Inner Discord, ch 32 (Patreon)

The slice of wood’s bark was rough under the varnish as it pressed against the palm—The sharp bark cut his palm open, but Tristan didn’t care; it was only one more sensation quickly buried under the need he felt. The heat coursing through his blood as he caught the scent of his quarry on the humid air.

With an effort of will, he pulled himself away from the memory and focussed on the item he held, the item whose characteristics he was cataloging to pull his mind into itself. Get himself to the place where the Defender would have no choice other than to answer his questions.

A characteristic like the smooth surface of the worn varnish that was—nothing was like the feel of Alex’s skin under his hand as he held him in place, giving him his price after giving Tristan such an arduous hunt. The human screamed in a mix of pleasure and pain as Tristan—

The growl was muffled into a grunt to avoid distracting the others. His teacher had said that meditating among others would help him feel like whatever difficulties he had were shared with them. And indeed, others were as disquiet as he was. Either frowning in too much concentration over avoiding thinking and only experiencing. One gave him a small smile before running a hand over her face and looking at the crystal in her hand.

He had no sense they were sharing his difficulties. They were doing this as an exercise in controlling their mind. He needed to do this to get the answers he needed. 

Only this wouldn’t happen now. The memory of hunting Alex was too fresh, too strong, and too much something he wanted to do again. He wanted the rawness of being in the wild with clear intent. Of having a target and knowing that when the hunt was over, there would be pleasure like he rarely felt.

Alex might have, again, uncovered something about Tristan that could be a danger to him. Only this time, Tristan didn’t care. He wanted it again.

And that was the problem at the moment.

He stood, rearranging himself to alleviate the discomfort. These pants were not made for him. Under nearly any other circumstance, he’d forgo them, and the people here could deal with their own discomfort. But he’d agreed to adhere to the standard of the sanctuary, and humans did not care to look at anything resembling a nudity they can recognize as such.

Since seeking out Alex and taking care of this need wasn’t possible at the moment, he set on a different task as a distraction from what was distracting him.

* * * * *

Tristan found Teklile by following his scent to a room filled with the scent of freshly exposed wood. It was the man and two others and many pieced of wood in various stages of being given organic looking forms. Bodies, possible, human for some of them, animal for others. Some weren’t advanced enough to hazard a guess, while others he didn’t want to hazard one, even if they seemed completed.

Teklile stood next to one, placing the cutting instrument in her hand, and showing how to apply it against the piece of lumber on the stand before where she sat. He helped her push, causing a shaving of wood to fall, before motioning for her to attempt it without assistance. She did, and another shaving joined the first.

The other’s work was advanced enough. The result would be an animal with the forelimbs extended to a branch, either about to jump up, or simply stretching. The floor around him was covered with wood shaving and the variety in cutting tool on the stand next to him was extensive.

Teklile noticed him and told her to continue practicing.

“Can I assist you with something?” he asks, his voice lowered.

“We need to discuss something,” Tristan replied, his voice at the same volume. “In private is better.”

“Certainly.”

Alex’s plan had merit, and might even work, but Tristan felt he owed it to the people here to appraise them of the reality they now lived in.

Once in the office, Teklile filled two glassed and offered one to Tristan.

“Thank you.” He sat as the man did and placed the glass on the desk.

“Now, what is it you wish to discuss?” Teklile asked, after sipping his glass.

“The situation regarding Carter Hart.”

“Ah, yes. I have contacted him and asked that his stop sending mercenaries. I explained again that he is welcome to visit to look at the painting and stay as long as he feels he needs to fully take it in.”

“And what was his response?”

“He has yet to respond. The assistant program which took my message indicated that Mister Hart was in Transit and would be unable to address his correspondences for at least one objective year. I expect it’s why the mercenary are still coming. You have my thanks again for dealing with them and making sure they leave before they can hurt us again.”

“It is the least me and Alex can do in return for the hospitality and help you are offering.” They had considered telling them what they had done to the mercs, but it would have altered how the acolytes interacted with them, possibly to the detriment of Alex’s training.

“Do you believe Carter Hart will put a stop to them once he receives your message?”

“Yes. He appeared to be a rather reasonable man when I met him. I expect this is simply something he did out of momentary anger at being refused. When he leaves Cryo, he will be over it and he will see reason again.”

“Have you been under cryo?” Tristan asked.

“No, I never had the need.”

Tristan nodded. There was no point in explaining that, for Carter Hart, no time would have passed. He would exit cryo in the same emotional state as he had entered it. Even if this was caused in momentary anger, that moment would not have ended by then.

“Have you considered his actions might not be out of anger, but calculated? The mercenary I question said he was here to retrieve the painting. That it was the specific job he’d taken on. That all the mercs have taken on.”

“You must think me naive,” Teklile said, taking Tristan by surprise.

“I think,” he found himself hesitating, searching for a word that would convey what he thought without outright insulting his host. “That you are an innocent.” It wasn’t a word he often got to use and mean. It was his experience that there were few truly innocent people in the universe.

“We have conflicting views on what the universe is filled with,” Teklile said.

“You have a view of it from within this protected structure,” Tristan replied, only slightly masking his annoyance at his concern being dismissed as something so simple. “A place where you have the luxury to believe that the universe is…nicer than it actually is.”

“You don’t think the universe can be a nice place?”

He shook his head. “For it to be nice, the universe would have to care about those in it. It took me a long time, but I finally understand that the universe is uncaring. It does not hate us, it does not like us. It does not think about us.”

“So you believe that lack of care leads to a harsh place.”

“I exist within that harsh place,” Tristan replied. “I have seen what those with power do to those without. I have been on the receiving end of that power, and had to eliminate them to ensure I would survive.”

“Demonstrating in the process you are more powerful than they are,” Teklile said. When Tristan shrugged, the man barely hid the smile behind sipping his glass.

“You find something amusing,” Tristan states.

“You believe the universe can’t change, that those with power will abuse those without unless they fight back. Gain power of their own until they become those with power and abuse those without. A never-ending cycle.”

“It’s how the universe is.”

“And yet.” The man smiled again. “Here you are. I don’t see you using that power you have over me and the others here.”

“That isn’t why I am here.”

“You are here to change.” Teklile said flatly what Tristan expected to hear in victory. The man felt as if he’d scored a point in his favor. “That is why I can sit here, confident in my belief that Mister Hart will change his mind. Because someone like you is here, looking to change. Because men and women of power came here and left that power behind, seeking to change. Because mercenaries who exist to perpetuate a cycle of violence came here to change. I believe that everyone seeks to change, to be better. All they need is the opportunity.”

“I disagree. Belief doesn’t affect the universe. Experience, research, actions are what do. If you do not prepare your people, it is likely that Carter Hart will eventually hurt them in the process of getting what he is after. I and Alex will protect you,” he continued before the man could speak. “While we are here. But unlike the others, we will not remain. When we leave, you will be left to defend yourself.”

“I understand why you believe as you do, and I thank you for the protection we have offered us while you are here. But for me, to prepare my people for an eventual attack is to tarnish my belief in a better universe. It’s accepting that there is nothing I can do. And I need to submit to the rules of power and violence. I’m sorry, I will not do that.”

Tristan had no response. Delusions couldn’t be responded to. He hoped Alex’s plan worked, because like Alex had been before Tristan entered his life. The people here were good people. And he wanted them to remain so.

“I hope you’re right,” he finally said, standing. 

He was unhappy with the result. He put his hands in the pants pocket as he mulled over his options. He could leave, go deal with Carter Hart, and return. Tristan wasn’t being trained. His work toward meditation was his own decision, and he could pursue it between coming out of cryo and locating the man. But it meant time away from Alex.

Tristan rolled the sphere between his fingers. 

And while Teklile hadn’t said anything regarding the possibility, his belief meant he wanted the situation to resolve itself. Did he have a right to intervene?

He was Tristan. He did what he wanted, not what the universe told him.

He took the sphere out and looked at it. Smooth gold surface with a seam where the two halves had been joined. Scratches here and there, some deeper than others, fresher where others have been smoothed over years of being held.

She’d smiled when she gave it to him. 

It hadn’t been his and Alex’s first return to their settlement, and each time she sought him out. At first, he couldn’t understand her. She only knew the local dialect, too young to have learned another. And he hadn’t started learning others, then. But he recognized her, and her father.

His intervention in one of the mercenary raids while trying to build the Defender’s wall had saved them. They had been inconsequential to him, but he had marked their lives. His presence had allowed them to continue living. While the father understood enough to not impose on Tristan, she was too young to understand.

So she sought him out, pulled him along, and Tristan let her. Part of his attempt at understanding his people at first. Then because he enjoyed her joy at telling him all the things that had happened between his visits.

And then, she’d asked him where his source was, and he hadn’t understood. She’d showed him the one attached to the necklace around her neck, and he told her he didn’t have one. He’d never had one, he explained, when she asked where he’d lost it.

She’d run off, and he’d continued walking through the settlement. She’d found him and placed it in his hand with reverence. Her father had been taken by sickness some years before, and it had been waiting to join a new life, she told him.

He tried to return it to her other father when she wasn’t there, but he refused. Tristan had saved their lives. His mate would have wanted him to have a source of his own.

He looked up to find he was in the meditation room.

He sat and closed his eyes. Rolling the sphere between his fingers, cataloging its characteristics.

It’s smoothness, like infinity. The seam through it, as a path to walk on. Scratches intersecting it, forks to make decisions at.

The source, and all they were, encompassed on its surface.

* * * * *

The silence wasn’t complete, and Tristan identified it as the stretched breath of other people. Their clothing as they shifted. The scratching of nails against what they held.

He opened his eyes.

He stood within a vast expanse of nothing. A featureless ground going on until it reached an also featureless sky, the delineation only visible because one was slightly paler than the other. He turned in place, searching for someone. The Defender had said he wouldn’t come again, but there were other Forces. One of them would come to him.

“Well!” he called. “I’m here!” His words came out with a hollowness to them, as if this place wasn’t meant for sounds.

I’m here, he called mentally. I have questions!

“Do not ignore me!”

He didn’t see the change, but he felt it. When he turned, a dome, many times taller than he was, was on the surface. Spherical and golden, emanating a soft glow. Jagged lines were visible in places on the surface.

Tristan smiled. “I guess you decided to answer my questions directly. Good, I don’t feel like games anymore.” He stepped closer. “What do you want from me?”

There was no answer.

He hadn’t expected it to speak. The Source was vast and beyond comprehension. All the texts agreed on that. But he expected something from it. A sense of what it meant for him to do. How it would use him. What its plans were.

“Answer me! Why all this? What is my place? What am I do you? Your weapon? Your wall? Why did you have my father treat me the way he did? Why did you have me go to space and become who I am? Why did you let me treat Alex the way I did? He didn’t deserve it!”

He glares at the silent dome.

“You owe me answers! Didn’t I do enough? I am one of my people now! I accepted to live with others! I’m learned what it means to care for me than myself! What more do I have to do before you will tell me what your plans for me are!”

The silence continued and Tristan found he couldn’t scream at it anymore. He placed a hand on its surface, smooth and never ending, and slightly warm.

“Please,” He begged, tears falling. “I need to know why. I need you to tell me what I’m supposed to do next.”

He swallowed.

“What path am I on?”