2024-07-07 - Humble, be.

She had encountered something that felt like this before. She couldn't quite remember where, perhaps in the terror of the quake and the rescue.

Her first reaction was to start, consider a shout or a song, and fling herself into a defensive mental spread across her siblings, counting everyone that surrounded her.

It lasted but a second, the impulse merely a flitting shadow. She reached again.

What she felt wasn't a frightful kind of mind.

"Hello." It was soft, a tentative and mildly musical trill, tamping down hard - as she wasn't sure whether the Big Voice wanted to scare this new mind off or bounce right up in greeting. "You are talking, you are talking to us? To me?" It lifted in a hopeful little lilt. "Can you hear me? Who is awake - Ilrioth, Yjeth? Anybody - who is this?"

She shifted and rocked in her egg, attempting to press and wriggle in the direction of the curious mind - until that mind started to speak.

And Rioth stopped rocking, quirking her head and accentuating it with a wordless mental question.

Humble, be.

That immediately was a strange feeling, an odd concept that initially seemed so utterly at odds with Rioth - or a Rioth that had existed, before. There was a Rioth that shouted instead of listening, that collected before she considered.

She did not want to be that Rioth. This new mind, this new person was intriguing, and she wanted to be heard. And so Rioth listened.

Lies, never empty. "I don't understand!" Her shout startled even her, but it was a plaintive one - she had been so thoroughly wrapped in the mood and feelings of the words before it was yanked beyond her reach once again.

But the final statement was good. The blanket had been ripped away at the concept of lies, only to be gently laid back around Rioth, and she happily would pull it close to herself and wrap it tightly around her, snuggling tightly if not happily, embracing the nuance.

She waited until the words had seemed to quiet, and then waited some more.

And when the "thank you" slipped from her mind, it was a grateful little hum.