Matter over Mind

[saerwen]

"Or perhaps, little fox, I was searching for something else. You might have dealt with more telepaths than most, but we don't all work the same. At least I don't. I look for more than memories when I go into people's minds. If I wanted memories, I'd go into a coffee shop and eaves drop on every conversation in the place. I study human behavior, not human history."

"My dear girl, I would be more afraid of you hurting him, than me," Aeryn's voice was not a reassuring tone. There was a threat there, but it was not meant to be blatant. "I have no intentions of hurting him, but you could change that very easily. I'm not a coward, but I don't come to a fight empty handed. I use the weapons that are given to me."

Her touch was tantalizing, and she knew it was. SHe had figured that part of him out. He was tempted to lash out and grab her, but he stopped himself, simply because he didn't really want to think about what he would do after that. He didn't even know if he could have figured out what he would have done with her. However, she was taking that power of manipulation too liberally. Once more and he would snap, he knew it. His eyes were slowly starting to dilate, he would lose his form soon.

Aeryn listened, very interested in Tarian. He was so calm, so chill about everything. That was a rare thing to find. Usually the second that people discovered he was a telepath and inside their mind, they wanted him out and they wanted to ensure that he wasn't there to hurt them. He was an alarming presence to the mind unaccustomed to such a feeling. However, Tarian seemed to be handling it pretty well. Aeryn was glad, and he know knew what this fellow was apt to do in troubling situations. It was interesting how much you could learn from a simple reaction.

"Don't worry, Tarian. I can hear it very well. That is what happens when a telepath gets inside your head. They hear all of your thoughts, even the smallest ones that you don't think anyone would notice.

"You are wise to trust Cecily more than me, and I will leave your mind. However, before I do leave, let me give you a little advice. I came into your mind with no intentions other than to learn a little more about the way you react to things, a little experiment that I conduct with most everyone that I meet. But there are many other telepaths out there, all with varying degrees of power. Anyone of them could get into your mind unnoticed because you lack protection against our kind. Most telepaths aren't conducting experiments like me. They are out for things more substantial. For your own good, and simply because I happen to like you, you might want to figure out how to keep us out. Besides," he smirked slightly, " Cecily would be much more at ease that way." Aeryn then pulled out of Tarians mind. Tarian would have noticed the change. That was how it was for those that actually survived a strong telepath. You never noticed them coming in, but once they left, you knew someone had been there.

It seemed as though Aeryn had just cut his telepathy off from Tarian when he felt something start pricking and stinging in his mind. Something was messing around in there, or someone. Aeryn looked from Tarian to Cecily. Her eyes were obviously glowing. This was her doing. The only question was what was she doing? What kind of power was this? He knew that it was magic of some sort, but what on earth was it exactly? He glared at her and then his eyes narrowed. If she wanted to start that, fine. She had practically begged him to play with her earlier, so fine. He would start playing. His mind began to work faster and harder than it had in a while. He had pulled away from the world around him and entered into his own. He dove into his own mind, his own thought process, looking at the deeply covered and bolted down memories, the keys to his own little vault of thought were clutched tightly in the palm of his human form. He then found exactly what he was looking for. THe bridge. Everyone had one. It was the bridge between your mind and someone elses. That was how he had become so good at slipping into people's minds unnoticed. He had learned the way to find people's bridges. It was like an open door simply begging to be entered. However, when you accessed you own, you allowed others to come into your mind, and sometimes if you were careful, you could forcefully pull others in.

He opened himself wide up to Cecily. She would have felt his thoughts eeking in on the edges of hers. "You want to play, little fox? I dare you to try. You think you understand all telepaths, you think they are all searching for one thing? You are very wrong. You think that I meddle, but you are wrong there as well. I do so much more than meddle. If you want to start a fight with me for playing around with your precious friend, be my guest. I would be justified in whatever I did to you."

[»Míríel«]

"You think you know me, but you don't. You don't even know where to begin. I do not think of being above others or of knowing all things about everything. You read things into my words that were not the original intention." She was growing tired of him putting words into her mouth. He didn't understand her. She shouldn't be surprised, only one person did.

When he mentioned her hurting Tarian more than him Cecily almost lost her skin. He knew nothing, nothing at all. Anger was boiling within her, but it could not be detected past her serene expression on her face. Perhaps if one saw the tightening of the jaw they would have noticed, but few would. "You probably didn't mean to hurt Neron, and you almost ruined him. You meddle, sometimes you take a step farther than you mean and disaster occurs. Minds are not something to be played with. Every one is different, as you said, so stop acting like you know minds and you know where to tread. There are pressure points which even you must not know about. Even Tarian has a trigger."

She wanted to rip him to shreds, she wanted to watching him die an agonizing and brutal death. One that Poison could aid in prolonging death. If she had her way and if she was a murderess she would have struck him with poisoned claws and then fed him the antidote, not enough to cure him, but enough to make his death agonizingly long. Never had she been so tempted to take someone's life as now.

Tarian smiled he was glad that his thoughts could be heard. To be standing dumb while one waits for an answer is always unpleasant. "I appreciate the advice, perhaps you could help me in this area. Perhaps I could pay you back in some way." Once Aeryn left Tarian felt a weight lifted from his mind. it was a strange sensation, he had never know how free it was without someone within your noggen. "Brillant" He blinked once or twice. Ah no headache, there was beauty in that.

Cecily felt his mind come closer to her and she narrowed her eyes more. The magic started to become stronger. Her white kitsune figure appeared in her mind and was the usual ethereal and ghostlike form it usually appeared in. She seemed to be made in mist, any minute she could blow away. She hissed as her ears flicked back and she crouched down at the edge of their two minds. "You are a fool a bloody fool. " She was growing tired of this man. At first he had been amusing, but now, It was different. She shook her head. IT was a trap, to be sure, he was planning something. She wanted to let him not have any hold over her, to be justified seemed to be counter-productive to her. Still let him think she was stupid. Let him think she was all that he thought she was. "You telepaths think you are so different don't you? You think you are all stronger than you think you are. Fine, then I will play. You are right, I think you are all different, try and prove me wrong." She smirked and took a step in. Let him do what he liked. She didn't care.

[saerwen]

"No, Cecily, I don't think I know you. I am not even sure that I want to know any more than what I do. And if you think that I am lording my power all over the place, then I am sorry, but perhaps you would do much better if you stopped throwing yourself all over the place. I might believe your claims at innocence much more then." When she mentioned the Neron problem, he gave a slight smirk, but it disappeared as soon as it appeared, "You think that I don't know the dangers of what I do? I have been doing this for years! Heck, I have done this since the day that I was born. You think I don't know that there are uncertainties in the mind? Of course I do! That is what makes it so intriguing. It wouldn't be any fun if they were all the same, if they were all one type, one thought, one shallow image. But Cecily, I know where to tread to do the things that count. There is a fine line to everything. Even you, for all that you see, for all that you know, you don't even see your own mind the way that I see it." He shook his head, "There is no way you could understand what happened."

He watched as she stood at the brink, he heard what she said, and he got ready. He knew what she was thinking. She thought it was a trap, but she was wrong. There was no trap waiting for her. Simply a dizzying game of balance. He stood at the other end of the bridge, his true form a barely visible, camouflaged by the pitch black background of his mind.

"It is obvious that we have much to learn, so let the lesson begin on my end. Every telepath that you meet from here after will thank me for showing you this. I just hope that you are teachable, because if you aren't you will get into deep trouble."

He stepped away from the bridge and disappeared, from then on, all Cecily would know of him would be his voice as he explained things along the way. As soon as his form disappeared, it was replaced with a strange image. It was blurred and dark, but there was one bright light shining through, though what it was, no one could have been able to see. It came closer and closer until finally, as though someone were walking closer towards it, it was clearly visible. It was a picture of a girl. Cecily would have recognized it as Jaedon. Cecily would have then felt as though there was a heavy force weighing down on her, like something was pushing her into the ground. It was not so overwhelming that it was hard to stand, it just made things very tiring. Then, a slight prick at the back of her mind. THe picture changed. Again it was Jaedon, and again, it changed after that little prick on her mind. In the background, the sound of hundreds of voices, all the same tone, but all saying different things was being muted out, audible, but just barely.

Then the images faded and placed in front of Cecily was a tall wall, thick and strong. It was layered over to many times that it looked as though nothing could break through it. A rush of thoughts came pouring through, all jumbled together and urgent.

"Could this possibly be what I am looking for? Have I found it yet? What is behind this wall? Who taught him how to make a barrier like this? Where are his memories? Are they behind here? Why are they being hidden? What is it that this man fears so much within himself? Has he faced it before? Has he learned to conquer it? If he has trapped it behind this wall, then he must have learned to conquer it? Then he knows! Or did his telepathic girlfriend do this for him? Why would she have built such a thick wall? Is there really something terrible hiding behind this wall, or is he bluffing? Why is it all alone? It doesn't even go on for a long time? It is a cage?" The point of view would have begun to slowly rotate, turning the wall around as though Aeryn were trying to walk around it to see more of it, but every step that he took seemed to pull a layer of the wall away. His steps faltered when he heard heavy breathing coming from the inside. "What on earth is that?" However, before anything could be done or said, something caused Aeryn to lose his concentration. A tidal wave of high pitched sounds, thousands of random thoughts, and bright images came rushing through. He stumbled forward, trying to regain balance, but his steps had been all it took. By the time that he had gotten everything under control, the wall's layers had been reduced and the dragon broke free, dark and menacing. "Great, jsut what I needed. Me to start losing my concentration and him to go insane. Now I will never get what I came for." The next thing that Cecily would have heard would be Neron telling Aeryn to leave his mind or die.

Everything went black. The pressure that had been pushing down left and the winces of pain that came every now and then stopped. "Neron's mind was difficult to navigate. That feeling of pressure weighing down on you is the feeling that a telepath gets when they are pushing past someones barricades. It is hard to do. The stronger the barrier, the heavier the weight. Most telepaths create barriers in their mind that physically crush you to the ground. Neron's was close. Had he been even more on the ready, I have no doubt I would have had trouble walking. I had no idea what was behind that wall. Sure he had warned me, and I knew that I was treading on thin ice, but I also knew that I could peel back the layers slowly and leave margin for error. However, I lost my concentration for a moment because Neron nearly doubled power in that split second and I had no warning and barely any time to readjust so that I wouldn't be crushed and trapped. I stumbled and that was it. I had lost control of the situation in an instant. It was no ones fault, a simple accident. His well trained reflexes and my well bred curiosity combined to make one big mess."

Then, Aeryn's voice died away as one voice, a woman muttering about her marriage became clear. Then another voice layered on top of hers. It was a man shouting angrily at the taxi drivers that kept passing him by. Then another person, and another, and another. THey all piled on top of each other. Eventually it was simply a deafening roar.

"This is why I hate going into the city. Telepaths have to block our powers out so that this doesn't happen," Aeryn said as the roar died away. "It is also why I hate going into women's minds. They have so many thoughts going through their mind at one time it is almost painful to hear. The amount of effort that it takes to block that out, you would never be able to understand."

As a last measure simply to stress his point, Aeryn showed her a picture of a little girl who sat on a bench crying. She was dressed in black, clutching a teddy bear tightly to her chest. Aeryn entered her mind and tried to find some sort of comforting memory to help the child hold back her grief. However, before he could get to those memories, he had to fight his way through the ones that were currently at hand. That was of the little girl walking into her front door and calling for her mother and finding that she was not present. The girl searched all over the house for her mother. The feelings of joy that the girl had had filled Aeryn, and now Cecily since he was allowing her to feel it, seemed to bubble over the cup of his heart. However, the little girl reached the top of the stairs on her house and ran into her mothers room and found her mother lying dead on the floor, a pool of blood seeping from her head, a gun held in her hand. The joy disappeared and gut wrenching sorrow felt from the heart, to the head, all the way down to the toes filled the little girl and in turn Aeryn. Those feelings seemed to pierce his heart and tears would have welled into his eyes. It was an agonizing feeling. Then everything went black again.

After a few moments, Aeryn picked up where he had left off, "Cecily, it is quite obvious to me that you hate my powers. It is obvious that you think very poorly of them and I can only credit that to awful experiences with others. There are many out there. I grew up among some of them. But you really need to learn something Cecily. Telepaths either learn to develop their powers, or they go insane. If we don't continue to use our powers, our minds become idle, and we go insane. Every moment of our lives is spent balancing on a very thin tight rope, and no matter which way we fall off, the end result is the pit of insanity and later on, extermination. I don't poke around in peoples mind simply because I find it fun, or because I just like to see how they react. Those are the pros to having to use my powers. I have ruined amny lives with my powers, trust me that i know how destructive I can be. But my goal is to be able to keep myself sane and keep the people around me sane as well. So next time you feel like judging my kind, keep these things in mind. Remember the weight, the noise, the agony. It is all weighing down on us, and sometimes playing around with people is all that we can do to survive. Don't ever pretend that you know what it is like for us ever again. Telepaths live in hell every step of the way, especially the strong ones. Now, leave, unless you want to learn some more."

[»Míríel«]

Cecily watched all that went on but she didn't let anything show on her face. No emotion, no thoughts. She just watched and nothing passed in her mind. She would listen, she would watch, but she would not let him know how she felt. The whole thing hurt her, but probably not in the way he thought it would. He thought she was some unfeeling wretch. Someone who didn't care about others, or who was bitter against everyone didn't he. He didn't understand a thing. She didn't need to see thee images, she didn't need to have what he felt pressed upon her.

She sneered at him as he talked to her, ending his whole field rip. "You are a fool." Her voice had a sadness to it. "You are a blind fool. You know nothing about me. Nothing. Don't lie, you like to see how they react, you like to see the differences in others and you like to see their personalities. Don't spin this off like some victim. Neron warned you. If your curiosity hadn't gotten a hold of you you would have listened to him. Your first mistake was to disregard the direction of someone who knew their mind better than you did. You were the cause of that. I don't care how much precaution you used in seeing into that secret place. People have walls for a reason, or did that fact never occur to you?" Let him think her as a heartless fox. She didn't care anymore. As long as he stopped messing with those around her she didn't care if she saw him anymore. " I never judged your kind. ever. I do not hate your power. Your whole show has been worthless. Everyone has bad memories and good ones, this whole event has only shown me that you aren't any different, which I never doubted, nor did I want to see. You see I'm different then you, I don't care about your past. I only care who you are now." Her face still hadn't changed from the serene nonchalant expression it held and turning she walked out, her tails swishing behind her like a sort of mist, " I don't think I would learn anything more. Sounds like a waste of time."

[saerwen]

Aeryn scoffed at her, "You're right, Cecily. I do like to enjoy my life. I do enjoy seeing how people react. I do like to see variations in people's personalities. That is how I survive. The truth of the matter is, I want to live, and I want to stay right in the head, so I do whatever I have to, to ensure that happens," he laughed bitterly, "And don't worry about me turning myself into the victim. I have been victimized enough without having pity loaded on as well. No, I am simply explaining to you why I am the way I am. You say that you care only for who I am now, not who I was in the past. Well, it is a hard truth, Cecily, but your past makes you. I trusted that you would be able to connect the dots, but I guess not. I don't claim that I was completely innocent in what I did to Neron, I simply said that I made a mistake and let my curiosity get in the way. A few years ago, perhaps I would have cared a little more, been curious a little less and Neron might not have had that episode, but this is not a few years ago when I was timid." It was at this point that something inside Aeryn changed. His whole demeanor became darker. He felt it pulling scraping scratching, and suddenly the chains were set loose. He was finally back to his old self.

His voice became more harsh, calloused and disgusting. It no longer sounded like a smooth silver tongued man, but a seething one, finally out for revenge,"I don't play by the rules anymore, Cecily. I cheat because I can. And don't give me that whole wall philosophy. Walls are made to be torn down. If you can contain the evil inside, fine, but in reality, we are all monsters just waiting to break out. As a telepath, I am in hell, but I am just one of the demons, having fun at others expense, opening their eyes to what lies inside and making them face it. The only people that are safe from me are those who have no more skeletons in the closet and no more things to hide. Those are the truly transparent people. I have yet to meet one. Looks like I will be having plenty more fun in my life."

When she was out of his mind, he looked at her, a cruel smile twisting his handsome features. His whole person seemed much darker now, "Feel free to look at me any way you choose. Ignorant, arrogant, or heartless. They all fit to some degree. But I just hope you realize one thing, the only thing that truly describes me is cruel. The weak are made to serve the strong, and I am one of the strong ones in this instance. Hope you enjoyed you visit in hell, Cecily."

Aeryn then turned his eyes away from the girl and looked at Tarian, "See you around, Tarian. Maybe next time I can give you that lesson."

With that, he turned away, opening his book and picking up where he had left off. Cecily was still a mystery to him,he would admit that, but she still had no idea about half of his character either. She had just seen a small ounce of it. What few knew is that Aeryn had multiple sides to him. A sweet side that came out to help and serve, much like the one that had spoken to Tarian. But there was also a darker side that had just spoken to Cecily. While it wasn't as drastic as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was similar. The only problem was, Aeryn did exactly what he had said, he had both his evil and his good balancing on that tight rope, and it was this chaos that created the non-emotional, cruel, yet curious Aeryn. Unlike Neron, who had caged the beast, Aeryn had set it free and let it run its course, keeping only the leash as tight as the good side could stand. As long as Cecily was around though, Aeryn was sure that his Hyde would continue to take front and center stage. He was perfectly content with this. He had tried being nice, but now it was time for his darkness to eat his soul from the inside out. Hyde declared war, Jekyll declared curiosity. How the two would collide, Aeryn had no clue. It would be interesting.

[»Míríel«]

Cecily just snarled at him. Still she listened to every word he said, and to be honest it hurt her. Would she let it show? Never. Still even she couldn't hide the tell tale signs from her best friend Tarian. He knew that when the two stopped speaking aloud and were staring at each other that they must be talking in their minds. Something was going on. Cecily's face grew like stone. Her eyes took on a different sort of gleam, not the fiery and playful one that resided there before.

Suddenly Aeryn seemed to come alive and he turned and opened his book. When he mentioned the lesson Tarian smiled and nodded, " I hope so! " Only when Aeryn had left did Tarian see any movement in Cecily. She just turned and left without the slightest word about anything. Tarian waited, knowing that she wanted to be alone. He would go back to her place and put on some tea. She would talk to him if she needed to, he was the only person she trusted. If she never told him that was fine too, Cecily was Cecily. Shrugging he turned and walked away. Perhaps e would go hunting for something before heading over there. His stomach was starting to grow rather empty.

THE END