2024-06-28 - [4.2] Networking

The quiet is nice. It is like before, when the world was made of fewer concepts and things didn’t get more complicated every time a new mind entered within reach. Courth enjoys the challenge new input presents, and the gaps it fills in his knowledge of the world, but he is discovering moments of relaxation are necessary. Too much information clouds the mind. Rest brings it back into sharp focus.

So when the voice calls out to mother-Gwillanth and the blue descends (moves down? Drops? Which way is up? Warmth or cold?) Courth resumes his mutinous sparking and storming.

It had been so nice without all this excessive emotion. Real progress had been made! Now, mother-Gwillanth’s mind was a bright mess of emotion and physicality that all seemed so unnecessary. All it does is highlight how strange her dependance on touch and messy love. Viewed only through Gwillanth’s mind, Courth doesn’t understand why living with the distaste of the weyr is difficult. She still loves. Still experiences life with joy and is healthy. The blue’s return to his gold and its importance, when he could choose to leave and never have to deal with the backlash of the weyr again, is entirely lost on Courth.

He fully intends to return to his solitary musings and solve the puzzle of yet another fact about the world – temperature, what causes it? – except…Intruding in bits and pieces, breaking Courth’s concentration, and missing far too many details to be coherent, Pertemarth’s home gossip sinks its hooks into the person-egg’s mind and draws him in.

Before he knows it, Courth’s shell is slipping in the sand as though his physical leaning can help him hear more.

’...What did she do? No, you cannot leave it like this! What did she do *?!’

Practical considerations could come after the story.