(Rose)
I regain consciousness suddenly, still in terror of what just happened to me.
R – Never do that again! Nokarlık!
I yelled.
I slapped her in anger.
She cried and ran away from me.
Even Blume didn’t laugh at our situation. I fell back to the ground, still trembling. My clothes are shreds and I’m still covered in gastric acid that itches all over.
B – How do you feel?
R – It was terrifying... What happened?
B – She grew back as fast as she had shrunk after swallowing you, and spat you out. You were gone for a few seconds at most...
R – I felt...
Shivering still. I’ve just been killed!
R – Why did she do that?
B – I’m not sure...
I feel awful now, in more ways than one.
~
The day is still young and the weather is as beautiful as the landscape. All as I left it a minute ago, but it now feels like a long time has passed.
Nok ran along the ruins in tears. Tears so big and numerous they make a wet trail in the sand.
I recover my senses, my breath and my strength and go after her.
What weird idea went through that giant skull of yours my Nok...
~
I found my daughter sobbing heavy tears not far behind, curled up like a wounded animal.
She’s still taller than I am even right now.
She has unimaginable powers hidden in her. She can run, she uses tools with ease in her hands.
She can speak.
Sometime it’s hard to realise this person I’m coming to hug isn’t even one year old...
I still reek but my young child finally hugs me back, crying all over me as she used to, not that long ago.
Growing too fast...
R – I know you didn’t mean to harm me.
N – ... Never... I want you live!
She just cries all the tears in her bones. I don’t apologise for the slap. It doesn’t matter.
I cuddle her until the tears dry.
She truly scared me when she swallowed me...
I hope there was nothing more behind it.
~
Nokaranlık didn’t have a clear reason for what she did.
It was just... a childish impulse.
I remember a time when Blume killed people whom were about to bring my doom.
She was uneasy too this time.
For one because she can live without me now, and for second because it was Nok.
Blume was struck no better than I was by what just happened so suddenly in front of her.
Nokarlık remained gloomy and apologetic all day long. She really felt awful even though she didn’t understand what happened much better than us. There was no clear intellectual reason for that.
I returned to the reef before the end of the day. I found my bag where I left it, and brought it back to camp.
As I dried with Nok by my side in front of a campfire, Blume and I began studying the big chunk of oversized skin I took from Nok earlier.
The big thing didn’t shrink back. It’s just as real as anything else.
Blume looked at smaller pieces under a makeshift microscope from scattered objects in the nearby ruins.
Nok’s finger wasn’t even showing where I prickled her.
R – What do you think?
B – We should give her a tattoo.
R – What?
N – ?
B – Just a small one. To see how it changes.
R – Hm... What’s your theory?
B – I have two. Either she keeps her surplus of flesh dematerialised as T.I. and always accessible if needed...
That’s our current hypothesis. Hidden resource.
B – Or her real body is the full one, but most of it remains dematerialised. Meaning there might be a continuity of her structure and metabolism into T.I., that affects all of her always.
R – Ah, I see. It’s because I returned alive...
If some form of structural integrity wasn’t preserved in dematerialised form, I wouldn’t have returned as anything but partially digested soup...
R – She’s a living portal...
Nokarlık understood some of our discussion but wasn’t in the mood to intervene for now. She just held my arm tighter.
B – I think Nightmare managed to create a working biological translator, not just for her own body but also between matter, baryonic matter, and equivalent T.I. structure.
Holy goodness...
R – That’s... Another philosopher’s stone...
My sister found or created two of them as we travelled.
B – Well, unless it’s actually something entirely different. To investigate on these hypothesises, I’d start with a small tattoo.
About the ways of the world, Blume is seldom wrong.
Though if it’s only through her stomach, the use for this translating power is limited really.
But still...
If Blume is right, Nok might simply fully exists on both planes, and be able to shift at will, because all of her cells would have that ability. It wouldn’t be storage in her bones or anything like that, but the ability written in all of her cells to transcribe themselves and what they surround into T.I, and keep all of it functioning in relation with both sides. To transcribe and transform freely between both sides, to path between worlds at will...
It’s a stupidly complex metabolism. Impossible I would want to say...
She may not be something nature could create in less than a billion years... Such life may not be possible on its own.
The biological philosopher’s stone... Well, the second one seen and created.
R – Either way... The lord of nightmares still impresses me.
Nokarlık understood I was praising her mother, and tugged my sleeve.
N – Story...
I began thinking of another story that happened to me in the past, twisting it sometimes.
Once upon a time, there was an abandoned nuclear reactor, where we could learn more about T.I., the particle of the beings-like-her...
~
B – I’d like to check something inside her genitals.
R – That’s creepy even coming from you... What are you thinking about?
B – If I can have a look at one egg, inside an ovary, I could confirm at least if most of her properties will be hereditary.
R – ... No.
Blume didn’t insist. But now I wonder too about what Nok’s future progeny will be, if any.
I don’t know what Nightmare envisioned, but it’s far too early to think about it.
There’s more play and training to come for Nok in her giantess form.
The details of Night’s gifts hidden inside of her can wait.
Although I’m curious like Blume, I care for Nok as my daughter, not as another biological experiment.
She may kill me, but I love her.
~