341: Black and White (Patreon)

‘When you see me, you see a human. Creatures you’ve come to believe are fundamentally good in a way your own kind is not. Now you feel confused, suspicious… angry. All because I’m not matching the ideal you’ve created in your head.’ He fixed a "stern" gaze on the Hornet, emanated a kind of anger. ‘But this is not any fault of mine. You met only a few humans, and judged my whole species.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Humans can be good, and they can be bad.’

‘But… but the humans I met—‘

‘How many?’

‘What?’

‘How many humans did you meet?’

Serrin didn’t answer at first. That was because he was thinking exactly what Nicolai wanted him to think. ‘Six.’

Nicolai spelled it out. ‘Not a lot of humans.’

‘Yes, but… but they were all good!’

‘Has it occurred to you that acting sympathetic in order to gain your assistance may have been their best move?’

‘They weren’t like that!’ Serrin snarled, his whole body shifting. His fists tensed and his head jutted forward, like he was ready to throw hands, that anger returning, though his Soul was now unreadable. He was controlling it, hiding his emanations.

Nicolai raised a lazy hand, palm out. ‘I’m not saying they were. I am saying… that humans are not simple. In fact, it is a little insulting you believe so. Could not your humans have been good and kind people who were also aware of the terrible position they were in? Aware of how badly they needed help?’ He smiled humorlessly. ‘And then there is me. From what you have seen, you should already know…’

‘I am not what would be considered a good person.’

He let that sit a beat before adding, ‘However… nor would I necessarily be considered a bad person. I am simply myself.’

Serrin settled back, confused. Nicolai’s words had pushed him in pretty much every direction.

He’d had to get that out the way, because Serrin was well on the way to realising it all in any case. Now he’d thrown aside the rug and made clear that humans, and by extension he could be anything… it was time to establish that he was a Better Man. Or at least, enough of one that Serrin could be at ease working with him.

Serrin was like that already. A Better Man. Very different from the rest of his kind. An outcast, naive to the ways of the world, and lonely. Nicolai could see that clearly, feel it. Serrin wanted a friend.

If he could earn Serrin’s trust, be that friend, Serrin would never betray him.

These thoughts came and went in a silent mass, then Nicolai handed the Mask the control it had been straining for.

The Mask blinked his eyes, surprised by the feel of his face. ‘I…’ it raised his hands. Nicolai had to step in, reminding it of what it wanted to do. He was there with it, putting a few subtle limits on precisely what it might say.

‘Serrin,’ said the Mask, out loud. Nicolai and the Modules shifted their command of ripples into its grasp. ‘I mean…’ the Mask rippled. ‘I will be honest with you. He—I could be a danger to you. But… I want to work with you. So long as you don’t betray me, I won’t betray you.’ The words were halting but the spiritual emanations, which he knew Serrin paid more attention to in any case, were frank and honest. The Mask wouldn’t have spoken these words if they weren’t true. It could feel that they were. It took a deep breath, expecting the control of Nicolai’s face to be seized away. Go on, he told it.

‘I have something called the Black Gift. At times it moves through me in a wave of madness, a killing rage, and I struggle to control myself. That is what you saw when I killed that Highspawn, when I moved toward you. I… cannot promise that it will never happen again.’

A sense of deja vu enveloped him. He remembered a dark room, blood on his arm, and Kleos’s eyes glinting in the firelight.

‘The Black Gift,’ breathed Serrin. Nicolai had half-expected he might recoil upon hearing that. But if anything Serrin looked delighted, even reverent. All signs of betrayal and anger had faded away. ‘That explains so much! I knew there was something, but I didn’t anticipate this.’ The tight guard of Serrin’s Soul relaxed a tad, his mandibles moved in a way that Nicolai, when he linked it together with the spiritual emanations the Hornet was once more faintly broadcasting, identified as an almost bashful smile. ‘One truth deserves another.’ Serrin straightened and took a deep breath, thorax thrumming. ‘I have the White Gift. You are the first I have ever met with one of the Gifts. Apart from me. It’s…’ He shook his head, still with that smile.

Nicolai could guess what he was feeling. That this was somehow meant to be, a profound moment, rather than the random, aimless chaos of reality. He formed his own wry smile. The Modules had felt it increasingly likely Serrin had the White Gift, but it was good to receive the confirmation.

‘You’re the first for me, too. Tell me… does the White Gift also affect your mind?’

Serrin shook his head. ‘No. Well, not like that. I never feel any of this… this madness you describe.’

It likely does affect the mind, chimed in Psychology. It can’t be a coincidence that the only Hornet with the White Gift is also unusually empathetic and thoughtful. The correlation of a Gift with combat ability is also interesting, though we don’t have a large enough sample size to know if it is always the case.

Nicolai decided it was worth pressing that. ‘Have you considered that your Gift is the reason you are so different from the rest of your kind?’

Serrin nodded, a little hesitant. ‘Ever since I realised what it was, I thought so. The only thing that makes any sense. It makes me wonder…’ he trailed off, let out a sad little laugh. ‘Did the Gift break me, change me from who I should have been? Or did it make me who I’m meant to be? How can I know?’ His gaze filled with entreaty, as though somehow Nicolai would have the answer.

The Mask had no idea how to respond to that, but Nicolai did. Media was full of moments like this and he felt no shame in mimicking them. He shifted the pitch of his voice as best he could to hit “profound meaning,” filled his face with the Mask’s desire to help and befriend.

‘The only one who can decide that is you.’

Serrin’s spiritual guard entirely relaxed. This Hornet was one of the first he’d seen to tighten and release the veil of his Soul in response to… how much he trusted, Nicolai supposed. Whenever around others, Serrin kept his Soul very tightly guarded, easily one of the best Nicolai had met at hiding his emanations.

But, gradually, as he and Serrin had spent time together, the Hornet had begun to purposefully relax his Soul, freely broadcasting his emotional state.

Why he chose to do this, Nicolai wasn’t sure. Except that it could only be a sign of deep, unguarded trust. The Mask felt very strongly that he should do the same, release the wall guarding his own Soul. A wall which had become ever more opaque and impassable since he’d first learned to build it. The thought was unthinkable.

Right now, Serrin’s unguarded Soul glowed with joy and revelation. The Modules watched it like a light show, basking in the second-hand emotions.

He let the profound moment stretch, Serrin standing there having whatever deep thoughts he was having. Once he’d figured it had run its course, he spoke up. There was something else he felt necessary to make clear.

‘My Gift is harsh to me. You already saw me lose myself once. I must warn you that it may happen again.’

‘And what then?’ asked Serrin. ‘Is there a way I can help calm you?’

Nicolai hesitated. What was the right thing to do, with an ally who was suffering a temporary need to kill everything in reach?

‘Above all else, and no matter what I do or say, do not fight me. Run if you must.’ His finger drummed aimlessly on the tough shell of his skinsuit. ‘Say to me… remember yourself, Nicolai.’ His lip twitched. ‘That might help.’ The pitiful words made an ugly, sticky feeling rise out of his stomach and into his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was pressing him to laugh or cry. ‘Say: where is the Mask,’ he murmured.

‘The Mask?’

‘Never mind.’ He scowled, sucked sour saliva, almost spat but that was the kind of thing people lacking in self-control did, so, he didn’t.

‘Is the Mask the thing on your Soul’s face?’

Nicolai struggled to keep his breathing even. All senses were abruptly attuned to every inch of Serrin’s body and Soul. ‘What?’

‘I see it, here and there. Like a second face, or a mask.’

‘How…’ he began, only to silence himself. No one else had ever noticed it, not properly. The Modules reassured him, said that Serrin seeing it must be because of the White Gift. The Hornet possessed far more raw spiritual capability and skill than anyone else he’d met.

‘Yes,’ he said, at length. ‘That part helps me keep my Gift in check.’

‘I thought as much. May I try something? I might be able to help!’

Nicolai felt an immediate urge to refuse, but the Hornet was so relentlessly earnest, so horrifyingly friendly, so absurdly transparent with his Soul just hanging open like that, and he felt the Mask’s immense interest like a firm push from behind.

‘Okay.’

Serrin began to send out a strange kind of spiritual emanation. Not any kind of emotion or intent, more like an energy. That energy washed gently over his Soul, and at first he noticed nothing different. But he felt the Mask twitch in shock and understood what his Soul was telling him.

Whatever Serrin was doing was directly strengthening the Mask. After a moment the Hornet stopped and the energy slowly drained from the Mask, until it had returned to its previous state.

‘Did you feel it? Did it work?’

‘I did. Yes, it worked. That… doing that would be helpful.’ He moved quickly on. ‘How did you learn to do so much with your Gift?’

‘Trial and error, mostly. I’ve had it since I was young. For many years there has been little else for me to do but train my skills, survive the other Hornets and my mother’s attentions, and learn as much as I could of my Gift.’

Nicolai nodded, considering. Serrin’s example was rather inspiring, in a way. It made him want to see what he could learn of his own Gift with simple experimentation.

There were a few final words to speak.

He shifted his posture, radiating solemn intent, the sensation that this was a big moment. The Mask grumbled that all this was a kind of lying, and wrong, but Nicolai disagreed. This was storytelling and it was important. Moments like this weren’t important to him, but they were to most people. More than important, they were necessary.

Serrin was reacting to his posture, his stern expression, the emanations of his Soul. The Hornet straightened up, uncertain, excited.

Nicolai extended a hand. Serrin already knew of the concept of a handshake and the Hornet reached out.

But before he could grasp the hand, Nicolai pulled back, turned his hand into a fist and pointed a finger at Serrin.

‘If we are to work together you cannot continuously doubt me. I have told you, I will do what I must to survive. You have to be willing to accept that. If you want to escape her grasp… you will have to play the game, even if you dislike it. But that is your affair.’ He breathed out slow through his nose, gazed nobly into the distance before locking eyes once more with Serrin. ‘If you work with me, we can do this. But if you constantly fall back into worrying that I will betray you, that I’m not being honest with you… I don’t see how this can work out. You have to believe that I will look out for you, just as I have to believe you will look out for me. If we have that, we can overcome anything else.’

‘So. I’ll say this one final time. If I stand by you, will you stand by me?’

Serrin stared back, Soul roiling, eyes burning. ‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘Yes. I will stand by you. We are in this… together.’

Nicolai extended his hand and Serrin seized it, gripped it tight. The Hornet hadn’t quite gotten the idea of the “shake” part, but just squeezing hands tightly and gazing into one another’s eyes was good enough.

‘As of now, you are not just my friend,’ Serrin seethed. ‘You are more a brother than any of those I was born with, so I declare you… my brother!’ The Hornet’s Soul burned with joy. In spirit he reminded Nicolai of one of those gangly baby deer, tumbling around with the excitement of having legs.

What else could he do, but agree?

‘Brothers, then,’ said Nicolai, smiling.

‘Brothers!’ Serrin cried, his grip somehow growing even tighter.

The Mask was overjoyed. The Modules found it all delightfully, insanely human. The Dark was slumbering.

And Nicolai was surprised to realise his smile wasn’t coming from them. He wasn’t sure he could wipe it away even if he wanted. This was… a nice moment.