I'm still on annual leave! And my beta is currently unable to edit. Any mistakes are mine, so please forgive them! Thank you all for your lovely cookie reviews! I might just try and get another chapter uploaded tomorrow!

Chapter 7

Primus was starving.

It was too afraid to take in the nutrients it needed for fear it would kill the host too soon. Host demise would doom Primus's kin to suffocating deaths within the lifelines of a corpse. If in desperation they burrowed out of the corpse too soon, they would die anyway without liquid to live in. This was why Primus tirelessly drove the host onwards toward the vast body of water in the east it sensed through the host's sensory system.

But Primus had been careless with its fear. Allowed the host to gain momentary control of its mind and experience every ache and pain it never should have. This spurred the host to do something which revealed Primus's presence. So, it had fed. Slowly at first, then with much urgency as the host-kin tried to break its control. The last of Primus's lineage was held within this host and it would not allow them to perish due to outside interference. As Primus drew in much-needed nutrients, it sped towards the host's central nervous system and triggered its ultimate defense mechanism in the hopes of turning the host-kin away. The massive jolt of energy was enough to repel the host-kin, so Primus stopped feeding and settled into relative dormancy once more.

Primus monitored its kin closely. They were healthy and growing at the rate they should. If Primus didn't tranquilize the host, it would be driven insane by the feeling of the infants flowing through its lifelines. It had happened before in a Groten and the beast had clawed itself to death to be rid of the sensation.

Normally, infant Goh traveled through the fast-moving waters of the birthing valley in the sea of their homeworld. Infant Goh would travel the circular route of the valley, gaining nutrients from the water and also knowledge as they passed the Goh masses. The knowledge became an inherent source of information embedded with all Goh, built upon for millennia. In time the infants sprouted tiny limbs which would one day help them climb from the birthing valley to join the Goh masses and feed as they did. The infants would change colour from grey to black and take on the characteristics of mature Goh within a day.

But when birthed within a host, the young Goh developed differently. They gained their knowledge from Primus and grew much more rapidly than a sea-born infant. They required stronger limbs which developed quickly in order to keep moving against the blood flow, taking no chances that they might flood through the host's brain and kill it. As they developed and grew, their increasing mass posed a problem as lifelines were not meant to hold them. So they used their legs to anchor themselves to the vessel walls while extending them to allow blood flow. By the time their mouths were formed enough to chew their way out of the host, the Primus should already have guided the host to water.

Developing in such a way was dangerous because the very processes that kept them alive, brought rapid death to the host. As they consumed nutrients from the blood and tissues, they took away those same nutrients from the host until it starved or suffocated.

Which was already happening to this host.

The infant Goh had their limbs and Primus sensed their frantic battle to keep lifelines open while attempting to gain the sustenance their growing bodies required. Primus also sensed the failing of the host as its energy depleted. At times the host stopped purely because it was starving, stamina so exhausted it could go no further. This was when Primus fed again and used its own energy to move them forward.

They were both dying.

Primus understood it would never leave this body. Never taste the freedom of the sea nor move in cool water. It was destined to die with the host as it pushed them both to their very limits for the sake of its kin.

At last, Primus sensed the nearness of water. It stopped the host which swayed upon its long legs that trembled and wished only for collapse. A rankness sullied the sweetness of the water. A recent host death, obvious by the particularly pungent smell of Goh slime and decay. The slime that protected their bodies reacted with stale blood to produce the noxious scent that surrounded the corpse. Primus moved its host on towards the corpse, hoping to sense survival of the infant Goh and perhaps another Primus in the vicinity.

All it sensed was death.

The host had fallen too far from the water, the young which managed to escape, dried and died upon the ground. Those still within their host's carcass had perished through exhaustion and starvation. It was a tragedy. Primus sensed the other Primus slipping away. Its knowledge petered through a death haze to join the collective mind and spoke of a river that scented but did not exist. Primus was puzzled, as it had never encountered such a thing. Water was water, and where there was water there was life. But the other Primus insisted it was not the case here. With a final thought, it died within the confines of its host's spine and Primus mourned for it and for itself.

For only death awaited it and its kin.

The other one's final thought told Primus that traps were set for the Goh, but apparently not by Groten. It seemed the other Prime allowed its host some access to its higher brain functions prior to its death, and the beast was just as surprised to see the strange entrapment.

Indecision stalled Primus's thought process, making its drained and dying host quiver, caught between motions that rocked it back and forth. It heard the faint cry the host emitted, sensed a failing in the connection due to Primus's inaction. It sensed the agony of the host, shared its pain and fear. Primus felt sorrow that the survival of its species required such a brutal and deadly tactic. It wouldn't have cared had the host been Groten, but this host was simply a target, not part of their war. Primus's sorrow suffused the host's mind and they both mourned their approaching demise.

It turned the host away from the corpse and dared to share a thought with the alien entity. Tried to impart its own remorse while soothing the host's regret over its impending death with so many things still left to do. Primus understood this particular regret, for it had only one thing left to do and feared that it would ultimately fail.

Since the water it scented apparently no longer existed, Primus made a drastic decision. It communicated with the young, told them to stop feeding, anchor themselves and become dormant for a time. It was a mechanism that all Goh possessed and triggered in times of famine. It sensed the infants do as it asked and the resulting flush of increased energy permeate the host. It wasn't as much as the entity required, but it might keep it alive a little longer.

Using the host's senses as its own, Primus smelled the air for another hint of water, finding one to the south. It was just a trace, so weak that Primus knew it might be farther away than the host could possibly manage. But it had no other choice and forced the host to walk once more and back into the tree line toward the faint trace of their salvation.

To be continued... cooookiiiiesssss... :D