Manuel and the Askani Empaths

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

Who: Manuel de la Rocha, Askani Empaths
When: 17 August 2004
Where: Manuel's Room
What Happens: Manuel takes the Askani empaths inside his brain. They talk.





Manuel left his room at a dead run when he felt the wave of panic and loss cross his brain. He wasn't actively scanning, but he wasn't at full buttoned-up mode. He needed to find out what the hell that was all about, and _fast_.

Then something rammed into his mind with a force of a sledgehammer blow. Colors... images, sensations... screaming voices?

#Se'lay veneihar assada--#

#Ne! Ne hallestra vaehai!#

#Sulate!# That was a familiar voice. Galin's voice.

Manuel very nearly tripped and fell head-over-heels at the odd voices in his head. He recognized Galin's mindvoice, but not the words. ~You will NOT cram that Askani crap into my head!~ he mindcalled to the voices. ~What the hell is going on?~

#Manuel?# A female voice, young and terrified sounding. #Ne! Ne hallestra! NATHAN?#

The other voice, male and unfamiliar, sounded as if it was cursing, but again, Galin silenced them both.

#Manuel,# the old empath said, sounding shocky and confused himself. #Te'alhaya... your mind? We're in your mind?#

Manuel grimaced, and then slowly made his way back to his room, where he could slowly go insane in peace. #What the _fuck_ are you doing in my mind? I thought you lived inside Nathan's with the rest of your Clan.# The realization dawned on him just them. #Something has happened.# Manuel thought grimly. #Something is very, very wrong. You wouldn't use our training bonds to jump into my mind if there wasn't something very wrong.# he thought, with a hint of warning.

#Gone,# the female voice - Lusanya - sobbed, shifting into English. #Gone, he's gone...#

#We don't know that!# Galin roared back at her.

#His mind broke!# the other voice said furiously. Evaris, the one who had never spoken directly to Manuel. #I felt it, Galin - we all did!#

Manuel opened his door, and flopped into his desk chair with a deep groan. "So now all of you empaths are in my head, and you're probably going to insist that I go do something probably very suicidal to rescue Nathan, right?" he said out loud to no-one in particular. "I've got a linkmate already, and none of you are her."

#No!# Lusanya suddenly cried. #No, you musn't... you musn't go anywhere near them, Manuel. The twisting...#

#As if you could,# Evaris growled.

#Shut up, both of you!# Galin raved at them. When he went on, his voice sounded very tired and old. #Of course not, boy. This wasn't planned. We were caught up by the shock of it, unable to follow the Lady.#

Manuel rolled his eyes. "So I'm Plan B, then? Well, at least the empathic training should go much more smoothly now - if I let you, you can access my power, right? Show me directly what words could not?"

#You little son of a FLONQ!# Evaris roared at him. Lusanya was sobbing wildly at the back of his mind. #We tell you Nathan is dead, and you--#

#SULATE!# Galin all but screamed. #We will not survive here, Manuel,# he sent, more quietly but no less bitterly. #Not for more than a few days. You cannot sustain us as Nathan can.#

Manuel smirked. "Try me. I'm a far stronger psi than he was - my empathic power is head and shoulders at least over his telepathic talent. And you can't tell me that ghosts need telekinesis to survive. And what do you want me to do, run in after him and get myself killed as well! Some military guerella force you all were, if that's the best plan you can think of. Fucktards."

#We should never have taught you a thing,# Evaris spat.

#Enough.# Galin didn't yell this time. #You don't understand, Manuel,# he said wearily, #and you're not listening. We expect nothing of you. You don't have even a latent chronal ability, and your empathy alone cannot sustain us.# Lusanya was still sobbing, if more quietly. #We will fade in a few days and disappear from your mind. We will attempt to be quiet about doing so, since we were the ones who invaded your mind, unintentionally or not.#

Manuel sighed. #Great. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a completely heartless prick. Is there anything I can do to make your stay, however brief, more comfortable? And I have to ask you to stay away from my link - as inhospitable as my mind apparently is, Amanda's would be far worse. Stay away from her.# he thought, then continued aloud. "Oh, and Evaris? You're in my mind, remember? I'd be careful with the attitude - I can make your remaining days in this time and place very uncomfortable indeed. I'm sorry we never got along, and I appreciate all of the training, but really. Go fuck yourself."

Lusanya was still weeping, sounding utterly broken-hearted. #He saved us and we couldn't do anything...#

#Enough,# Galin said, but more softly, and the pain was in his voice as well. #Manuel... Moira. That's who you sensed. Her link with Nathan breaking... as yours with Amanda's did.#

Manuel blinked. "Holy shit. She's got to be a mess right now. But I don't have the right to take away her pain." he noted. "It is not my place. If she asks for help, I will do everything that I can."

#We're not asking you to do anything,# Galin said wearily. #Simply answering the question that drove you from your room.# He was silent for a long moment, Lusanya's crying and Evaris's cursing audible, but fading. #You should go to Xavier in the morning,# he sent finally, his voice shaking. #I will... teach you what I can, in the time remaining. But he should remove us as we begin to fade. There is no reason why you must experience that.#

"I will do so." he said, leaning back in his chair. "This is ... a little weird. My link to Amanda is empathic - I can't read her thoughts." Bitter frustration there, sublimated almost immediately. "This is the longest telepathic conversation I've ever had."

#I'm not certain why we're able to speak to you, either,# Galin said with a sigh. #Unless... Evaris?#

#It may be me,# the younger male empath said, all of the anger gone from his voice, leaving only pain. #My telepathy may never have been worth developing, but it may have been enough to give us the ability, briefly. We don't truly understand... how Nathan did it. What we are, now.#

Manuel nodded, even though there was nobody in the room with him. They'd understand the sentiment. "Guess I owe you an apology - and it's the least I can do to keep my tutors engaged and company in their last few days of coherence. You sure that you need a precog in order to keep you bound to this place? Maybe I can convince Marie-Ange, use her power in conjunction with mine to give you a home here..." he babbled.

#Shh,# Lusanya said, tears still in her voice. #Just... forgive us, little brother? For failing you, for leaving our journey incomplete....#

"I'm not your brother." Manuel said softly. "I'm really not worthy of the title. And there is nothing to forgive - on your backs, I could see a little further, reach a little higher. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I do now." he said. "Appreciate it, that is. As odd as it is for me to say this, I think I'll miss all of you. Even you, Evaris, who disliked me with a reddish-brown tinge."

#You had your moments,# Evaris said very wearily. #I only hope that the others escaped... perhaps on the astral plane they can survive for a time longer.#

"I never could figure out if empaths could access this Astral Plane I've heard so much about." Manuel mused. "It sounds like an interesting place."

#For all that I disparage the telepaths,# Galin murmured, #there are places they can go that we can not. Wonders barred to us.# He was silent for a long moment. #She took me, once. The Lady. Showed me what they see...#

#Like a sea of light,# Lusanya said softly. #She did that for me as well...#

Manuel paused, to try to imagine that. "Like when we see the emotions of a crowd. Every person unique, but the threads that bind them together shining with the intensity of their feelings. I always thought telepathy was so cold, so unfeeling. Just the thoughts, and none of the underlying emotions? It sounds horrible to me."

#Like stars,# Lusanya murmured. #Stars in the dark. All connected, thoughts above and dreams below...#

#Even telepaths like Nathan....# Galin's voice actually broke. #Even they can see if, if they look hard enough. You never saw his mindscape, where we existed. There was a reason he saw us as a field of stars above his beach...#

Manuel shrugged. "I don't blame him for not wanting me inside of his mind. I didn't like it when he poked his mind into my brain, that's for sure." he said with a chuckle that he only half-felt. "And telepathy still strikes me as being fundamentally cold. Maybe I'm wrong - I'm wrong more often than I'm right - but I still feel that." he said, leaning back in his chair. "Feel free to make yourselves as much at home as you can. Just stay away from my link to Amanda, and mind the memories. They're not very pleasant."

#Will you tell her?# Lusanya asked softly, that terrible sadness still in her voice. #Amanda... before she finds out from another.#

"Of course I will. But let's not count Nathan out yet, OK? If you have nothing else, hang onto hope." he said, spinning around slowly in his desk chair. Manuel concentrated on his own mindscape, putting himself into a fairly deep trance so that he could interact with the Askani figments inside his own mind more directly. His vision swam for a second, and when it cleared he was back inside his own mind - the myraid collection of places that represented his own mind. He stood in the Grand Hall, with the elevated chair that his ego usually sat in, and the blanketed picture-window that was his link to Amanda. "You can come out now." he mindcalled to the Askani.

Galin appeared first, looking more old and tired than he had any of the times he had manifested during Manuel's lessons. There was a shimmer in the air behind him, that solidified into a tall, dark-skinned man - Evaris - wearing a bitter expression. Galin smiled very faintly at Manuel, then looked around. "Ah," he said quietly. "Thank you."

"I see two - is Lusanya coming out?" he asked curiously. With a thought, he made a table groaning with Asgardian foodstuffs appear - roasted meats and birds, sausages, and flagons of bitterly cold ale - appear for his guests. "I should not forget my hospitality." he said, closing some mental doors with a thought - doors that led to his nightmares, the dark places in his mind. "Won't you make yourselves comfortable for the duration?" he asked, disappearing and reappearing on his throne - for a second looking very much eerily like the maniac on the throne from Marie-Ange's prophetic dream.

Galin looked around, frowning. "Lusanya?" he called hesitantly. "Daughter?"

Manuel grabbed a haunch of meat and a flagon of ale, and waited for Lusanya to manifest. "Daughter?" he asked Galin after a moment or two. "You mean that literally, or in that Clan we're-all-siblings-here sort of way?"

"Literally," Galin murmured, his eyes troubled as they flickered around the hall. Even Evaris was starting to look worried, rather than angry. "Lusia?" Galin tried again, his voice wavering a bit.

"Well, that's interesting." Manuel mused, but kept the rest of his commentary to himself. "I get the feeling that Lusanya doesn't much like men. I think I can guess why."

"She stayed behind to try and buy time to evacuate a farming settlement," Evaris said, walking in a slow circle, with an expression that almost suggested he was trying to sniff out Lusanya's presence. "The Canaanites... didn't kill her for a while."

"I was afraid you were going to say that." Manuel said as the lighting in the hall tinted towards the red of anger. "The animals who did it won't even be born for centuries, and I want to castrate them with a blunt object."

There was the muffled sound of weeping, drawing attention to a slender figure in a white robe huddled in the far corner of the hall, her face hidden by pale blonde hair. Evaris took a step towards her and then stopped, looking back at Galin, who stared at his daughter, pain almost radiating from him.

Manuel looked over to the sobbing woman, and the lighting in the hall changed instantly to a soothing warm yellow. "Good day, Lady." Manuel said, coming down off of his throne to walk over to her. Behind him, as he passed, the drapes covering the picture-frame representation of his link to Amanda stirred slightly in an unknown breeze, revealing for a brief second a stormy beach. "I am honored that you appeared to me in this way." he said, stopping _well_ out of arm's reach.

Lusanya looked up at him, revealing a fine-boned, heart-shaped face and intense blue eyes that were currently filled with tears. "He's gone," she whispered, sounding anguished. "Nothing we could do... they drove us out..."

Manuel looked at Lusanya and shook his head. "There are people who are going to do their very best to save him. We will bring him back with his mind intact." he said confidently, hoping to inspire her to hang on for a short while longer. Sighing softly, he turned to look at Galin. "They will find him."

"Difficult to have faith," Galin said, his voice rough. "When you felt what we felt..."

Lusanya wiped her eyes, looking up at Manuel. Without a word, she reached out her hands to him.

Manuel turned around and then stepped over to take Lusanya's hands. "I would not presume to take your pain, but I want you to know that I am _NOT_ like them." he said quietly to her. "And they will bring your Messiah back, so that he can do that thing he does to build a future where your lives doesn't have to suck quite so badly."

"I know you are not," Lusanya said very softly, trying very hard to smile despite the tears still trickling down her face. "Have I not touched your emotions, little brother?" Her hands tightened on his. "And I will call you that," she said stubbornly. "If we have so little time left, I will call you as I like."

"She got the stubbornness from her mother," Galin said very softly, a helpless little smile playing on his lips.

"You have." he said with a grin. "From you, I'll accept being called little brother. But grumpy over there, he doesn't get to be Dad. I have a father already." he said, forcing himself to maintain his good cheer. "And a name of my own. I didn't even know you two were related, or that Galin there had a wife. Tell me about her?"

"Lorella was an artisan," Galin said, wandering over to the table, as if he was trying to distract him, forget the circumstances. "Her gift was transmutation."

"She died when I was very young," Lusanya said softly, not letting go of Manuel's hands. "In a viral strike."

"My mother was poisoned." Manuel said, returning truth for truth. "I'm fairly sure my father did it. I couldn't have been any older than
fourteen or fifteen. I had fled by then."

Lusanya squeezed his hands, a different kind of sorrow in her eyes now. "I saw him, through Nathan's eyes. He frightened me."

"Who, my father? Yes, he has that effect on people. I'm sorry if he scared you. It was a very bad idea for your father and the Clan Mother
to appear before him. He knows many bad people, one of whom is a psychic vampire." Manuel said, still holding onto Lusanya's hands
tightly.

"I suppose it doesn't matter now," Evaris said wearily, lifting a flagon of ale and peering down into it curiously. "We'll soon be
beyond reach."

"Enough, boy," Galin growled, shaking his head. "You always did belabor things." He came over and sat down beside Lusanya and Manuel.
"I did act unwisely," he confessed after a moment. "But knowing what he did to you, Manuel... my anger got the better of me."

Manuel shrugged, and let go of Lusanya to turn to talk to Galin. "And that's fine as far as it goes, but aren't we empaths supposed to
control our own emotions, rather than letting others control them for us?" he said, a little sharper than he'd intended.

"We are empaths, but we are still human," Galin said just as sharply, but then stopped, a strangely wry smile tugging at his lips. "Still. A lesson for the next life, perhaps."

"And a lesson I'll keep for this one." he said. "I just thought of something - since you are in my head now, would you like to touch the
feelings once again, the way you used to before death? I can let you use my power, if you'd like..." he said cautiously.

"That's kind," Lusanya said with a tired little sigh, leaning her head back against the wall. "Very kind, little brother..."

Manuel shrugged. "I have my moments, and I'm inclined to be gracious." he said. "For all that you have done for me, it is probably the least I can do."