Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 06

***A further look into the lives of Abi's tech people. ~chuckle~ Some assembly required.

I make mention of African Wild Dogs in this. Google them if you don't know what they are. They're endangered these days. ~sigh~ Everybody's got a gun over there these days. I think. 0_o

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Hungary, under the abbey

"What did you do with his mind?" Abi asked as they looked down at the body on the table before them, "Was it sent somewhere? Can you retrieve it?"

The mage demon shook his head, "It is scattered and gone. Why, lord?"

"Nothing much," Abi replied as he considered the lost potential value of the stricken demon for a moment. He felt a little regret that he'd had one like this and hadn't known it. He quietly resolved to have all of the many section leaders look at their people for someone like this and recommend them to his personal attention.

"I am only thinking that if you have no talent beyond scattering minds, then I might wish to scatter yours -- a lot more wetly, of course," he smiled grimly. "I did nothing to you while you and the rest killed ones who had value to me -- such as this one for he is as good as dead to me like this."

The smile vanished as he leaned back against another table and crossed his muscled arms, "So tell me what you CAN do."

The hell hound sat not far from them both, wondering why they were discussing anything. If it had been left to him by the lord in the room, he'd already be done with the joyful separation of mage into pieces. By now, he'd be busily working out the marrow from the bones, and making use of the busyness of it to help stave off the grief of his loss.

Hell hounds as a group of beings had begun like many of the lower forms. But as they'd developed the qualities which set them apart from the others, they'd raised themselves in the regard of the demonlords such as Abi. They had their obvious uses, though one had to keep them fed and paid with whatever had been agreed upon, whereas a lord only had to keep his legions fed. The one here had behaved as though he wasn't a soulless thing, and it seemed a little strange to Abi as he looked down at him.

Nothing like a hell hound ever displays devotion. The very idea was absurd. And yet, ... what would one call the display that he'd seen or the words that he'd heard? What other name could be applied to something like that?

He looked up at the mage, "I'm waiting."

"I do not know what you wish for me to say, lord. So I fear to say anything," the mage replied.

Abi snorted as his eyes flashed, "My assumption outside was that in order to have done as you have, then there must be a mind in your own head which I can communicate with.

I wish to know what else you can do in this regard. Can you replace what you 'scattered' with the mind of another? In other words, can you shift a being's mind from one body to another and NOT scatter anything?"

The demon had been looking at the one on the table for a moment, but he looked up then. "It would depend on the beings involved, lord. Before I anger you even more, what I mean to say is that for a low one, I can do that easily."

He looked at the hound in the room and quickly discarded his thought of using him in his example, seeing the glare which was being sent his way from the creature as a warning then. The hound saw that the mage still didn't understand that as what he was, he was immune to the efforts of almost any mage of any sort.

"I can put the mind of a hellion into this soldier. Given time, I can put the mind of another like him inside -- an even transference. I cannot put the mind of a lord in here. That is what I mean."

"What about a human?" Abi asked.

"I have never done it," the demon said. "I would need time, say a few turns of a large sand glass, for there is the matter of fit to be considered, but yes, if I found no difficulties in that regard, I think that it could be done.

Can a human mind change the way that it grasps the nerve pathways to the body? I do not know much of them."

Abi thought for a moment, "Not major things, but some, I believe. I have seen older ones who have had infarctions in their brains and lost the ability to speak or make some finer movements. Some of them regained those things in a little time, so it must happen. But for major things, I would say no."

"The major things can be found by the mind itself for what I would do," the mage said, "Minds seek these things out of need. It is the small things which are the concern. A Human can speak. This demon could as well. The pathways would need to be found. If you wish for fine control in balance and touch, then those things must be found as well. I would not wish for the mind to need to try to find those things alone in a foreign body by itself. Things might become ... crossed."

Abi considered. "I have this one and I have a human. Both are useless to me as they are at present. If there is a way for you to show me your progress, then I would give you as many as ten turns of the glass and more. Succeed, and I will reward you richly. And If you can manage it, I wish not to lose the skill and the knowledge which the human possessed and I do not wish for him to be without the uses and advantages of this body.

I sense some remnants of personality in this one still. From speaking with his section leader, there were a few issues over reluctance to engage a smaller opponent and crush him or her in a conflict. There was a sense of fairness in him. Something like that and only a little stronger in him would have made this one of little use as a soldier. There is no fairness in battle.

But it might be a better trait in him with a human mind driving a strong body like this one. That is what I mean."

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Inside the large craft, hours later.

"What are they doing?" Pob asked as they regarded what was going on through the window of the small infirmary on Abi's craft. The location had been selected to minimize jostling to Reed. Instead, the rather mysterious 'other one' had been brought here.

They saw the demon mage working over what appeared to be the body of a soldier demon, a large one. Things went slowly with mostly the mage working, and there were also some who appeared to be there to assist, though that didn't happen much. Abi stood off to the side while Evaine stood with the mage conferring together often. There seemed to be little to no actual surgery going on at all. It almost looked as though they were measuring, by their motions.

"That sounds a little funny to me when you think of what others ask each other about us when we're working," Ouna said.

Pob thought about it and had to nod, "Yeah, you're right."

She looked over at the large, silent form sitting on the floor next to her. She and Ouna had been here to look in during their duties and checks, but that was over with now, and they'd been watching for an hour.

As far as either one of them knew, the hound had been here from the beginning, over four hours now. He hadn't moved an inch.

"And what's he doing here?" she asked indicating the hell hound who sat watching intently through the same window, "He keeps making sad sounds. I want to ask him what's wrong, but I don't --"

There was a quiet gasp from behind them. Ouna and Pob looked back and nodded, `Hi Tozama, T'maz,`Your testing all done too?"

The pair nodded silently and felt uncomfortable, but not wishing to seem rude to the only friends they had, while they stood in awe, feeling a little thrill of fear to see a large hell hound from less than a dozen feet away.

Tozama and T'maz had been spawned as hellions in a far corner of the Dark Realms, a smallish and thin set of twins, female and male. They'd been found to be more intelligent than the others in their colony by a wide margin and as youngsters had become cocky over it, able to deceive and string most of the others along for their own ends and they caused a lot of suffering with their selfish pranks. They had empathic abilities which allowed them to manipulate lower demons of many sorts.

Life had become a boring game to them until they'd been caught in a summoning together. The one who'd called them to him had been looking for a pair of servants. What the human sorcerer got instead was a pair of spoiled, insolent, mischievous pranksters who quickly destroyed much of his home.

But he did have other servants and he used one of them to punish the pair, by showing them an illustration of some animals from far away. As they looked, interested in the coloring of what they saw for the moment, the other servant made the irreversible changes and they were cast back to the realms. Things were different where they found themselves and whenever they attempted to coerce anyone of the many higher orders, they found themselves in pain from the more intense forms of rebuff which came back to them..

That was where Abi had found them one day, a pair of half-starved adolescents, huddled together in fear and crying. Curious about them and recognizing that they had something behind their frightened eyes, he offered a life working for him and he provided instruction and direction.

But he couldn't change what had been done.

They were a curious pair, very subdued and always conscious that they didn't fit in anywhere. They were young adults now and if one wasn't a stupid or self-absorbed demon perhaps, or had the eyes to see without applying any of the filters which any sort of reasoning being, humans included, tend to use, they might be seen as very attractive to some. By now, however, they had difficulty believing anything like that if it was said to them.

They no longer had wings or horns, other than small, pointed lumps and they'd been changed severely in other ways as well. What was left was a pair of very shy, quiet, and nervous demons who resembled bipedal; walking, talking versions of African Wild Dogs, and between them, they were the sensor technicians. Tozama handled things close in while her brother kept them out of mid-air collisions and found other things in the sky from hundreds of miles away.

They'd been incestuous from the beginning out of comfort with each other and a great deal of haughtiness, since no other hellions were attractive to them, being seen as dull and stupid. Now, it was all they had, fearful to hear any more scorn and needing each other.

"I am very sad," the hound said, not looking over at Pob, "I do not worry anymore. I lost my friend this day. I have nothing."

The quiet remark startled the two demons, who had little to do with hell hounds in their day to day lives and saw one only rarely. Since the ones they did see were always silent, it was easy to forget that they could speak infernally, though that was even more rare. Neither one had ever heard it.

Pob stepped over, a little nearer, anyway. "I don't know what's going on in there exactly, but I was told that the demon on the table in there isn't dead."

Pob was the chattier of the two, and after getting over the small surprise of a speaking hound, she was a little reluctant to have him fall into total silence again.

"No, my friend is not dead," the hound replied, "But his mind is empty, so he is almost the same as dead." He turned to look at Pob, "I am here since I have nowhere to go. That one was all that I knew, so I sit here and watch."

He didn't see the pair who stood a little nearer now on his other side. Both of them could feel the intensity of the hound's emotion. They knew sadness as an almost intimate thing in their own lives and it came as almost a reflex to them to try to send what comfort they could. They'd already sensed that this one was not cold like any other hounds they'd seen.

He felt it and turned his head. They looked nervous as he regarded them, so he nodded once in thanks.

"We picked up a human today, "Ouna said, "He was attacked by a large animal before we came. Humans are weak, and he, ... I don't know why he isn't dead. His body is ruined. Even the tall female there can't do much, only keep him alive a little bit, and she's the best healer that our lord has.

I've heard something about them putting the human's mind into your friend's body. I don't know how they'll do that, but it's taking a long time."

The large head was looking through the glass again, but he nodded once, "That is what I was told." He looked down, "Even if it happens, he will not know me. I will still be alone. I am sad."

As Pob stood next to the hound, she felt sad for him. Without really thinking about it, she touched him.

His 'fur' fell flat against him the next instant. "Do not do that without my knowing," he said, "My body is sharp unless I lower things and you can be cut."

"I just wanted to try to make you feel some comfort by touching you," Pob said, looking at her fingers.

"Are you harmed?" he asked and she shook her head, "No. I was just wondering about the way that it felt to touch you. You feel like a sand covered stone, warmed by the sun in a sunny place outside. I liked it. Can I touch you again?"

He wanted to walk away without a word. He wanted to shake his head. No one had ever said such a thing to him. He wasn't sure what it meant, but what he read from her mind was that it was a pleasant thing for her to think about and he found that he could appreciate that.

He nodded, "Say it to me when you wish for this before you do it."

She nodded and placed the flat of her hand against his large shoulder for a moment. The creature liked it, but didn't know what to say. Finally, he reasoned out what she was trying to do and he thanked her.

Pob put her arm around him then, as far as she could reach and she hugged him. The hellions looked at each other for a moment and together, they came to stand next to him, stroking their palms against him as well while Pob hugged him awkwardly.

"He would do this to me sometimes," the hound said very quietly, "I miss it already." The second sentence came out more like a moan.

Pob threw her arms around him a moment later. She felt him shudder against her and it took her a little while to see his tears. He made no sound then, but what streamed from his eyes betrayed him. T'maz and Tozama began to weep for him, feeling this so strongly.

That was it for the everyone, Ouna abandoning her cooler front after seeing Pob cry too.

"Look," Pob began a few minutes later, as she tried to wipe her eyes, "They're all busy in there. You've been here from the start. I'm Pob and this is Ouna. These are our friends, T'maz and Tozama. Come with us. We live on this thing. We'll find you something to eat and drink and we can come back later."

He looked through the window again and said nothing.

"Come on," Pob said, "Please?" Tozama reached to touch his face, "Please come."

He looked at them for a long moment and then stood up to follow them.

"Do you have a name?" Ouna asked.

He thought for a moment and said, "He called me Sandryah. I do not know what it means."

"It means 'sandstone' in newer infernal," Pob said, "But I'm an imp. I'll never remember that unless I think of that stone that I mentioned. Can we call you Sandy?"

He nodded, "Do as you must. I will not mind it."

"Do you know how much you weigh, Sandy?"

"No," he replied, "why?"

Pob shrugged, "You said that you have no place to go. I want you to stay here with us. Ouna and me, we've got a big cabin, big enough, anyway. Sometimes Tozama and her brother feel alone and they come over to sleep. We're always here on this thing, pretty much, so we stay together for company. We'll keep you from feeling alone, if you think you want that."

"Pob," Ouna said in warning, "Abi's gonna find out sometime, you know. He knows where Sandy came from. He knows that trooper over there kept him here somehow. What are you gonna tell him when he asks?"

Pob looked up with a touch of defiance in her eyes, "I'm gonna tell him about the last five times that he left the four of us out in the middle of nowhere to watch over and DEFEND this thing if we had to -- all alone -- nobody else on it. I'm not big like you and neither are the T's. I was ready to piss myself every time. I don't even know how to work one of those rifle things that you have, and they're too big for me to do more than lift anyway. The T's are the same."

Tozama and T'maz nodded their agreement, "We can't barely lift one between us," T'maz said quietly.

"I don't know what Sandy weighs," Pob went on, "but I figure this big boat can handle it. Sandy needs somebody. It can be all of us, is what I'm saying. I just hope that he'd help us if we needed him sometime. He looks like he needs friends. That's good enough for me."

The twins nodded. "We will help. Ouna is the biggest friend we have," Tozama said.

"I want another big friend," T'maz nodded to himself.

"If you show me food sometimes, I would help," Sandy said.

It earned him another hug from Pob, and soft smiles from the twins.

"So you tell Abi in your quiet way, since he seems to like that from you, and if I gotta, I'll try too, but you know how screechy I get when I'm emotional."

They came to an intersection of the passageways and Abi stepped out before they reached it. He stretched for a moment, leaning against the corner to reach for the ceiling. "The last thing that I want to hear is Pob screeching because she's upset."

He smiled, "I just stepped out for a minute and saw that you were gone. This was my guess about how far you'd all have gotten. That mage thinks that he's ready to begin on Reed soon. I thought that I'd come before he started to make the suggestion that if you didn't mind the company all of the time, then you four might like to live with this hell hound. He's the gabbiest one that I've ever seen, but I like it on him. He might fit in with you and he definitely will need friends. I see no connections in him to any other hounds.

I'll make sure that there's food on board for him if he stays with you and will help protect the craft so that I don't have to worry about corrosion -- from anyone pissing in the wrong places."

Abi looked at Sandy a little thoughtfully for a moment. "Do you know how to bargain? I thought that I'd have heard something like that from you by now. By the way, I like what they're calling you, Sandy."

The hound looked back and nodded slowly, "I know, but I have never done it. I only knew how to live with my friend, but I can bargain if you wish."

"That's a little better," Abi grinned, "I used to have hounds before. I can't imagine you working here without at least a little of it."

Seeing the looks from the others, he said, "It's customary -- even required when dealing with hell hounds to define the exchange. I see that it's not a strong need in our new friend here, but I think that at least something needs to be set out and agreed upon."

He looked at Sandy again, "So all that you want is food? You'd work for only food and water? You want no sex? Or are you a virgin and haven't decided yet?"

There was no humor or scorn in what Abi had said, and no offence was taken by Sandy. He looked up, "I have some experience. I did not ask because I did not know what would be allowed to me. This is all very new and I feel lost without my friend. I see that you try to help, understanding how I feel."

He thought for a moment, wanting to be careful in what he asked for and not knowing what might already exist in any relationships. He looked over at Ouna and Pob and their relationship became clear to him in a moment. Then he turned to look at the twins, who shrank back a little with wide eyes.

He looked at Abi again with a little smile, "I want the two fur-covered ones, T'maz and Tozama."

Tozama and T'maz were very nearly identical, being 'semi-identical' twins, spawned from a set of conjoined ova, each one fertilized by a different sperm. The ovae cloned and separated later in the pregnancy. It occurs rarely in humans, but is not infrequent in some types of demons.