Learning in the Dark

For three months I tried and failed to form mental tendrils. After awhile I figured out the problem, not enough energy. At first trying 3 times and barely forming the start of a tendril was enough to exhaust me, but slowly I was able to progress. It was a grueling process that i thought of quitting quiet a few times only to be pushed forwards by the sounds of my mothers voice. The thought of communicating with her was far too compelling to let a bit of exhaustion get the best of me, though I did have to be reminded of that a few times these past months. Whenever she sensed my frustrations she would start to sing the most wonderful melody, I'm sure that it could end wars should she grace a battlefield with her voice. Her song would return me to peace and I could focus once more on creating my tendril. Then, finally, the day came and I was able to finish the creating a mental tendril. The process left me barely conscious but it was enough. I mustered all the focus I had left to examine it, making mental notes on things to streamline the process and keeping in mind that the tendril seemed to be slowly sapping mental strength if it was kept manifested. Though the drain was small and it was slowly decreasing even farther it was good to know that it did have a maintenance cost. After I was finished examining and making my notes I let it fade out of existence, I was exhausted again and I would rather be fully mentally capable when communicating with mother for the first time. Not to mention that it was also getting towards the time when she usually slept, I imagined that if i reached out to her now she would force herself to stay awake as long as possible for me and I didnt want to burden her like that. I was right, she had just started her usual nightly chat at me before she slept, slowly slipping into murmurs and then silence as the steady rhythm of her breathing lulled me to sleep. Tomorrow was a big day so I embraced sleep quickly enjoying dreams of conversing with my mother throughout the night.

I slept particularly nicely whether it was a result of the exhaustion or the dreams I didnt know but I could feel a steady movement from mother so I assume she is out walking around already. I started to get a little excited as I formed the mental tendril. It took a little bit of time and was a bit tiring but I succeeded on the first try today. I grew happy and then started to extend my tendril towards the presence of my mother, finally coming into contact with her and then freezing in terror. As soon as I made contact with her mind she seemed to explode with a presence of extreme danger, her mind becoming an incredibly solid barrier with sharp edges ready to shred any intruder with ill intent. After a moment of intense terror I quickly sent out some thoughts, some of her voice saying my name and some of my own feelings of happiness. The hostility from before lessened slightly as she slowly felt the direction of my intent and reached its end and her hostility disappeared entirely. Suddenly my tendril was let through her mental barriers and I felt too many things at once. A weird spinning feeling as she exploded into motion, dancing in delight as a divine laughter emanated from her occasionally broken by her saying my name in jubilation. As my tendril slipped into her mind her presence wrapped around it and sent so much bright and loving feelings that i was dazed for a decent amount of time. Finally recovering from the mind numbing whiplash of emotions that I had witnessed from her I sent my own happy feelings and a slight calming one. She slowly calmed down slightly, only giggling incessantly and sometimes trilling out my name cutely on occasion. Then we started to talk.... Kind of....

At first all I could do was convey feelings, I caught brief glimpses of what I assumed were sights from outside but they fragmented too quickly to clearly make out the same happened to any sounds we tried to convey, It seems like while I had managed to manifest a rudimentary tendril true communication was still a bit off. Mother however realized things quickly as she sensed my frustration over the crumbling images and sounds whenever I tried to come into contact with them. She stopped sending them and returned to just using feelings and intents for the time being. Comforting and reassuring me as well as smothering me in tonnes of her love and happiness at our contact. We maintained contact for the rest of the day as she resumed her daily activities while continuously sending feelings to each other. As the day neared its end she started her usual chat at me, this time laced with various feelings, the surge of joy at one point and her saying my name was probably her going over our first contact. Eventually I started to become tired and could feel a bit of regret seep from her as I sent out the feeling. I laughed internally, I knew she would try and stay up all night to talk. I started sending out a happy and calming intent in waves in tune with the song she usually sang me when I was frustrated. She laughed as she recognized the flow and started to sing with the waves of emotion, eventually reaching the end and she spoke again, I assume saying goodnight as she sent the intent to sleep back at me. I sent another happy feeling before slowly letting the tendril slide away and fade as we fell asleep.

Our routine continued on like this for nearly two weeks before I was finally able to send words through our mental link. My name was the only thing that I knew she could recognize so thats where I started. This sparked another round of her dancing and some incredible amounts of chatter before she calmed down. I used a voice similar to what I had as a child so as not to make things weird by speaking as a full grown man. I think that would have been off putting for us both so I avoided it altogether. The introduction of sound in our contact, while progress, wasnt all too helpful. We could speak, sure, but both of us sounded like gibberish to each other so aside from learning each others words for various emotions it didnt go very far. This progress however was very encouraging, soon we would be able to convey images and I could truly start to learn things and eventually hold real conversations. These thoughts gave me a lot of motivation and it wasnt long until I was able to use images through my tendrils, only 9 days of work and I succeeded in sending a picture of a clouded sky at sunset, the clouds were coloured a fantastic range of reds and oranges that I had always enjoyed about it. Yet another round of dancing from mother and what seemed like a hundred photo albums worth of images flooded at me before she calmed down. After she showed me a few things in great detail. A house that I assumed we lived in, it was larger than I expected, seems like we are slightly wealthy, good to know. A garden with various flowers that was well tended, I recognized a couple that had earth equivalents but couldnt be absolutely sure. A small town with various faceless people, while the town was charming the few people that appeared being faceless was a bit off, it seems like mother wants her face to be the first one I see in this world. The sentiment is nice so I try to ignore the faceless ones. Finally she showed me the image of her hand and arm caressing her pregnant belly. She kept the image of herself limited, along the same lines as faceless townsfolk, wanting me to see her for the first time with my eyes rather than an image. Once she had shown me the things she wanted we started a new conversation, eventually I was able to convey my desire to learn her language only to be met with a beautiful tinkle of laughter and an image of her hand with all five fingers extended. It took me a bit to understand and it finally clicked, five languages. She wanted to teach me five languages. I sent an image of one finger only to be met with a somewhat stern feeling and her hand holding up five fingers. I could feel a headache starting to form as I agreed and she laughed before immediately launching into her teachings. My next four and a half months were a blur of letters from multiple languages, words and eventually simple stories in each one.

During this last few months we started to be able to talk to each other. Very simple sentences or ideas as I was nowhere near proficient in the languages she was teaching me but it was enough. It brought me joy to be able to speak even the simplest things to her and i was slowly becoming more proficient, although it was hard to keep each language separate I was eventually going to get used to it. Mother would talk to me in different languages almost all day as she went about her business and then tell me stories at night as we fell to sleep. I was very content with how things were going in the most part, four out of the five languages were on the whole very simple the fifth however was a nightmare that pained me even after so long. I dont know what it was but this one was on a different level, but mother was always patient with me and didnt seem to push the fifth language as hard as the others and that was very relieving. After learning to make mental tendrils and slowly developing them, than learning five new languages, the time finally came. I had been feeling a slight restlessness building up in me for the awhile now but I couldnt place it at first until I finally realized where it was coming from. My new, unborn body was sending me urges to stretch. I suppressed most of these as I wished to avoid causing mother much discomfort but in the end it could only go so far. One day I awoke and sent out my regular tendril only to be me with her voice from the outside.

"Not today Vi'Cothol. Today is your day and I need to be out here. Focused. I'll see you soon. I love you so much." Her words shot a jolt into my mind. Today was my birthday. I dont think I am ready to experience this, is there a way to be unconcious for this? I didnt think about this part earlier. birth videos were always so gruesome and now I was going to get a front row seat. Crap. Im sorry mother.

A blur of events, screaming, pushing, intense discomfort and an incredible brightness. The feeling of air on my skin and the brightness now around me was very upsetting. I tried to open my eyes only to seen a blurred outline of things and then feel myself get placed down and wrapped. At least I wasnt exposed to the air anymore. And then I was passed over to my mother as she soflty whispered my name, my vision cleared up slightly to see the most beautiful face I had ever seen. She had a layer of sweat on her face and her hair was sticking to her face but these things were to be expected, she did just have a baby. Her hair was a deep crimson colour and her eyes a piercing violet, skin pale and flawless. If I didnt know better I would have thought she was a goddess, her beauty was unnatural. I tried to speak but all that came out was a couple spurts of gibberish.... the same thing again..... she smiled down at me and kissed my slowly scrunching up face.

"Dont worry Vi'Cothol, you'll speak soon." A tear leaked out, Dammit. After all that learning and effort, and I still have to wait for my baby body to develop properly and get used to it. I closed my eyes and sniffled a bit as my beautiful mother snuggled me to her chest and we fell asleep, both surprisingly exhausted after our ordeal. I sighed in my mind as I fell to sleep. Why couldnt it just be a bit easier... also who was the doctor, where did they go? ... I guess it doesnt really matter, time to sleep.