Disclaimer: I own nothing… except a puppy.
3. The Morning After
I was prodded into wakefulness and away from my Celtic dreams by an irate K'ata.
"You were… singing. It was not pleasant." Oh, and what did she know about singing, I wonder?
I glanced at the wall clock. It read 4:37 am. I sighed. "I'm sorry I woke you, K'ata. I'll try not to sing this time." Realizing that I still wore the headphones, I removed them and turned off the beautiful music.
K'ata nodded, and I resumed my prone state. I wasn't awake enough to notice when she patted the back of my head and whispered, "Good child." What was that about?
"Wake up, Mr. Lump! It's a B-E-A-U-tiful morning at 11:05," boomed my elder sister's voice from my doorway. Her sarcasm was lost on me. It was too… too… toooo early… It was time for her to go to her job at her beloved coffee house; whatever possessed her to wake me up at this ungodly hour, I don't know, and I don't want to know.
Rising with a stiff groan, I boomed back to her, "I LIVE!" in my best imitation of every vampire and werewolf and patchwork body movie that I'd ever seen. Which boiled down to about all of them, but I'm not bragging. My glorious performance, however, was as lost on her as her sarcasm was on me. Ah, pity. She strutted away, nonchalant and mechanical as ever. "Ugh, old people," I grunted after her.
"Ugh, loser brothers," came the reply. I was tempted to flip her off through the wall.
I shut - note, I didn't slam the thing like she does in her fits of hormonal rage - the door and prepared to return to my slumber, when a metallic gleam caught my eye. With a gulp, I beheld a large pile of armor.
"Oh, crap," I said to myself. Searching about me frantically, I half moaned, half murmured, "K'ata? Where are you?"
"Here, silly Morrick," came the amused whisper of my new roommate (hmm, I could think of it that way calmly) who was evidently behind me. I whirled and found a large blur loomed over me. The blur moved and sat down on my bed, and then became K'ata. She'd been using the invisibility jigger. Without the rest of the armor.
"I know I sleep late, but you, you are truly lazy," she said mockingly. Was that affection I heard in her voice?
I favored her with my trademark lopsided grin. "My lady, I have turned being lazy into a fine art," and with that, I attempted to return to my wonderful, soft, still warm bed. K'ata, however, would have none of it.
"No more sleep for you. You must explain to me - in detail - how you are blocking my ability. It is very confusing, and I dislike such confusion." She made the rapid clicking noise, and followed it with a new, chittery sound. Irritation, I guess.
"You expect me to be able to explain how me mind works this early in the morning?" I asked her, feeling scandalized.
"Yes."
"Lovely." Hearing my stomach say "Feed mahy" in a scary Barry White voice, I asked her, "Look, can we put this off until we've had the all important Lurnchfast?"
"What is 'Lurnchfast'?" she asked, for all the world sounding glum. She looked so doleful that I laughed. Big mistake. I was awarded with a cuff on the head and an I-am-not-here-for-your-entertainment look.
"Sorry, but it was funny."
All that got was a morose grunt.
"Okay. Cloudy should be gone by now. We, bold and beautiful knights that we are, shall ride forth-- er, we'll raid the kitchen. Mwahahaha…" It's sad, really, that my evil laughs are not very convincing. "But first," I said, looking around me, "I think I'll be clothed today." In a unbuttoned button down dragon shirt with flare-y blue jeans, to be overwhelmingly precise. That done, I left my room, and then peeked back into it, and told Her Alien Majesty to hurry Her Royal Butt up. And again, I got slapped upside the head.
A thought hit me along with her hand. "How did you find out that my mind was blocked to you?" I asked uncomfortably.
She took a moment to answer. "I was searching for who that lewd female is. I was in your mind, and you shut me out." With a menacing growl, she asked, "What is that?"
She was referring to one of my mother's miniature poodles. We had three of them that the mother woman and Claudia took care of, and I had my own huge husky-and-wolf mix out in the yard. I was left to the task of explaining to her what a poodle is without the aid of telepathy. When we reached the kitchen - it's in the basement, go Mom - I was explaining that we shared about a third of our DNA with daffodils.
"DNA?" she asked doubtfully. "You humans seem to have too many ways to justify your existence."
"Dioxin ribonucleic acid, or some such," I said very quickly, feeling proud of myself for remembering anything from my classes. "Located in the--"
"I honestly don't care," she said flatly.
"And I honestly liked it better when you could pick whatever you wanted out of my head without having to ask me and make me guess what you want," I retorted, feeling a bit light-headed from lack of oxygen.
"We must fix that," she agreed.
I made toast. We found out that K'ata does not like human food. Even if it has marmalade. I don't know, maybe it was just the toast? But no, I made bacon and tried to get her to take that, but she still turned it down. My cooking can't be that nauseous-making, can it?
"It can," she informed me sullenly.
"Alright." I was nothing if not agreeable. "What do you normally eat?"
"Whatever it is, I wouldn't trust you to cook it," came the laughing reply. "It certainly isn't on this planet, either." Taking pity on me (I hoped) she said, "I do not need to feed often, as you do, and my ship is stocked with anything I could possibly need."
"Yeah, but two, no, more than that, hundreds of years?"
"It is a big ship. Your effort, though, is kind." Was I mad, or were her eyes sparkling - glowing, actual light - from the shadows of the kitchen?
After I cleaned up the main messes - mine, not Cloudy's or Mom's - I sat back in one of the swiveling barstools and tried to think of something intelligent to say. When nothing came to mind, I asked, "So, how do we fix my mind?"
I'd startled her. Deep, deep thoughts were all she thought, apparently. She was in the blue recliner. Yes, that one, the one with the doily. I'll never admit it to any real people - pillows are most of what I talk to - that I made the doily. What's a teenage boy doing making doilies? Hmm…
"I do not know of how we can fix your mind. Perhaps you are naturally resistant to my ability?"
"I don't know! We don't have telepaths here," I told her bluntly.
"Yes, you do. You have the passive form. Mildly, but it is still there. There are a few with just the active form. Most are passive, but some have both. I avoided these," she added.
"Wait wait. What do you mean, passive form?" This was going to be a headache day, I could tell.
"A natural receiver." Blank look from me. She sighed, clicking a bit. "One with the active form is capable of placing anything from a thought to all the information they possess into the mind of another. Likewise, they can take this information from another. They have to make themselves do this. One with the passive form does this naturally. It is a reflex for them. They, unlike the active forms, have developed a blocking mechanism. You understand this?" she asked, the hope plain in her voice.
"Eh, barely. So, I can pick up on the thoughts swirling around me, and I can cut myself off from them too?" Ibuprofen, please.
"Yes." I could hear the little high score thing going off in her head.
"Okay. So, how do we fix me?" Explaining stuff is too much like work. In fact, talking is too much like work. My elbow on the counter, I rested my head in my hand. Inspiration took hold. I tried something that I'd read once in one of Cloudy's fantasy books. Visualizing a door, a big, ornate oak door, I saw that it was locked. One by one, I unlocked all the locks, and I opened the door. I pictured K'ata there, and I invited her in.
"I do not know what you did, but you work again," she said in real life, breaking the image. "Oh, daffodils. Interesting."
"Now, I just need the why of it." She gave me a funny look, and I said, "Well, I know how it works, and how to fix it, but I don't know why it works, or why it broke in the first place. The first why I shouldn't even hope for, but the second one…" And maybe the why of why I'm actually going along with all this.
"You should practice." Now it was time for me to return the funny look. "I know children with less ability than you who are more advanced than you. It is pathetic." Great. I get one with a vain streak.
"I can't help it that I'm slow. Most humans don't even believe that telepathy exists. I didn't. Say, why'd you avoid the ones with the passive and the active?" Subject change. Nice…
"If you want the knowledge, you must find it yourself." I know everyone says that no creature is evil, that there're only different degrees of badness, but this scholar Everyone is so frequently wrong that I don't really trust him. Especially on this. Evil…
"Cheeky, are you? Well then…" I thought. And thought. And thought some more. I came to the conclusion that, "I'll try later when I've considered several methods of… extraction. C'mon, there's someone I want you to meet."
She balked. "I must stay as unknown as possible. You know this." She seemed to double check. I tried to feel her in my mind, but there was nothing. "Yes, you do know. And yet you wish to make my presence known to another. Curious."
"Yes, all is strange in the land of the beer can hats," I said, hoping to make her give me the funny look. Sadly, it didn't work.
"You are too young to do such things." Drat. This really was going to cramp my social life. No beer? No drugs? No jungle boogey? I'm doomed. "Have a party when I leave, if you want to be foolish."
"Following my natural instincts is--? Never mind. Liz probably thinks I'm dead by now. She might even come over and see you," I said casually.
She tapped something on her computer-thingy and became invisible. Well, not completely invisible. There was just a large blur in the chair; real unnoticeable, that. (This is sarcasm.) Returning to her visible state, she asked, "Who is Liz?" Ah, Elizabeth Warner, the love of my life. The only human being who could and would beat me at backyard wrestling. Long blond hair, gray eyes, same height as me, same build as me, same tastes as me… Soul mates. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
I said nothing. K'ata went over everything I thought, saving me the trouble of fumbling around the word love. "C'mon then. I have to talk to Liz."
And we went. We have a long driveway; a creek runs beside it. When it rains, the road floods a bit, and if you're really careful, you can fool some idiot into thinking you can walk on water. Or that they can do it too. Liz lives across the bigger road from me. If you follow the creek - which Liz and I named the Brandywine last summer - it goes straight to her house. If you follow the road, there's more walking. Needless to say, the creek has a well-beaten path.
I took the time to point out to K'ata the native wildlife. That stuffed Easter bunny, hanging from a noose; the stuffed sheep, buried up to its neck in leaves and such; a monkey, with its head nearly off. These were from Liz and my's evil years. K'ata said nothing. She probably thinks I'm crazy, but then again, I am.
Liz's house is a two-story L-shaped monster, with Roman columns galore. There was a deck on the roof, and a tennis/volleyball court to the right, and the L of the house concealed a pool. In one of the rocking chairs on the front porch, you could always find one of her elderly aunts, rocking and knitting and mumbling to herself, or fidgeting with her blue hair, or just napping. Liz's mother's family is from Louisiana, and when Mumsie married, they came with her. I envy Liz sometimes; she has a whole bizarre circus for a family, and I have a ridiculously normal one.
I decided to be a proper gentleman and use the door (and not the ivy trellis to the window this time!). I said good afternoon to the aunt on duty - one of the knitters - but she didn't reply. She was staring fixedly at a spot in space. With growing horror, I realized she was looking at K'ata. She snapped out of it, and said to me, "Lovely weather we're having, yes darling?"
All of them called me darling. It was not pleasant at first to have everyone call you that, but I'd gotten used to it. "Oh, yes dear, quite lovely indeed," I replied with the grace of long practice. Sometimes I just sit at the bottom of the pool and think about how screwy my life is.
My love answered the door in a fluffy green frog motif bath robe and puppy slippers. "Eh?" she asked me grumpily. "Oi, why're you up s'early?" Yawning, she invited me - us - in. "Had food yet?" she asked. I declined politely. I knew quite well that she was a caveman in the morning. Morning being whenever she happened to wake up.
She downed a large glass of orange juice, and chased that with her vitamins and coffee. Her mother figured now that she was fifteen - only a few weeks ago; I'd catch up a few days before school restarted - she could do what she pleased. Munching a Pop-tart, she sat on the counter and glared at a plant. Yes, I do wonder about her sanity at times. When she finished the pastry, she looked at me and said, "You're very, er, disheveled. May I ask why?"
Amazing what coffee can do, isn't it? With considerable gusto, I said to her, " My darling dear, there is an alien in your divine midst."
"You've found the weed, haven't you?" she said, eyes wide and unblinking. "And the archaic… Ugh, no telling what you've done to the sheep."
I blushed. It's a long story, and I ain't tellin' it. "'Ere, uncloak, will you? She's being skeptical."
As K'ata uncloaked, I said to my lady love, "Liz Warner, meet K'ata of Pran'rel. K'ata, meet Liz."
And as all of the kitchen appliances looked on, I smiled. Liz's scream of terror meant nothing. We'd all get on swimmingly. I could tell.
A/N: I think as I go along each chapter will be bigger word wise than the last. Woo hoo…
olafur: Thank you for reviewing. Morrick is fourteen, but he's been… exposed to some other things, such as demons, dragons, and the other stuff I wrote when I was his age. I might find a way to get him therapy, but where's the fun in that? His mum practically lives in the hospital (she's an on-call doctor) and I don't think she'd even notice K'ata. They live in the woods - like me - and that's where she stashed the ship, but why stay in the ship when what you want is company? Yes, I could have written it better, but that might mess up the stream of consciousness-y feeling of it, which is why I like it. Bah, weirdness.
gallivants off with penguins