Disclaimer: Still don't own anything to do with The Host. You'd all know about it if I did =)
A/N: This story has two different plotlines for the first few chapters. So it's going to jump around a bit. Just warning you.
~~~~~Chapter Two – Nunquam Iterum (Never Again)~~~~~
Waking up in this new world, in a new body, was different to what Wanderer had expected. Every detail of this planet was so vivid, so intense. So too, Wanderer discovered, were the emotions and thoughts of her human host. But she knew that this wasn't right. The human minds were supposed to fade away after implantation. That's what Wanderer had been told.
That was what I signed up for! Not a battle raging inside my own body! Wanderer thought with a sigh. Things hadn't quite gone to plan with the implantation. Wanderer's host was still very much in her own body, and not open to any reasoning in the way of giving up her body peacefully. And worst of all, nobody could tell her why this had happened.
Wanderer had spent the first few days of her life on her new planet trying to peacefully talk the human host, who named herself Melanie Stryder, out of her body. She'd had no luck on that front. Melanie had made it crystal clear: she was not letting Wanderer have her body.
They shared a body. Well, that's not strictly true. They didn't share it; they fought over it. They were forced into the same body. So it didn't surprise Wanderer when she realised they could share, fight over and force their way into each other's thoughts too. She had access to some of Melanie's memories, her hopes, fears and, when Melanie was asleep, some of most closely guarded secrets.
Over a period of hours, Wanderer had found out almost all of Melanie's past. She was the daughter of a Roman senator, had lived all of her life inside the safe walls of Rome and had been married off at the tender age of twelve. Her parents had died not long after her marriage, leaving her to care for her brother Jamie, who was not much older than a toddler. Her loving husband had readily taken Jamie into his household and treated him like a son. Melanie could not have been happier. The life as the wife of a loving, rich Roman man was one she suited well, even if she was unbelievably strong-headed most of the time.
That is, until both Melanie and her husband, Octavian, were both captured by Seekers, souls that devoted their lives to hunting and capturing "wild" humans. Octavian had been implanted with a weak soul, who called himself Augustus. He was easily corrupted by the power Octavian had held before his capture. Melanie's once loving, gentle, caring husband became violent, crude and terrifying. Augustus did not tolerate Melanie's strong-headed nature, or Jamie. He was constantly in a blind rage, and nothing Melanie did could calm him down. Octavian was gone, utterly replaced by Augustus.
But Wanderer wasn't the only one using this connection to her advantage. Melanie saw Wanderer's personality, her thoughts and her experiences, and started to plot. Not to get Wanderer out of her body (she had faith that it would happen eventually), but to use Wanderer in her fight to escape, and if possible, rescue Octavian from Augustus.
She saw Wanderer's innate strength. I need this kind of strength, Melanie thought, this will help me fight Augustus. Never again will he hurt me. Never again will he come within a mile of Jamie. Despite having no control of her body left, Melanie's lips curved into the smallest hint of a smile. Hope had seeped from her share of her mind into Wanderer's part, forcing her body to react accordingly.