Deanna's second attempt to probe the Giant's mind was less chaotic than the first. The Giant's mind scape was orderly, structured, and barren where previously it had been nightmarish and chaotic. She was in a great urban sprawl, larger than any she'd ever seen. Towering gothic spires and morbid statues stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was a mess of smog and industry, covered in the skeletal remains of humanoids. Bones had been turned to ornamentation in every possible nook and cranny, gilded symbols of eagles intermingling with carved scripts of alien origin along their macabre art.
Deanna was surprised, she hadn't expected the man's mental defenses to be this elaborate. He wasn't a telepath, so his mind must have been especially structured for his subconscious to be able to manifest a defense this elaborate. His subconscious had manifested a literal walled city, and endless metropolis full of defenses and guards looking for any intruder that might stray from the single path through it. Most telepaths had developed some sort of abstract defenses to keep out an intruder, some of the more structured non-telepaths were capable of similar constructs. But they were usually limited to crude walls and doors, not entire urban fortress worlds. Certainly not on a non-telepath, and the Giant was most decidedly not a telepath.
The training required to manifest defenses this elaborate must have been exhaustive. The closest she'd seen were from Betazoid monks who'd dedicated their entire lives to honing their minds. This was something else entirely.
She was walking along a long path, wider than any road she'd ever seen, surrounded by the ghostly images of penitent worshippers traveling on what could only be a pilgrimage. She walked among the translucent fragments of memory, following them as the chanted in the harsh tones of the Giant's language - cruel whispers intermingling into a dull roar of worship.
Armored Giants like the one whose mind she walked within stood along the parapets carrying all manner of cruel looking weapons, watching her with dispassionate eyes. They made no overtly violent actions, but she was certain that if she were to stray from the trail or to attempt any sort of aggressive action she would be forcefully removed from the Giant's mind.
She couldn't see any unity between the phantoms walking along the path. Even as dull whispers of the men and women they'd once been Deanna could tell that no two men had come from the same place. Some could only charitably be called humanoid, so twisted and modified were their forms. A man who wouldn't have been out of place among the borg self flagellated his phantom limbs with the rusty cables that had replaced the digits on his hands, gleefully flensing the flesh from his arms and back.
It was a carnival of twisted flesh and desperate madmen, all marching beneath the banner of a great, two-headed bird. They made Deanna's stomach churn, but she could sense that these images were not intended to be unnerving. Though she could only sense the merest fragment of the man's mind, she could tell that these were peaceful images for the Giant. Things to soothe his troubled heart.
This place was important to him. These people, followers of a common cause.
They were marching towards a great cathedral, large as a starship. It's steeple seemed to pierce the very heavens themselves. It was at the gates of the Cathedral that Deanna met her first impediment. In the center of the insubstantial men was a man holding a book. He was an old man, hunched and covered in old scars. He regarded her with a cool, keen interest, speaking in the language of the Giants.
"I'm sorry." Deanna replied. "I don't understand you."
The man arched his brow and rubbed his chin, considering the matter before reaching out to touch her chest. Deanna felt a wave of cold run through her as he did so, a curious tickle of new knowledge nagging at the back of her head. The man spoke again – this time his meaning clear as day.
"You do not belong witch. Leave and never return else this I will crush you." The pressure of the man's finger against her breast was pointed, a sheer lance of will focused against her. Deanna just smiled back, politely removing the man's hand and patting the back of it.
"That won't be necessary, I mean you no harm." The man seemed confused by how easily she'd moved it. "My name is Deanna. What's yours?"
"I do not associate with witches." The man growled.
"Neither do I." Deanna replied, letting her good will seep into her words. Something told her that the Giant's mental defenses were poorly constructed to repel positive emotions. Few psychic defenses were. By their very nature aggressive psychic projections weren't accustomed to anything other than the malice and defensiveness that had been used to spawn them. "I'm not a witch. I'm just a woman – the ship's counselor for the Enterprise."
The Armored giants along the parapets lifted their weapons, moving from dispassionate interest to active aggression faster than Deanna could blink. She ignored them – they were just illusions, and they could be encouraged to go back to inaction.
"This…. This is a trick…." The man replied, another lash of hatred emanating from the construct. This time paired with a series of horrific images. Deanna was made to feel like she was being badly burned, her hands blistering and bubbling even as she looked at where she touched the construct.
She winced, reminding herself that the pain was just an illusion. It was merely a projection of spite from the Giant's mind. While he could hurt her, he could only hurt her as much as she allowed the psychic damage to divert her from her purpose. She pushed back with her mind, countering the images of burning flesh with those from her own mind. "I can show you things too. Good things – kind things. Friends, family, love – things more powerful that the anger you feel right now."
Deanna pushed back with her mind, sending him flashes of happy moments on the Enterprise. Laughing with Beverly as they worked out together. Lazing about in Data's quarters and watching him pain as she stroked his cat, spot, in her lap. Eating sumptuous chocolate mousse in Ten Forward. She countered the hate and pain and malice with as much love and concern for the Giant's wellbeing as she could force upon the construct.
The Giants along the parapets faltered, looking at each other and muttering in the language of the Giants. Some even lowered their weapons, looking at her with a wistful expression, hopeful even.
The construct stood stock-still, confused by what was happening. It shuddered, trying to articulate a biting response as Deanna leaned in and hugged the construct. The wizened, angry man flinched at the contact – seemingly confused by the action before hugging her back. The construct's bony arms wrapped around her his wizened face contorted into a smile as he nuzzled her cheek. It was the expression of someone long starved for human contact who hadn't even realized he was lonely.
The Giants along the parapets lowered their weapons.
With an expression of contentment, the old man faded into nothingness – his weight against her disappearing as he smiled. His book fell to the ground with a clatter and Deanna picked it up, thumbing through its pages – hoping for a clue of where to go next given that the cathedral doors hand no apparent handle or method of entry.
The book was empty, except for a single cryptic phrase. "Those who belong already have the key, within."
What key though? And within what? Deanna tried shaking the book, hoping that here might be a simple way of dislodging a key from the book's spine. That having failed she walked the courtyard, running her fingers along the wall of the cathedral, looking for some sort of indication for what she needed to do next.
She looked up to the Giants, wondering if they were capable of speech as an odd thought hit her. If the defenses were designed to counter aggression, perhaps the methods for entering the Cathedral were designed to be sort that would only occur to someone who wasn't forcing their way into the Giant's mind. How did you enter a house you were invited to enter?
You knocked.
Deanna reached out to the towering doors of the Cathedral and rapped twice on the doors. Her gentle rap echoed with a seemingly impossible volume, the sheer surface of stone splitting down the middle where she'd touched the rock face and swinging inward to allow her entry. She strode in gently, passing wooden pews and countless candles floating through the air – levitating without any apparent mechanism to lift them.
There was a sound of music in the air. A lilting sound of organ music that was clean and pure. She could feel the faith behind it, there was a purity of belief to it. It was the sort of conviction that lay in the hearts of the true believers. She let it wash over her, closing her eyes and holding out her arms to just bask in the moment. This was a place of hope and conviction, if she respected it and embraced it – faith could do her no harm. Deanna did not have to believe in this man's god to respect the man's principles. She knelt before a great statue of an armored man with a stern and naturally unsmiling face and a shock of short cropped hair holding a colossal blade with serrated teeth. She wasn't sure precisely who the towering man was, but given his placement within the room he was in a place of great respect within the Giant's mind and heart.
She reached out to one of the little candles and lit it, placing it at the base of the statue – leaning in to read the inscription on the statue's base. "Rogal Dorn, the Vigiliant. Praetoran of Terra. The Unyielding One."
Her lip quirked, as she looked him from head to foot. "Yes, you do look rather unyielding."
"He is my father, after a fashion." Rumbled a deep voice from behind her. Deanna turned, standing up to come face to face with the Giant where he sat in one of the pews. Even when he was seated Deanna had to crane her neck a bit to make eye contact.
"He's very handsome." Deanna replied.
The Giant laughed, a dark rumbling tone that reminded Deanna of Thunder. "I very much suspect that he never once worried about his own vanity."
"Handsome men rarely need to." Deanna held out her hand. "It's good to finally talk."
"I have little to say to a witch." Replied the Giant.
"What is this obsession with witchcraft? I'm just a person like you." Deanna smiled, lowering her hand when she realized that the giant had no intention of shaking it.
"You are in my mind without invitation. You are a witch." The Giant replied.
"Perhaps we should start off with names." Stifling her disappointment, Deanna made sure to lace her words with her genuine feelings of care. "My name is Deanna Troi. I am a counselor onboard the USS Enterprise from the United Federation of Planets."
"I have no name for you witch." The Giant replied. "Kill me or leave me to my slumber, I have no time for your mind games or riddles."
"I only want to help you. You're in a coma, you were wounded by the process of waking you from the pillar. It damaged your mind, we took you up to our ship and you reacted poorly. We've healed your body but I need your help to wake you." Deanna waved around the room. "This, all of this, is just an illusion. You are sleeping. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life alone in this dream, I need your help to wake you."
The Giant glared, saying nothing in response. He ran the fingers of his right hand across his left, tracing the lines of deep scars along their meat. His fingers had been ritually scarified, a ritual important enough to him that he kept the scars in the illusionary image of himself within his mind's eye.
"I know that you're angry. I would be too. Things are confusing. You woke up surrounded by strangers and then things stopped making sense entirely. I suspect that you started seeing visions of horrible things, things that you had to fight. You were wounded – your mind was deeply damaged. But that's over now. You're safe. You are healed." Deanna held up her hands, palms up.
"Devils appear to us in those forms which seem most pleasing, so that they might entice us to give our souls to them willingly." The Giant replied, lowering his hood. His mental image of his own face, unblemished by the horrible wounds upon his actual flesh, was that of a handsome man with a jaw too wide to seem entirely human. "What price would you have me pay for this 'liberation' from my slumber? What vengeance will you exact upon me for those I cut down, for though I recall not their names or faces I know that I slew those who stood before me."
"You were incapacitated, incapable of deciding right from wrong." Deanna shook her head. "We are to blame for your madness, and what came after that madness. There is nothing to feel guilty about."
"Guilt is the domain of the unrighteous." The Giant found Deanna's implications greatly amusing. "They were fools for standing before me, and you are a fool for allowing me to live."
"We have much to learn from you." Deanna disagreed. "And we are not so cowardly as to hurt a wounded man in his bed. Not when we have so much to learn about the people who came before."
"You speak of me as though I were a relic of distant memory." The Giant replied, a sad comprehension entering his tone. "For how long have I slumbered?"
"We don't really know. Our history for anything older than half a million years is largely speculative and your life support system has been keeping you for what could be millions or even billions of years longer than that." Deanna shook her head. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but as far as we know you are the last of your people."
There was a brief, pregnant moment of silence before the Giant replied in a voice of long suffering. "That is a lie. The Empire is eternal."
"Don't take my word for it. Let me help you wake up and you can see for yourself." Deanna replied. "If I'm lying then you can prove me wrong and get the satisfaction of having done so. If I'm misinformed you can prove me wrong and we'll happily help you meet your people. If I'm right then you can help us learn from a society that can truly become Eternal by teaching us to be like it. But if you don't come, and you stay here, you'll drive yourself mad wondering if what I say is true."
"I could crush you Deanna." The Giant replied. "We are within my mind. I could show you things that would shatter you."
"And then I would be dead or mad, and you would still be trapped in your own mind wondering if what I told you was truth or a lie." The ships counselor replied, this was not the first patient to have threatened her. The stronger and more brutal a man was, the more vulnerable he often was to his inner demons. "So, you can posture and threaten, or you can allow me to help you."
"I despise you witch." The Giant growled.
"And you're welcome to." Deanna replied, holding out her hand to the Giant. "I'll keep helping you heal in the meanwhile. You're my patient, your health and wellbeing are more important to me than my popularity."
The Giant eyed her hand warily.
"Do you prefer to be unconscious and at the mercy of whatever a witch might please to do with you?" Deanna chuckled, rolling her eyes at the Giant's continued obstinacy.
The giant clasped her hand in his own, dinner plate sized hands wrapping around delicate porcelain flesh. He growled what might have been an assent as Deanna cupped his fist in her other hand, closing her eyes and focusing on the Giant's mind as a whole. She impressed upon it her awareness of the space around them both, subtly making the Giant aware of the real world beyond the dream city. The cathedral around them began to fade, shimmering into an endless void of white. She continued to make that connection, pumping positive feelings towards the Giant as she did so.
The Giant's expression showed no signs that he'd noticed, apparently in no mood to allow even the remotest scrap of happiness to influence his decision making. Deanna spoke as the white enveloped them both. "I'm going to count down. When I hit one we will both wake up, rested and aware of our bodies."
Though she could no longer see him she could still feel the pressure of the giant's hand.
"Five."
Deanna wondered what they would do with the Giant once he awoke. Would he be hungry? Thirsty? What did he even eat?
"Four."
She felt briefly guilty at having helped the giant, given how many of his victims were her friends. But two wrongs wouldn't make a right, they wouldn't bring back her friends.
"Three"
She felt a feeling of longing and loss that was not her own as Giant lost control of the illusion, his subconscious becoming conscious thought.
"Two"
And his hate. God but this man had hate in his heart.
"One."
And the giant finally woke up, his eyes burning pits of hatred as he stared at Deanna across the brig. "Malificar."