Aberrant: The Middle Children of History - To the High Place

[Neil Preston]

The place wasn’t hidden. It was blended – blended with the soil, the stones, and the landscape to seem so much part of it you wouldn’t know to think more of it unless you knew Inyan Kara held another secret. The secret was beyond its natural beauty and went to the heart of the people that called this place home.

Neil had been walking here since about midnight, his stride long and steady. The temperature was cool and not getting warmer. Even as the sun rose, his steps took him farther upslope. The winds were picking up as the lowlands warmed up as well. Neil didn’t mind. He had become inured to all but the worst of temperatures some time ago.

The White Man, the blood brother of Wakinyan, the friend of Ptehehincalasanwin was pleased with what he saw, smelt, and felt. The land had a cleaner air to it. Fewer people used cars in the land below. More people cooked their own food, buried their own trash, and respected their homes. It had happened with small strides, but now there was some real payback for the health of the People. Now there was hope for more.

His green waterproof jacket was snug about him. Most of its pockets and pouches were full with something he might find useful. His leather hiking boots, blue jeans, white cotton shirt, and wooden walking stick were all part of his kit. His backpack was nearly full as well. He always carried too much stuff, he rationalized, but then he was rarely out of anything in a crisis. He would bare the burden.

Especially here, with one of his oldest ‘nova’ friends so close.

The Medicine Wheel looked different from all the other times he had come here. It looked … complete. Neil grinned at that. Wakinyan had never gotten around to it. Of course, being able to see it meant the end of the journey was nearly at hand. The cave mouth would be close.

“Sister, a weary traveler is in need of shelter and any food you can spare,” Neil Preston called out to the cave. “Can I warm myself by your fire?”

[Ptesan-Wi]

In response, a strange-yet-familiar static crackled somewhere around his node, and he could almost feel the smile behind the words that filled his mind.

*When the day comes that you are not welcome in this home, it will be an evil day indeed.*

Just up the rugged slope, a buffalo-fur pulled itself aside from the cave opening, and there she stood: red skin somehow glowing with a soft white light as azure eyes did the same. Older than before, of course, but with the fullness of inhumanly beautiful womanhood as the result.

"Come, brother of mihinga-ki. The hearth is warm, and the stew is hot."

[Neil Preston]

The hearth was indeed warm. The stew was good as well as hot. Neil dug in and after several spoon fills smiled across the fire and complimented the chef.

"I can taste the salt from the stone as well as the long life of this rabbit."

He took another spoonful.

"I also hear that you have had the care of at least one child here, which is a blessing."

He looks into the fire for a moment.

"The children are growing up. Some will be like their parents, no doubt. Some will be more, and I hold my heart out for them."

Looking into Ptesan-Wi's eyes,

"You have been a good Mother to a few. Do they grow strong with a love for this planet and its people? Do you have warmth for the future?"

[Ptesan-Wi]

For her part, Ptesan-Wi sighed and stared for a moment at her own bowl.

"Some have done so. The People, by and large, have renewed their understandings of the true world, and their hopes soar like the eagle. Some of those not of the People who have sought me out have also learned the ways. The novas who come... some learn, some do not, as has always been the way. And a very special student who I loved dearly went home to Wakan-Tanka five years ago."

Her eyes rose to meet Neil's, and the pain behind them was a palpable thing. "I help those who will be helped, Neil. The rest must find truth in their own way."

Setting the bowl aside, the Lakota goddess gave a tired smile. "And you? The gifts of medicine you have given to so many now; do they use what you have given them in wisdom and thanks? Do they go on to lead worthy lives?"

[Neil Preston]

"I feel like the branch of a mighty tree. I once thought ... hoped I was so much more, but I find myself now to be part of something else and maybe something better."

"The hands of the world could make me into a valuable tool, or a weapon, or something in between. Do you know what I mean?"

"I feel the world and I feel I'm on the cusp of a greater understand of myself and my place in the world, but ... not yet it seems. Not today."

It is Neil's turn to look into his bowl.

"Sorry about your student. My own circle of friends seems very closed of late. There are plenty of people I know, but none that I truly let know me. I haven't taought in nearly seven years. I gave up on teaching people medicine when I wanted to teach them so much more and ... couldn't."

He grins.

"That's what I get for being unconventional."

Neil shakes his head and looks back into Ptesan-Wi's eyes.

"I can not heal the hurts inside your mind. Maybe that is a flaw in my way of looking at health and life. I don't know. I guess we are both left with some unawnsered questions."

Neil's mood lightens, though grimly.

"I do know I have to do more. I need to find a way to make more of a difference. I have been quiet in my power for too long and I can't grow if that remains the same."

"I need to grow in my power and with it. I have to stop being afraid ... of what I can do, and accept what I have become ... and becoming."

[Ptesan-Wi]

Ptesen-Wi watched this young man - this forever young man, she knew, who had not aged a day in the decade she had known him - and could feel the whirl of emotions within him. So much loss: of friends, of hopes, of innocence... it was a mirror of her own in many ways, she knew.

Even his talk of growth in his power was a reflection of her own self-concerns. How long had she stayed here, busy with the People but isolated from the rest of the world? When was the last time she truly pushed herself to discover, to learn, to grow?

There is more to being a Marvel than just being seen as such. The memory of those words was tinged with Procyon's voice, and tears threatened to well up in her eyes.

"So do I, brother," she finally said in a whisper. "So do I."

She sighed, and took a sip of herbal tea from an earthenware mug. "I've been here so long, I've avoided the world of the wasicu so ferverently, that I've... stagnated." Meeting Neil's eyes again, she continued. "We're not the same, you and I. Not even the same kind of creature. But we both need to grow: in our power, in ourselves. Maybe - just maybe - I will have to come down from this mountain for that to happen."

Even just speaking the words ran a chill through her soul. No. Out there, out past the reservation, is where the hated wasicu live. Out there is where the novas tear up the world more and more every passing year. Out there is where... where they killed him.

With a shudder, she clutched tighter at the comforting warmth of the mug, and her eyes fell from Neil's once more. "Maybe... but not today."

[Neil Preston]

"It is to laugh tears of sorrow, Sister. You are hated by the lie when the truth would win you friends amongst your enemies. You are powerful in your own way, but you don't bring the dangers that come with that power."

Neil shook his head amused.

"There should be a way to locate others like you, I know it. I don't know what kind of discipline it would take, but I am sure that once it was known, you could learn it. Maybe be less alone. You have too few people you can open up to about anything, and that saddens me. I want you to have a wider world. Is that arrogant of me?"

He holds up a hand forstalling a reply,

"It probably doesn't matter. As you probably feel in the tidings that come your way, the days of believing their is a safe place to live and grow in are passing. The New Generation is as arrogant as the old, maybe even moreso, and even more powerful. They come to their power without the knowledge and understandings of what human weakness really feels like. They are pure, but pure what I don't know."

"Mabye having once appeared human is a weakness. I dont' see it that way. It is more insight than they will have - feeling powerless in a world with Gods and Demons, and still getting by day to day."

"Will they know hunger, or sickness, or cold like we have? What has it cost them to never know these things the way we have?"

[Ptesan-Wi]

At Neil's words, tears once more began to sting her eyes. Blinking them away, she replied in a haunted tone.

"There is a way to tell, brother. Just as you can do with other novas, so I can do with my own kind. I have known that feeling only once. And she died a meaningless death five years ago."

The loss of Iharra to such random violence - and the subsequent loss of Sean McCline to despair and estrangement and madness - was yet another in a series of wounds to Ptesan-Wi's heart that had failed to heal cleanly. The scar, ugly and jagged, remained to pull at her chest during times of remembrance.

"I long ago stopped searching. Whatever I may be, it is infinitely more scarce than are you and yours. And I know well from my own early days that whoever is behind Project Utopia watched as well, and has far more eyes to do so than are at my disposal. For all I know, I may be the last of my kind. I cannot dwell on it, because yours do grow so much stronger with every passing year. Stronger and stranger and as you say, more pure. I find it harder and harder to relate to other Terats... and from what I see and hear, they find it harder to deal with each other as well."

[Neil Preston]

"Hmmphh ... Aquistion of power leads to a lack in the desire to compromise ... or so my Dad says." Neil finished the last of his stew and set the bowl down.

"I don't know as much about the Teragen as I did a decade ago. My closest ally went over to the Harvesters. The rest that I know don't know me well enough to talk over 'family business.' I'm still used as a healer from time to time though, so I'm known. I guess that means a little something."

"Too many of them now a days are twisted a bit too far as well. I don't understand this embracing of taint, but I do know there is a price paid by the bodies and minds ... and I can't talk to them about it. They either don't see, or don't want to see the cost in abnormalities they go through."

His keen scientific mind kicks into the conversation for a moment.

"Have you noticed a greater level of difficulty or interference dealing with these ... 'evolved' novas? That would be a line of research that no one else is capable of doing."

[Ptesan-Wi]

Ptesan-Wi looked at Neil for a long moment before answering. "I... don't see many face to face these days. Most contact is over the OpNet. But when they do visit..."

She hesitated. Whatever she may be, the philosophy of Teras still rang home to her. She wasn't human anymore, and hadn't been for roughly a decade; that much was very clear to her. And those humans had no right to tell her - an evolved being, a goddess - how to live her life. Terats were her brothers and sisters...

...who I can barely understand anymore. I'm not sure they even follow Teras anymore. They aren't Procyon, or Long, or Sean. Too many blindly follow Mal. Too many more use Teras as the flimsiest excuse to maim and kill. They may be my brothers and sisters, but so many have wandered off the path...

"The static has gotten worse." Was it betrayal? It was just admitting a physical truth, wasn't it? Then why did it feel like betrayal?

[Neil Preston]

Neil nodded. It was what he expected, but you always needed evidence to back up any finding.

"I treated a young woman whose very touch exterminated all simple life forms she touched. I asked her about it and she seemed puzzled ... told me it was No big thing. She saw it as a joke aberration. I couldn't get her to see what a horrific thing she was doing. I don't think she really cared. She had the cool powers and her Divis Mal T-shirt."

Neil shakes his head yet again.

"Here I am talking about kids but have none of my own. Why is it I never bothered to look forward to the next generation in the most obvious way? Dad still expects me to get married some day soon. I know some baselines who seem to like me and I admire. Not so many novas."

He grins,

"The price of not having those flashy powers."

He let that train of thought trail off for a few seconds.

"Have you ever thought of trying to ... find someone in your life after ... him?"

It was a silly question in many ways. Wakinyan died when he was still a very young man.

"Not that it would be easy," he said then looked out the entrance. "After all these years I still expect that flap to open and for Daniel to give me that look. The one that said he trusted me."

[Ptesan-Wi]

And there it was again. Try as she may, the woman who called herself Ptehehincalasanwin could not escape the death of the man who called himself Wakinyan, even after all these years. The shock, the pain, the loss... all of it hit her with brutal force yet again, her eyes in a thousand-yard stare while her mind was rocked under phantom blows seven years old. And a thin line of crimson began tracing a line down from her nose.

Shaking herself back to the here-and-now, she grabbed absently at a cotton cloth and dabbed at the blood, looking at it for a moment before sighing and putting it in a basin of water to soak. When she spoke again, it was without meeting Neil's eyes.

"I've thought about it. Many times. In another time, I'd have married his brother... would have married you, as his only brother. But Wakinyan was like I am: a spirit for the People. And even though you are his brother, that is not a role you have taken... or that I think you could bring yourself to take." She turned just enough to look into Neil's eyes. "Were I to take a husband again, it would have to be another great spirit. And I know of none but myself now that still have flesh."

[Neil Preston]

"I know. I don't think I will be able to find another friend ... no, brother, like him in this lifetime."

"Life goes on though. We should remember that he was also a Spirit that liked to travel and meet others. I don't think he would be happy how I've isolated myself the past few years. All the traveling I've done, but I've never made the effort to get to know any novas. Its just work, move one, work some more."

Looking over at Ptesan-Wi,

"I think its been like that for you too. You've been going through the motions, but you've known only pain. You've got to get back out there and try again to meet and connect with others. For us to hold back is ... selfish. Everything our lives have taught us becomes pointless."

A sheepish grin comes quickly enough,

"I'm lecturing, aren't I?"

[Ptesan-Wi]

Even through the heartache, a wistful little grin surface on Ptesan-Wi's lips. "A bit, yes... but that's not to say that you are wrong. It's just...."

She looked around at the place that had, in large part, been her life for most of the past decade. At each little detail, each well-worn and well-known corner and nook, each momento of a life taken far, far too early.

"...my People need me," she finished unconvincingly. "I travel among them, and help them as best I can. Is that so bad? Is it so wrong that the White Buffalo Calf Woman has turned her back on a world that turned its own back on her People?"

[Neil Preston]

"Your people are working toward their own future, not living in the past. They grow in number, in pride, and in accomplishments. They are not waiting for someone to hand them anything, but making for themselves."

"What is it you say about continuous effort and potential? Your people look to you as an example, but not as a crutch. If you were a crutch to them, I am sure you would remove yourself from them, no matter how painful. They are your Children, but Grown Childern. Can you stand between their continuous effort and their potential?"

Neil shakes his head.

"Were you an elite on contract, I could see why you would remain her all the time."

His eyes harden while looking past her,

"You are more than an elite, more than a nova to these people. You are their Spirit Guardian. A Goddess must exist in the wider world, so she too can learn and grow, just as her People are expected to learn and grow. Is that not so?"

Another smile graces his eyes warm back up.

"I may have been a passable doctor, but I've been a failure as a Healer. I know what I can do. I choose not to do it. Which one of us is worse ... or are we equally remiss?"