991. Transcendence, 9
(Rose)
The egg hatches.
I’ve had plenty of time to introspect and retrospect, recomposing myself calmly in this new time.
I chat to my quiet emissary. It never replies. I tell stories to the new bird to be. It reacts more vividly every time.
Given the course of the sun in the sky and some constellations I recognized, I believe I’m in the northern hemisphere. Given the warmth and little difference in time between day and night, I’m likely rather on the southern side.
The area is lush, near jungle level almost, but no flora nor landscape I quite recognize. That’s fine. I’m free to take my time now. There’s no more threat looming. Maybe forever onward now. Hopefully.
God has left, so we’re free...
R - I wonder if she felt a little like that as well? What will you say?
The embryo completing its growth for this stage doesn’t have words to directly share just yet. But it hears, and it has some understanding, most likely partial but present.
What will you be little bird... I realise I might have taken a maternal liking too, into watching creatures grow and mature into coming of age. Even if children don’t always end up as you idealize.
Goodness...
R - I didn’t progress much on the other side. Do you think I should try to make a bird to let them know I’m safe?
My ghosts are very quiet lately. I get no bounce of the thought back. I should feel a little lonely, but these personas don’t represent much next to the bigger loss I’ve recently faced now.
I make a new ghost of her, as if I was summoning her shade before me.
What do you think Nightmare?
I’m not sure of what she would say. Oh, well, that is fine. The picture in my mind fades and I begin looking a little deeper into the tools and organised powers I still remember being taught to use.
I see my molecular tooling. I recall some of my metabolic pathways I struggled so much to develop in the past.
My body still holds genomic data for countless plants that Blume and Roses gathered over earlier times. But not much in templates to create new birds unfortunately. That would have been the most helpful.
To create a new one from scratch is a difficult ordeal for me.
But I still have options there and otherwise. Either as a T.I. powered golem or illusion, or a monstrous plant that borders on animality.
Either way feels like wasting power a little irresponsibly. If I’m to use T.I. anyway to fuel a spell, might as well keep it simple for now. There’s no necessity for an organic bird.
I load some of my will and voice into a pulse, and I unleash it into the sea.
The shockwave gently scatters around. I made it mild. I know Nok will detect it. She’s a reader. Selya, I don’t know that much. What mattered with her is still safe I believe. I want to trust her.
I’m smiling as I can focus gently on the hatchling now.
The once human ribcage turned into a placenta pouch, more than an egg. It finally hatches for a new chapter of a reincarnated or new life.
I don’t see feathers, nor beak. It’s not really egg shell either anyway, but coming from Nightmare dominion, that’s still what I expect.
Little paws rip the parchment skin away.
The creature that crawls out of this bag looks like a little hairless monkey covered with jam at first glance.
It sheds that layer of fat and useless skin. It vomited its lungs empty. Its umbilical cord fell off naturally. I help it rinse what’s left of the placenta from it.
I’m rather surprised it’s definitely not avian looking, but mammal. It coughs and vomits a little more gunk from its lungs. This little monkey without tail has clearly human features and proportions, only much smaller in size overall.
R - An imp? A little imp...
The creature that looks like a miniaturised human finally looks up with open eyes at me. It or her eyes are very light in colours.
T - Mama?
R - Ah... Not exactly. But that will save us time if you can already speak. And I will help you for a while.
The fact it can talk from birth means it’s lying pretty far in the daiûa spectrum of animal possibilities. It has heritance of constructed knowledge in large amounts already.
I smile, extending my open hand to it or her.
R - I’m pleased to meet you little one. I’m Rose Blume. Who might you be?
The human reactions betray surprise, fear, and not even knowing. There’s language, or some of it in modern European at least, but no clear identity yet.
R - How about calling you Tilke for a while?
T - Tilke?
R - In a story I read some time ago, she was someone with a bright passion for birds. It’s a name I would have liked to give to Nightmare, but as her last known daughter, it might fit you better now. Until you chose another you like?
T - I... Uh... That’s fine.
The imp is discovering the world around as if waking into a strange curious dream. She looks in disbelief at my gigantic shape, and its own hands and body. From her perspective, she’s probably human, but now realises something is very off.
She’s confused about knowing things already but not others, like her own name. Her new brain is screaming at her that something is not right I can tell. I can see her growing panic.
R - Listen Tilke...
I crouched to her young child’s height. I tell her a little bluntly the truth. What she is. What she was created from and how.
R - You’re not a human in the biological sense. I can tell that’s what you’re conflicted thinking. You are a new kind of dünyanın çiçek now. The parts you feel missing are not asleep, they never existed for you as you are. They were probably not used as you came to be, and thus disappeared. You come from previous lives but not the whole of them. You are free to build your new self from there... Although I realize it’s very hard.
T - I’m... a monster?
R - Not at all. You look more like a fairy or an imp to me. You appear and sound human otherwise.
She’s terrified as she realizes a little better then the scope and context of her reality.
R - Don’t worry too much. I know how spooky it can be in your place. I will provide for you and your safety for a while. Food, clothes, answers. I will help you.
She’s still scared like a new transmigrated soul in a new hostile world.
She does realize she’s naked and now begins feeling embarrassed about it.
To start with that, I use the very few tools available with this suit I wear, to rip the undersuit of the old body and sew rapidly a makeshift dress.
Tilke is the size of a good doll to me. But she’s very much alive and breathing. She’s hyper-ventilating in terror even.
T - What’s happening to me...
R - You are terrified. It’s okay. You will be okay.
I won’t abandon her in the jungle like that. Though there likely aren’t that many predators around today.
Before she knows it, she has a simplistic dress to wear, and even makeshift sandals from smaller plastic elements that were not too hard to twist to a shape. She looks flabbergasted more than anything still.
Her squeaking voice sounds odd to me, but it’s likely due to her throat size?
R - Hm... Given your height, your metabolism is likely more sensitive than mine, so don’t hesitate to tell me when you start feeling cold, hunger or thirst.
T - I don’t...
She realizes her tummy is still full of placenta likely. Toilets first it is then.
I give her privacy, by walking a few steps beside this place where a human shape lingers lonely on the mostly naked ground.
I return but a moment later in a rush when I heard her yelling in terror. She’s running away from a big mushroom? It’s not even moving...
Oh wait, it is actually moving. But slowly.
Tilke hid behind my leg as I stopped. The boletus slowly crawls toward me.
T - What is happening!
R - I have no idea. A new species perhaps?
She looks up at me with further horror in her eyes. She yells loud.
T - What do you mean you don’t know!
I kind of laugh it off. It’s still just a mushroom.
I pick Tilke up like a very tiny child, and raise her to sit on my shoulder, as I simply walk away easily.
~
