Adam was off balance when he landed back on his foot. The transition between Impetus and himself was getting easier, but it was still massively disorienting. As Impetus his mind seemed to expand, reaching out to infinite places, his body hummed with power, and everything around him was just that much sharper as if he could feel the room in motion. Returning to his more human self was like being blindfolded gagged and tied up, his vision snuffed out, his hearing lost, his entire body robbed of its ability to feel.
Luckily for him the feeling vanished quickly, and he became aware instead of the unpleasant stickiness of his shirt, which clung heavily to his ski. The air was still filled with boiling water vapor, hot and oppressive making it a little more than uncomfortable to simply breathe.
But his discomfort was nothing.
Not compared to the expressions of awe and fear he saw in the room around him.
Mitzen had fled to the corner of the room only now peering out from around a crystal mineral formation. Before him, the council of zealots cowered back huddling together like a group of frightened penguins. A few of them had to pull their hoods up from where they had fallen over their eyes, leaving them in a state of confused disarray. They looked much less impressive now despite the black water which boiled in the pool below them.
He could hear their muttering as he stood, leaning heavily against his crutches.
Inside their heads they were in even greater disarray.
His news was not good, and none of them wanted to believe what they were hearing.
He couldn't blame them.
Some of them straight refused to believe what they had seen, and were more than ready to show everyone. They stood, red robe brushing softly against formed crystal, "Lies! Lies against Shanshara." Adam or Impetus had made very sure not to question their religion when he was explaining everything about the makers and the void. Still he had been forced to mention the architect. A part of him had debated pretending the architect was shanshara, but that let too much like lying, so all he could do was heavily imply it.
Clearly that had not worked for some.
Another stood, one of the three zealots from earlier, the ones that were a little more inclined to agree with him for whatever reason, "A holy message. You would deny what you eyes have seen before you."
"We are being deceived."
The conversation broke down into an argument, and Adam leaned heavily on his single leg. It didn't matter what they decided, he had done his duty to them, weather they agreed with him or not was a moot point. Off to this side, Mitzen was in a state of confused indecision. He knew what he had seen and he didn't doubt it, but what he had heard was a departure from what he knew of shansara, and he wasn't willing to let that go just yet.
Not when he had dedicated his entire life to a religion.
Another part of him was doing his best to reconcile the two beliefs to see if they could fit together.
Adam didn't know, and wasn't sure he cared at the moment if those sort of mental gymnastics were possible.
He was just so tire .
Turning into Impetus really took it out of him. His body was not designed to hold all that power in one place much less channel it. Or perhaps the better explanation was that his body was perfectly capable of holding the energy, it just wasn't designed to use it , and the result was always an unpleasant mix of exhaustion, like he had just run a marathon (and he knew what that was like, he was the reason behind what they were calling "Burning man runs" or marathons that must e completed before the sun comes up, bonus points if you are wearing something stupid when you do it. Marathon exhaustion, muscle soreness like a heavyweight lifting novice after a competition, and a sort of mental fog that he attributed to the exhaustion but felt more like the place somewhere between being awake and being asleep.
In this state it was difficult to keep others thoughts out of his head, but luckily for him he didn't have to interpret what he was hearing and let Celex do that for him.
"They're afraid."
"Didn't I tell them not to do that."
Celex snorted, his ears flopping against the wet mass of his draping fur, "You seem to think yourself amusing."
"I am, and I am glad you can read my mind so that you would have the requisite background to laugh at my joke that requires biblical knowledge of a religion you have never even heard of."
The distant bickering continued as their banter went on.
He stood there leaning against his crutches, growing heavier and heavier by the second. If he wasn't careful, he would stumble forward and face plant into the boiling pool of water, and he doubted that sunny would like that. He would just have to trust Celex not to let that happen.
After a while, and just before Adam was about to collapse, Mitzen approached.
He was nervous, and didn't get to close, keeping a good ten foot distance between them as he spoke.
"The council must discuss the words you have brought with you today. Please follow me back to your ship."
He wasn't about to argue and followed mitze, slowly and painfully back through the labyrinth of crystal and smoke.
There was mostly silence
Before
"What was that."
Adam lifted his head, still mostly groggy, and looked down at Mitzen who stared up at him with a demand in his expression, "What was what?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Adam rubbed his forehead against his shoulder trying fatally to increase the blood flow to his brain, "I'm sorry, but doing that..... takes its tole on me."
Unsatisfied, mitzen continued, "What, was, that. What takes its toll, what even. These, maker things, are you one of them ?"
Adam had left out the part of his life story that included major surgery to free his anima, but he didn't have the energy to make up a lie either. He had had a brief discussion with Celex about weather or not they should even tell the council. Celex pointed out that there was a likelihood they weren't even maker constructs at all and that they were independent occurring constructs. Either way Adam argued that they had a right to know what was going on in their universe.
In the end, Adam's argument had won.
But now he just didn't have the energy.
"All of us were makers once, and we will be again."
"What does that mean." Mitzen pressed. From reading his thoughts, Adam could tell Mitzen was skeptical, but Adam; s performance had shaken him enough that he wasn't entirely sure what to believe or not to believe.
"You know what a soul is?" He had never heard any of them use that language, and he could only use words that he could read inside someone's head.
So mitzen just tilted his head at them in confusion at the alien word.
"Um, the personality as separate from the body. The part of you that is you, your thoughts and feelings and experiences."
"Oh yes, a spirit." Mitzen said, Adam could see that his understanding of the word had much different connotations, but it would have to do for now.
"Yes, the spirit existed long before he physical body, too young to battle we were sent away to construct bodies to develop quickly in order to join the forever war. The construct is designed to dampen the power of the soul so that they cannot be detected by void, and partially to keep us from blowing ourselves up with our own power. I.... have a condition that allows my body and my anima to stray from each other." Again he avoided the part where they had artificially done the procedure as he doubted their religion would appreciate that, "And once this body dies we will become makers again."
Mitzen was skeptical, and confused, and the explanation didn't make any sort of sense to him, but he was trying valiantly to understand, which Adam could certainly appreciate.
He remained silent.
"So what is the council going to do." Adam wondered, leaning his body towards the wall as they passed over a shelf of crystal.
If he was going to fall he would rather fall int other wall than into the boiling water.
"They will debate, and then they will pray. After that an acolyte will transcribe the meeting and deliver it to the theocrat who will read it and make a pronouncement. That document will be returned to the zealots who will interpret the word of our great leader and decide where to go from there.
Adam nodded his head once as they headed their way through the last few crystal halls and out into the night air.
Stepping onto the shuttle was a real breath of fresh air.
The smell of sulfur receded, though it permeated his clothing. Life support kicked into action, pulling the humidity from the air and blowing cool, cold recycled oxygen back at him. It was heavenly for a moment before the condensation on his skin grew cold and he began to shiver. He didn't have the energy to pilot them, so Celex engaged the autopilot.
It was a bumpy and uncomfortable ride as Adam sat slumped in his seat.
The autopilot was slow, poor at flying and took the long way around, but at least it wouldn't crash. It was guided in automatically by the Empyrean's system when they were close enough, but by that time Adam was fading fast. His entire body felt like the life had been sucked right out o him, and was now swirling down a never ending dark drain.
His muscles ached and he couldn't imagine ever feeling human again.
The shuttle landed with a bump, and the doors were thrown open.
He could hear voices.
Hear Celex talking.
Sunny's thoughts drifted into his head, warm and familiar. He had just enough energy to lift his head as she appeared, kneeling next to him and feeling his forehead, "You're freezing."
Celex explained.
The sensation of being swept off his feet and carried down the hall like a bride on her wedding night might once have been embarrassing to him, but at this point in his life, whatever shame he might once have had was completely absent. He shivered against Sunny's chest as she carried him away leaving celex behind to explain what had happened.
A lot of people tended to think that Drev were aggressive partners. A few ignorant assholes tended to assume that all Drev relationships were akin to abusive considering their thing for fighting each other, but Drev are actually very good spouses if you can manage to land one. They are more monogamous than humans are, and will do almost anything for a partner if its asked of them. He admired her patience as she helped him out of his wet clothes, in favor of a warm shower, dressed him and then put him to bed, never once giving any indication that she was annoyed with him.
The last thing he remembered was feeling her curl up next to him as he was drifting off to sleep.
***
He was still tired when he woke up, his mind a groggy haze, but he still recognized the tail end of her voice as she said.
"And that's why I am worried that it's happening again, and I don't know what to do if it is."
It took all he had in him to simply roll over to face her, but he managed. As soon as he began moving she went very quiet. He felt one hand rest on his arm as he rolled over eyes opening slightly to look at her in the near dark.
The bedside lamp was one, glowing a gentle pink.
"What was that/" he asked.
She ignored the question, "How are you feeling."
"So so." He said groggily."
"Celex said soemthing about you turning int impetus again."
He nodded, "Yeah, they didn't believe my story, so I needed proof."
She paused, "Do you think they believed you?"
Adam shrugged, "Some of tem did I think some of them definitely didn't, but it doesn't matter we tried and that's all that counts...." He paused and yawned turning to look at her, "Are you ok."
He saw her struggle for a moment, open her mouth, pause and then close it again, "What if I said....."
"Go on." He said past another yawn
"You know what, go back to sleep and we can talk about it in the morning."
Too tired to argue with her, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep