Writer's Note: Thanks to Morgeil, who threw this plotbunny in my direction and commanded it to bite me. I love it when people do that =D
Zuma had always been one of the many.
From the very first moment that she had opened her eyes, she was never alone, never without company. Her thoughts, her feelings, her experiences, they all mingled and wove themselves alongside hundreds of countless other threads that completed the tapestry.
When her friends spoke of loneliness, she could only imagine what it was like to be alone in your mind, to not think with countless others. When they demanded to be "left alone" or said they needed time "by themselves", more often than not the words lost meaning for her, because she just had no idea what it meant to be one, rather than many.
Once she was asked by Zera, "Doesn't it get overwhelming, hearing all of those thoughts, not having a mind of your own?"
To which she answered, "It would be more overwhelming to lose those thoughts."
Which seemed to puzzle the princess, but there was really no other way to word it. For them, as much as she loved them, it was hard for them to understand her as she was. Just as for her, it was hard to understand their singularity.
Sometimes, though, Zuma did get an inkling of what it was like. The mind, like the body, was limited, and when she was forced to distance herself from her Kindred, she felt a deep pain, a sense of loss, and, quite puzzling, a vague understanding of the "loneliness" that seemed to haunt her friends and comrades.
Her mind felt emptier, cold, like a yawning hole of nothingness. All that was left inside were her thoughts, which seemed to fall into a vacuum, never to be heard, never to be acknowledged.
Often, when she felt desperate, she often tried to connect with her friends. Only Zera seemed to be able to connect this way with skill and achievement, but Cryos, and Graveheart to a smaller degree, could sense her presence as well. It was Zera who, in Zuma's darkest hours of emptiness, kept her mind from collapsing into that emptiness. It was Zera who chattered endlessly in her mind, who shared her thoughts and hopes and dreams with her, while she in turn listened to Zuma's own slower thoughts and desires.
Zera's mind was all blues and whites, tinged with dark greys when her moods were sour. Sometimes, if Zuma looked hard, she could even catch a few glimpses of orange or red, but they flickered in and out so quickly that she was never sure.
"Before you came, I never thought I could do this," Zera admitted in one of their first exchanges. "I just sort of...tried it. And now it's like I can't turn it off!"
"It's how it is for us as well, in a way." Zuma replied, her eyes smiling. "Only we're born with it, so it can never be turned off."
"Is that why you're so lonely without your people?"
"Yes, because it feels like it's been turned off forever."
Zera had met her eyes with such a serious expression on her face that Zuma, deep within her heart, felt that this smaller, younger, alien singular creature, actually understood what she was trying to say.
"So why did you choose me to make the connection to?" This was asked much later, maybe a month after the Beast Planet vanished. "If anything, it should have been Graveheart."
Zuma chuckled. "That day, on our world, you were the only one who saw us. You were the only one who had, outside of ourselves even spoken to us. We saw your heart; it was the same as ours."
Zera went quiet, and slowly, a hand went to her chest. She was quiet after that, for a long time.