Naktan stood at the pinnacle of the mountain, poised on its very top. Granlakeeanin (The spirit of the mountain) had been his home for many decades, and sometimes, it felt like many centuries. At times he felt as if he was not simply one life, but many lives strung together, like a great chain of renewal and death. In his memory he swore he could remember teaching wisdom to the old saints, teaching them the forms of wind, water, fire, stone, and ice. He felt as old as the world and older but, he also remembered being a child, being told stories.
Perhaps he wasn't as age od as he felt, but a vessel for the memories of the past.
Who could be sure for certain.
Here on the pinnacle of the mountain, he could see everything. It took great poise and strength to get to the top: complete control over mind and body, an intimate understanding of your own form, but it was a climb he had made many times. Below him the land was arrayed in a churning whirl of colors and textures.
Once upon a time Naktan had looked down upon that land and wished he could join it. it had seemed so far away, almost unreal past the slopes of his mountain. But not so many months ago, he had woken to a premonition. For all his life he had been instructed to follow the visions, and despite many hundreds of years of tradition, he had stepped off his mountain, cutting his own way through ash and moss to bring wisdom to someone in need.
Below him, in the near darkness of early morning, Blue sulfur fire licked at the slopes of his mountain.
There were many who thought that the Drev's introduction to science, and the following revelations about the Architect and the origin of spirits would spell the end to the Drev religion. The same had been thought about humans. However, there were a multitude of responses from both species. Of course there were those groups who rejected the idea outright as ludicrous, then there were those who came to accept the knew order, completely discarding there old ways, but then there was a third, the sort of response that Naktan subscribed to.
He did not see his beliefs as being in open contradiction to the truth they had found. What he had before was a simple primitive understanding of how the world worked, but everything he knew and understood about spirits was relatively the same. This was just new doctrine in the knowledge that he could offer his people.
And Naktan did crave knowledge.
Despite his seeming isolation, he wasn't without a few surprises.
IN fact, only yesterday he had read an in-depth medical compilation of Drev anatomy, and theoretical evolutionary changes over the past centuries. The read had been both fascinating and informative. The origins of where he got his information would have to remain a secret for now.
Naktan lifted his head to the sky, watching as a glowing white dot appeared against the dep indigo.
First if was bright, then it dimmed, blinking and slowing as it made its way towards the ground.
Ah. It would not be long now.
Naktan had been told of the current situation, of how Smaug, a great sky beast of ancient origin, had urged them to find the key to unlocking the power of the soul. Which, even naktan had to admit was a tall order. He had spent his entire life as a mountain hermit, and still he wouldn't have considered his attunement particularly successful.
But now they didn't have any choice, and out of everyone in the known galaxy that might be able to figure it out, it was him.
The saint's human mate had offered to ship him to his artificial city in he stars, but unfortunately Naktan had to decline. It was not because he wanted to be difficult, but out of practicality . he wasn't certain if he would be in tune with himself on a strange world. No, best to do it here where he was comfortable and familiar. He was well aware of how convenient the trek to his mountain would be for some.
But he would rather be successful with the few than fail with the many.
Carefully, he climbed down from his place on the pinnacle, returning to the white moss of his lifelong abode, and sat before the pool of calming water. He sat for many hours as the sun rose high into the sky, and there he centered himself, preparing for what was to come. As he continued his meditation time seemed to pick up speed incrementally, Chal sat right above his mountain, casting burning light down upon his back and warming the pool of water before him.
He opened his eyes slowly.
"Six people sat across the pool from him, four aliens and one Drev. Three of those aliens were human, sitting on the ground with their legs folded unnaturally before them. They rested their hands in their laps and their heads were bowed. He couldn't help but stare and marvel at their strange and inexplicable anatomy, so similar to the Drev but also so... strange.
Then there were two creatures of strange and unusual origin. One of them looked not unlike the southern water crawlers, with eight limbs and wide prismatic eyes that reflected ultraviolet light back from the sun.
Lasty came a creature that Naktan had not seen before. he looked almost like a human, even dressed like one, but he was fully absent of color, his skin completely white. And his eyes were jet black, no sclera or pupil. Great billowing tendrils rolled out from his shoulders and undulated like the fins of a water creature, despite being on land.
One of the humans, the one with the dark spiral hair, fidgeted where he sat.
The white billowing alien stared at him, and Naktan felt an uneasy chill run through his body. The creature's lips turned down In a frown. The feeling came again, but Naktan took a deep breathe, and it dissipated.
The creature continued to frown, its eyes narrowing once.
Naktan stiffened as a cold spike drove itself into his head. He would have gasped were it not for his own self control and the sudden violent reaction in which he protected himself. Using all his self control from years and years of meditation, naktan threw up a wall in his head, and aggressively drove the spike back out. The white creature flinched back and its eyes went wide.
Naktan nodded once.
"I am pleased to see you have al mastered the art of patience."
"To be fair, sunny warned us on the hike up." Sunny's mate Adam said, receiving and elbow in he side for his troubles.
Naktan hummed in amusement, "Nothing wrong with that. Knowledge is power, and being able to apply that knowledge is wisdom. If you had not waited patiently, I would have not engaged you to begin with." He turned to look at the new faces, "These are our.... What is your human term.... Guinea Pigs?"
Adam showed his teeth/ smiled at Naktan, "that's the general idea."
The Sun saint bowed her head to him, 'Wise one, you have met Adam, there is Ramirez and Maverick, this is krill, and that over there is Conn."
The one name Conn continued to glare at him. Naktan did not flinch, "You will not hear much from my mind, starborn. May years of isolated meditation has given me complete control and mastery over my own mind. I know what is in it at all times, and that includes foreign entities. With enough discipline the mind is to be a sanctuary."
Adam lifted his head as Conn scowled, "You mean you can teach me how to keep him out of my head?'
Naktan looked Adam over, "I imagine it will be easier to teach you how to access the power of your anina than teach you how to calm your mind."
The sun saint snorted, and her mate made a face, "No need to call me out like that publicly, damn."
"I have one question?" This was the first time he had heard the eight legged one speak, "But I have some health concerns regarding that sulfur fire"
Naktan held up a hand, "You are the doctor are you not."
"yes."
"I have read some of your articles. Very informative, but I promise you," he raised his hands to the mountain crater around him, "The walls of this valley will protect you all from the fumes of the sulfur fire . I myself have lived here many years with no adverse affect."
"How many years is many years?" Maverick asked,
Naktan shrugged, "that I do not know. Maybe only ten perhaps a thousand. I have so many memories that it seems like it could be a very long time, but having read some of your literature, I think perhaps those could be intentionally planted memories, to give me the wisdom of the Guardians who came before, but that is merely conjecture."
He snatched as the group glanced at each other with strange expressions on their faces.
"Now, we must begin, for there is much to do, and none of us have an eternity to spare. I will sit with each of you individually, we will meditate, and I will see what can be done for you. Based on what you have told me, I understand that the body is a construct that acts as a power dampener for the anina. The anina at this point is basically juvenile and ha difficulty controlling tis own power so it is temporarily contained. Each container is made specifically to house anina, specifically allowing some of the power to pass through but keeping most of it at bay, yes?"
They nodded
"Naktan took a deep breath. So it stands to reason that the only way to use the power of Anina is to have a mind and a body that understand each other completely. If this were to work, by the end you would be able to control every aspect of our body, and I mean everything."
They stared at him blankly.
He looked at the doctor, "You would be able to control your own core temperature with simply a thought.
The creature barked a startled noise, almost like a human laugh but sort of warped, "That's ridiculous. Impossible even."
The sun saint turned to glare at the little creature who wilted a bit, "sorry, but that is simply not possible. I'm a doctor, and if a creature had to manually control all of their own background functions at once, than you would never have crawled out of the ocean as a multi celled organism."
"I am not saying you would need to, only that you could."
"it is impossible."
"I doubt your leviathan would have said otherwise if it was not>" Naktan pointed out
Off to the side the curly human, Ramirez, was grinning, "I can think of a lot of great reasons to manually control bodily functions.
For that comment he got punched in the arm.
Naktan sighed.
He was not encouraged, but he was going to have to try.
He stood and motioned Adam and sunny forward, "You two will be first." It would be easier to do the short ones quickly before he got into the long and involved examinations . he sat them down one by one in his forging cave, sitting on the ground facing each other. He would them have them hold out their hands palm up, and he would rest his own lower hands atop theirs. Then he would rest his upper hands on the shoulders of the person he was attempting to read.
Sometimes he would ask them to talk and sometimes he wouldn't.
His conclusion.
Sunny and Adam were as close as he was going to get. Sunny had changed a lot in the past few years, mostly for the better. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and her mind had calmed steadily over that time. Being away from her mate for two years had changed a lot in her, and feelings of inadequacy, and the desire to prove herself to people who didn't matter were no longer there.
In Adam it was much the same, though there seemed to be lingering feelings of guilt that he could not get passed.
When they were done, he brought the one named Maverick back with him. Meditating together he saw.... a welling darkness, a life full of running, and an affinity for the dark, a feeling and desire she had always been plagued by but had never accepted. The dark liked her, and she liked it back, but that enjoyment scared her. She had turned to faith to fight those urges, though it had not been entirely successful. She was afraid of herself and what she wanted.
Ramirez, out of all of them knew least what he was, and least what he wanted.
There was only so much of krill that Naktan could stand at a time. He was simply an aneurism or a heart attack waiting to happen. A taught strng close to snapping at all times, but it was a result of almost near constant fear and anxiety that lead him to be the way he was, or so it seemed.
Conn was the most difficult.
Instead of sitting and meditating, it turned into a short session of battle of wills before Conn gave up trying to enter his mind. Some might have called it pride of bravado, but Naktan saw, loneliness, very deep and agonizing loneliness, but it was easier to simply push people away than watch them leave. He saw other things too but it was difficult to make sense, especially when the star born was making faces at him.
This was going to be more difficult than he thought.