn’t the skill I was really honing. On the bright side, I didn’t have as much trouble with my skills as she did.

So, after a few calming breaths, I grabbed [Ride of the Ancestors] as I usually did, with the help of the system, and did the thing. Not much had changed. However, it was nothing out of the ordinary. While it was an active skill, I had always found the way of using it to be rather passive. Through instinct, it showed me how to move, how to best use what I had - and that was what I was banking on.

The blood of the Valeyris, a Witty Deers, coursed through my veins, I had their instincts. All I had to do was let them guide me.

The very thought brought a grin to my face. It hadn’t been that long ago that the mere thought of surrendering control to my instincts had struck me with unbearable fear. And now I was more than happy to do so.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as giving in to my instincts and wham, done. I still had to do the work. I still had to dig deep into my core and search for that one memory. Only now that I had done it, it was somehow smoother. I felt like I was walking down a path that had already been trodden. My instincts guided me.

“Her eyes,” Stella gasped, and Rairok cautioned her to be quiet. Too late, though. My focus shifted to my eyes, and to my surprise, I found them open. When? Why? How could I not know? Many questions rushed through my mind, mostly overshadowed by what I saw. In my domain, my eyes gained a sense of depth, so much depth that I could have sworn I was looking at a reflection of the universe in them.

“Don’t lose focus,” Rairok said softly, trying to get my mind back on track. And I listened, quickly relying on my instincts. They guided me on what to do, and I directed them on what to look for. It took a while, and I made a few wrong turns with my instincts, but eventually it came to me. Rairok’s memory - I found it. There it was. Written deep in my core.

Instead of reaching for it, I froze. Just for a moment, something inside me telling me that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. A feeling I quickly pushed away. I had come too far to turn back now. And so, with a shiver running down my spine, I reached for it.

The memory flashed before my eyes like my own. And as if it were my own, the truth hit me as hard as it had Rairok at the time, his emotions mixing with mine. I had no idea what to think, feeling utterly powerless and horrified at the thought of what humans and other races were facing. Was it right to face it at all? It even seemed cruel.

“Don’t,” I heard Rairok say to stop Stella.

“But...”

“She needs some time.”

Some time, my ass. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe, as if I had no reason to exist, as if my very existence was a blight on this world.

“Some time for what?”

“She remembered the truth,” Rairok said, the deep understanding in his voice.

Stella’s eyes went wide. “She seems horrified by it. Why ? She’s one of the bravest fools I know.”

“Even those like her will not always find their bravery. However, she might...” Rairok said, his eyes fixed on me, lost in thought for a brief moment. “Korra’leigh Grey, hear me. Thou have found thy answer, now let go of my memory.”

I heard him, I heard both of them, but that was it. That was all I could do - listen to them. My thoughts and feelings, mixed with Rairok’s, seemed to paralyze me, locked in place. Between those dark thoughts of his - and mine - the first thing I thought of was to turn off [Ride of Ancestors]. A move that didn’t do shit. For some reason, I kept clinging to Rairok’s memory, and whatever I tried didn’t work. I was still sitting there in the cage, gripped by the horror - ‘Damn, that’s it.’ - his horror at the truth, not mine.

When I truly realized that, I was finally able to tell the difference between his feelings and mine. His were crushingly disheartening; mine were - just mine, mine to focus on. With that, his gradually faded back into the ancestral knowledge from whence they came.

“Shit!” I cursed out loud when I was at last able to breathe on my own. My head was pounding, my whole body aching from the tension that gripped me all, and I was lost as to what to think. ‘Did I piss myself?’ The answer was nope. The puddle under my ass turned out to be my sweat; I was drenched in it.

“Take thy time, Korra’leigh Grey,” Rairok said slowly, clearly and tenderly, something I really appreciated at the moment. “It took me a few days to come to terms with it.”

Days? That sounded fucking great.

“Although, in my experience, humans tend to get over it faster. Especially with the help of alcohol.”

Now, that didn’t sound so bad. I could definitely use a drink or two - maybe even a whole bottle of Dragon Fart. Unfortunately, neither Stella nor I had anything like that on hand. Worse, alcohol seemed to be a forbidden commodity throughout the encampment.

So I just nodded and finally did what I should have done a long time ago. I struck my mind with [Indomitable Will]. The relief was almost instantaneous. Don’t get me wrong, I still had to deal with what I had learned on my own, but the skill put a damper on the chaos of my thoughts.

“All right, I think I’m good,” I informed the two after sitting there for a few minutes - maybe an hour. Checking the time wasn’t high on my to-do list.

“Already?” Rairok looked up. He was lying in the straw of his lair. That and the dark sky I could see through a few holes in the tarp told me I’d been sitting there longer than I thought. Definitely long enough for Stella to fall asleep at the foot of my cage. Should I wake her up? Spook her? Nah. Dumb ideas. I actually found her quiet breathing quite soothing. And perplexing.

It was already night, for Traiana’s sake. The surrounding cages should be full of rampaging beasts. Yet silence reigned.

“Thank you, Rairok,” I whispered to the beast I knew was the cause.

He nodded back. “It was the least I could do.” The straw beneath him rustled as he rose and walked quietly to me, his huge eyes following my gaze to the sleeping Stella. “She refused to leave your side.”

Yeah, I kind of figured. Not surprising. What we went through here brought us pretty close. It pained me all the more to think that she would ask me to tell her the whole truth.

“I’m still surprised how quickly thou recovered, Korra’leigh Grey.”

I gave him a sad smile, realizing more than ever how much Earth had shaped me. “You’ve seen where I came from.”

“Yes, a fascinating place. Confusing and difficult to understand.”

It must have felt that way to someone from here, especially a beast. There was no mana, no magic, just a world of buildings, humans and crazy machines. Something I grew up in and found nothing too unusual. The reason I was able to pull myself together so quickly.

“Well, the humans there...” I said - Stella’s purr stopping me short. She stirred, opened her eyes, looked at Rairok and then at me. In that instant, she was on her feet. “Korra, you’re back.”

“I am - sorry for worrying you.”

She cracked her neck and stretched, the smile never leaving her face. “You damn well better be. You looked worse than when the ‘darkness’ messed with you.”

“Worse than at the beginning of the cycle?”

“No, but it’s not the same thing,” she replied, tapping her head. “Back there, I am dying; you were losing it.”

I saw no reason to explain to her now the difference between what I had experienced and how the ‘darkness’ played with my mind, that the connection between the Valeyris was not about the mind, but much deeper. Although, knowing what they were up against here, one could argue about what was more deeply rooted.

“So...” Stella said when I gave her a meaningless shrug and fell into thought. “The darkness? What is it?” she asked, trying to remain calm - to suppress her eagerness to finally learn the secret behind it. She had failed, her voice was full of it and she knew it. “Of course, if you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to. I can wait...”

I held up a hand to stop her. “It’s all right, Stella. I’m fine. I’m fine talking about this.”

“Are you sure?”

Before I gave her an answer, I glanced at Rairok, seeking his approval. After all, he was the one who showed me the answer, that part of his life.

The old witty deer gave me a slight nod. “What thou have learned is thy, Korra’leigh Grey.” The words reminded me of what Traiana had once told us. But Rairok ignored my smile and continued, “It is up to thee. The knowledge is thy to pass on, and so is the responsibility for those to whom thou impart it.” A bit of a warning there.

“You heard him,” I said to Stella. “Do you still want to hear it?” A question I knew the answer to; of course she did.

Stella smirked. “Do you even have to ask?”

“No,” I smiled back and pointed to the ground. “You’d better sit down, trust me.”

There was doubt in her eyes, but she sat down. “So - what is this darkness?”

I took a breath and said as clearly as I could, “Eleaden.”

“The what?” Stella blurted out, unsure if she heard me correctly, and I didn’t blame her.

“Eleaden,” I repeated. “The world we walk on.”

“You’re shitting me, aren’t you?”

I shook my head.

“You mean the Eleaden?”

A nod.

“This world?” She tapped the ground beneath her to make sure I understood.

“Yes. This world. Eleaden.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“How?”

Asking her again if she really wanted to hear it was pointless, so I launched into it: “You see, Eleaden is a living world...”