notsocommon | for Wanderer

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for Wanderer

Helen had promised to spend a little more time talking one on one with Wanderer when there weren't the concerns of arrival or the bustle of a party to contend with and she'd settled for having tea with her on a Saturday afternoon. She'd brought Gregory along, of course, because she hated to saddle Will with him when she was unoccupied and it seemed that Wanderer had been fond of the baby; Helen was always pleased with people who were interested in her son.

She was a bit early, so she'd snuggled Gregory in his sling across her chest and gone to boil the water for tea, hoping to at least have that done before Wanderer turned up in the kitchen. Whether or not they'd stay in the Compound was up to her - Helen hardly had an opinion - but this part would need to start here.

When she heard a noise behind her, she turned slightly. "Just getting a few things ready for us. Did you want anything in particular?"

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"Whatever you have is fine," I smiled as I walked into the kitchen. Asking for anything for myself would never come easy. The only time I'd managed it had been the time I was positive my life was about to end.

My smile got bigger when I saw she had the baby strapped to her front. "How's Gregory today, still being good for his mother?"

"Absolutely. I fear that he will be a difficult teenager since he's been such a pleasant little darling as an infant." That would, of course, be a while down the road and Helen had plenty of time to prepare for it.

Once the tea was done and settled on the table, she could focus a little more on her guest.

"Are things a little less overwhelming than they were at first?"

"A little?" I offered, my shoulder raising and lowering. "I've met a few new people, and I don't jump in terror when I find myself alone with someone I don't know. I think everytime someone sees my eyes and doesn't automatically look back with fear or loathing, it gets a little easier to accept that I have nothing to fear here."

"No, you don't. And if anyone does say something to you that's in the least bit cross, I'll string them up. You don't exactly want to get on the bad side of a woman who barely gets to sleep because of a newborn," Helen teased. Still, the point stood: Helen was a fiercely protective woman.

"I take the well-being of my friends very seriously."

"I appreciate that, Helen. More than you know," I smiled gratefully, reaching for the mug. My fingers wrapped slowly around it, the feel of anything that wasn't a canteen or water bottle still unfamiliar in my mind, even though they were known to my body. "But there's no cause for worry, everyone has been very nice."

Even Luke, though his issues with what I was would probably always keep us more at the tense acquaintance level.

"Ah, good to hear. Most on the island are polite. I think some of the normal prejudices are moot points without an economy or real powerful government," Helen explained.

"Still, should something happen you're not comfortable with, please tell me. You needn't suffer."

Again, I laughed. The island was very much like the souls' society. Everyone working together for the common good. "I will, I promise."

I took a sip from my mug then smiled over the edge at the woman across from me. "You had questions." I didn't phrase my words as questions, just used them to open the discussion. "About what I am."

"I did. I won't try to say I'm not horribly curious because it would be a complete lie but I am fine with anything you want to tell me. Please don't feel compelled to do so," Helen said. The last thing she wanted was to pressure the girl into sharing something she didn't want to share.

"I'm not used to telling people, to be honest," I said after a moment's pause, thinking how to start. "But not because I'm ashamed or afraid. It's just. By the time I came to this planet, everyone knew what I was." I paused. "Because nearly everyone else was just like me. There were very few humans left."

Better, I thought, to get to the worst out first.

"I suppose it would be best to explain how you colonize, to start," Helen said gently. She wanted to reserve judgment until the very end because just because a species might do harm to another, it wasn't inherently bad. Sometimes that was the nature of life.

"Its how we live, how we experience the universe. When we find a planet where the inhabitants are...not kind, we observe and then send the spiders in to learn. The spiders are from another planet we've found; they love to problem solve and welcomed us and the challenges we gave them. Once we learn all we can about the species, how to maintain the host bodies, how the culture operates, we start the colonization. It's very subtle, most species don't know were there, some don't care, but some do." I took a breath, sighed. "The humans were different. Like nothing we'd experienced before."

"They resisted your colonization, I presume? Knowing what I know about my own species, we're rather stubborn. I'm rather stubborn."

It was, quite possibly, an understatement of the grandest degree.

I shook my head. "Not at first. They didn't know what was going on in the first waves. Once the humans knew what was happening, that's when they started to resist us. To fight to stay."

Unbidden, my hand went to the back of my neck. Miss you, Mel, I thought. The silence in response saddened me.

"How does it work, then? Is it a symbiotic relationship or is it more parasitic?"

Helen softened a bit and gave her an apologetic smile. "Not to insult you, darling, I'm just trying to wrap my head around how this works."

"I've been called worse than parasite," I said, returning her smile in kind, "but that is the best description. And that's how it's supposed to be. We're inserted into the host by a small incision in the back of the neck, or the closest facsimile, depending on the species. I'm really very small. My actual body would fit into your cupped hand. We have connections, antennae that extend out and attach to the brain and spinal cords, so we can move the body, see, feel, touch, hear. Experience."

"That's fascinating. Has your species always needed a vector of some sort or are you viable outside of a host? Have you ever had a willing host that shares their experiences with you mutually? Is that even possible?"

The problem with learning something that was Helen only had more questions.

"On our home planet, The Origin, we can survive outside our host bodies, but that's the only place. Anywhere else, we have minutes only."

I felt her loss again, so strongly, my eyes actually teared up. I blinked them away. "I wouldn't call her willing, and I wouldn't call the way she threw her memories at me sharing, but I have had a more symbiotic relationship with a host body. Melanie." Saying her name, the tears fell.

"Oh, darling, I didn't mean to make you cry," Helen said, reaching across the table as best she could with Gregory in arms to touch Wanderer's hand.

"I'm sorry if I asked something entirely too personal. Curiosity is both a gift and a curse where I'm concerned."

"It's not you," I sniffled, wiping at my cheeks with my free hand. "I just. I miss her. What started adversarial at best changed to where we tolerated each other, when I brought her home to her family - her brother and the man she loved. Then, the longer we stayed with the humans in the caves, they came to accept me, accept us, and she became more like a sister. She was my strength when I was weakest, she helped me understand the humans in a way I never would have alone." I let go a very soft laugh. "I could certainly use her now."

"Would there be a way for her to show up here? Obviously I'm thinking this is a new body and not the one you shared with her," Helen said, trying to work out exactly how it worked.

"If there's a way for her to come here, I hope that she does."

"I've met two people that are here from the same place, so I suppose it's possible," I responded, not daring to even dream it. "And yes, this is a different body, but there's no sign of the original human mind here. Just me." I sniffed back the lonliness that was still just at the surface. "I'm guessing that the former host, Pet, had been here for a long time, or the host body was young when she was inserted. Whichever it was, there's no resistant mind."

I was quiet for a moment, thinking about what could have possibly happened after...after Doc removed me. "It wasn't supposed to happen."

"What wasn't? Coming to inhabit this particular body?"

The idea of a body being completely blank and devoid of a personality was somewhat fascinating and in that way, Helen could see the relationship between Soul and host as something beneficial to both - if the Soul needed the body but the mind were gone, like with a coma patient, it wasn't inherently a bad thing. Then again, she didn't think it was a bad thing anyway because all species change and adapt in ways best suited to their particular challenges.

I nodded, trying to put words to my memories of those last moments in the caves. "I was tired of being a parasite, tired of living my life at the expense of others. When I decided...to give Melanie back, to leave so she wouldn't be imprisoned in my mind, it was with the intention of not coming back. Dying." I finished and had to take a breath to calm the erratic emotions.

"I asked Doc to bury me with my friends, to not put me in a cryotank. I didn't want to go to another planet, another life. I wanted to stay on Earth, be buried with my friends."

"And yet your friends made the decision to put you into this body instead," Helen said, smiling softly. She could see why. Wanderer seemed a gentle, loving person and incredibly self-sacrificing and altruistic. It seemed at odds with her species' preferred method of propagation and colonization.

"I must say, I'm grateful, because otherwise we'd never have met. I've never encountered a species like yours before."

The way she said that, it wasn't the first time I'd wondered just what Helen had encountered. "I still don't know how to feel about it. I'm not...there's no one else in here, but I'd made my decision to leave, resigned myself to it. Said goodbye to...to everyone. It's oddly disconcerting to be living a life I never expected. Just for my own curiosity, have you seen many other species?"

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