Starfire

Chapter 2: -Soon-

Why, why why?

   He only managed a tiny squeak that simply died away in the fading echoes of the tunnel when he tried to cry out for help.

   For a second, then another, he couldn't understand what was happening, couldn't understand the white-hot wave of agony, then he heard them. Thousands upon thousands of voices, all of them streaming through his head at the same time, overlapping and crashing against his consciousness like waves. He heard conversations about food, sleeping, children, things he didn't understand, things he did... some were loud, some were distant, still others seemed almost like they didn't exist at all, and he could still hear them anyway.

   It was everything. It was all at once.

   His mother had warned him, but her warning seemed pitifully trivial. She should have told him it would be so awfully, horridly painful.

   His lungs burned with an unreleased screech, but no sound came out.

   Yet another voice was added to the cacophony, but this one felt familiar. It had a comfortable, known feeling, like when he settled down in his nest, or when he smelled the familiar stone and moss of his den, but he felt a deeper connection to this voice, this wisp of a feeling among the millions.

   Through the deafening mental slur, he finally figured out why it was familiar. It was his mother's silent voice. He could hear her clearly, but at the same time, no sound was coming to his ear. It was the same for all of the voices. There was no physical noise at all, but at the same time, it was the most deafening thing that he'd ever heard.

   He tried to focus on what his mother was trying to tell him, but the voices were too loud. He couldn't pick one conversation out of the thousands that coursed through his head. Somewhere distant, he could feel his mouth opening in a silent scream of agony, but he had become more than just him. So much more to think about, so much to consider, so much to be.

   He forced himself to stop, to gain control of himself. He wasn't weak. He was strong. The strongest there had ever been... he knew that, didn't he? He'd known for a long time.

   He took a deep, shuddering breath. He focused on her voice, and only hers, trying to block out everything else, and eventually, the din faded away, replaced by the soothing music of his mother's sweet voice. She was his tether. She could keep him tied down in a sea of voices.

   "Just concentrate on me. You'll be fine. Just ignore everything else...." Her calming stream of silent speech was cut short as he drifted into sleep. He was too worn out to concentrate any more.

   After that point, the voices didn't come back all at once. He could still feel the interconnected web of the silent conversations going on above his head, but the pain was gone. He blocked them all out, except for his mother's.

**********************

   It was two days after he'd first experienced silent web of speech when his mother shook him roughly awake. She never shook him.

   He grunted and settled deeper into the warm moss that he was sleeping in, but his mother's scaly nose prodded his shoulder time after time, and when he couldn't take it anymore, he cracked open an eye.

   "What?" he tried to project annoyance into his single word, but he hadn't perfected the technique of talking using only his mind, and his question went out to her, rather dull. Even he could tell how pitiful the effort had been.

   "We're moving out of the nursery today." She replied, now able to speak as she was no-doubt used to speaking: silently. "I thought you'd be excited." She added a moment later, mischief not only shining in her eyes, but through her words as well.

   He would have absolutely no trouble listening to her smooth mental language all day. It was almost soothing, a calmness threaded through everything she said. At least, everything she said to him. He'd heard real venom in her thoughts as she conversed with an elder about some distant danger. Something had lain, veiled beneath the words that he didn't quite catch. That was before he'd been able to fully understand.

   "Really?" his own silent speaking had to sound like claws screeching against stone, but he'd get there eventually. He'd become just as graceful as his mother, and he'd do it flawlessly.

   It had only been two days, after all. He had plenty of time to catch up.

   She nodded in reply, and he jumped immediately to his feet. An amused huff escaped his mother's nose.

   She turned and wordlessly left the den, and he followed. He couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, which was momentarily shocking. Where had it gone? It had been there every other time he'd left.

   It took him a second to realize that it was nighttime, and there was light coming into the tunnel, just not the bright blue of daylight. He stepped out of the tunnel for what would hopefully be the last time for a long, long while, and into the gentle violet of the moonlight.

   It was so strange, not having the bright star of daylight up in the sky, warming his back. He'd never fully realized that nighttime meant the light disappeared, but as with every other revelation about the outside world, it fit perfectly with the snatches of conversation he'd heard via the nursery-bound mothers and the speech-web, as well as what they'd started to teach him.

   The pieces of it all fit together with a satisfying smoothness in his mind.

   The grass underfoot was wet with nighttime dew. His mother didn't stop walking even though he'd paused in his wonder, and she plunged straight into the forest, following the barely noticeable path that he'd seen on his first day outside.

   "So soon, so soon..." he heard the words from his mother, though they were not meant for him. What was she going on about? This wasn't soon enough!

   Then he focused again on what she was doing, leaving the clearing, and leaving him behind if he didn't start following.

   It almost shocked him, though he knew perfectly well why they were leaving the cave this time. He'd always been forbidden from leaving the little crescent of grassy soil that bordered the tunnel entrance, but not tonight.

   He felt a thrill go through him as he stepped into the forest for the first time.

   His mother had stopped a few feet ahead.

   "I was surprised that you heard the silent speech so soon." She told him, her noiseless words sounding through his head, as soothing as a trickling stream of water.

   Once again, he wished that his clumsy speech was more like hers. It was still the strangest thing to hear something even in the absence of any sound.

   All his life, the voices had been present. But they had been far away, something buzzing at the very edge of his awareness. Now, however, they were right there. He could reach out and touch them if he wanted to.

   "Usually, most don't learn to hear it until they're quite a bit older than you." She continued slowly. "But even though you're still rather small, it is our way to move from the nursery as soon as you learn."

   He puffed out his chest in indignation upon hearing her words. He was not small and he was not young! He knew from what he'd heard in the mutterings of nighttime in the nursery that he was strong, fast-growing, fast-learning, quite certainly superior. And he always had been. He always would be.

   His mother said no more, and continued her walking; deeper and deeper into the almost-tangible shadows of the forest.