Chapter 52: Ch 52 – Coreless

It took a few moments to sit up properly.

Devin climbed down into the cave and joined the goblins. “What exactly is going on Anna?”

What was there? Could we trust each other at this point? Could I ever honestly? Why was I still asking myself the same old question? I'd just proven without a doubt in my mind that if I threatened Naan it would kill me. Yet here I was still wanting a better way.

Not sure what else to say I spoke, “I just overthrew a dungeon.” I admitted my tone was more somber than not.

“Quite smug aren't you.” Naan said into my head.

“Not really.” I replied to Naan feeling quite the opposite, like I'd just gouged out a hole in my chest, both physically and mentally. Though that might be entirely hyperbole on one front.

“This isn’t really what I wanted…” I admitted out loud.

Devin frowned over at me, while the goblins seemed to at least be settling down a bit.

“What do you want then?” Naan asked me.

“I've told you again, and again! I wanted us to work together rather than separately!” I said shifting back to mental communication and hanging my head.

“I refuse to let you make decisions that put my existence at risk." Naan stated firmly.

"Yet you're fine with risking your own existence?" I asked.

"Of course, are you not the same? Would you not attempt to stop Devin from telling the world about you and having them hunt you down?"

"I would try to stop him. But I trust Devin not to do that sort of thing."

"Nothing but excuses. You'd fight to the death if it came to that. If it was you or him. You know that. I know that." Naan insisted.

Was it true? Would I kill Devin if he fought me? I'd helped kill an elf, I'd fought to protect Devin. But the reality was if Devin pulled his sword out and it came down to that, what would I do? I didn't know. I didn't want to just lay down and die, but I didn't want to hurt Devin either.

"I don't know that." I replied, but Naan only scoffed at my indecision.

What now? How did we move forward from here? I didn’t think it was impossible. How could we regain what we’d just destroyed? We’d burned a very important bridge between the both of us. Then again had it only been one-sided from the beginning? I couldn't help but want to be Naan's friend, to want us to have that bond.

“Do you think you can keep me prisoner?” Naan asked.

Clearly, Naan didn't care about any of that, I was focused on working together, Naan was now simply concerned for its survival. It broke my heart to hear.

As for its question, I didn’t. Not really, the rock wasn’t stupid. We didn’t understand one another certainly, but it was capable of thought and planning. Trying to keep something that could claim and manipulate the environment captive was a disaster waiting to happen. The only idea I had was that I could store it outside. But even then it was sun and moonlight that prevented it from doing its things, right? Hardly a sure thing.

I discarded that whole line of thought. It's not like I wanted to do that. What else was there?

“We could make another contract?” I asked Naan.

“No. We can only have one contract.” Naan noted.

Even with the strongest contract, we couldn’t find common ground.

We could discard it in the trees or a cave somewhere. But I was forever bound to it, my soul fused with this gem? "Can we cancel our contract?" I asked.

"Even if we could, I refuse." Naan stated.

"Why?" I asked.

"I've risked a lot to promote your growth." Naan insisted.

I wanted to ask how we could rebuild trust. But the truth was it had never trusted me from the beginning. I finally understood that there was no winning.

There was only one option left to either of us, and I think we both knew it.

“Devin…” I held out my hand.

“Yeah?” He asked walking over to me.

“Will you hold my hand?” I asked.

He stepped up and took my hand into his and knelt down next to me as the goblins shifted to look at me instead of looking to protect me from the cave.

“What… what are you doing?” Devin asked clearly noticing the strangeness in my tone.

I squeezed his hand with mine. I looked at the goblins.

Tears streaked down my cheeks as I realized I needed to do this before I changed my mind. Before I was talked out of it.

“Anna…” Devin said intently.

I took a breath and then focused on the gemstone inside of me.

“I know what you are planning. I won’t go easily.” The sentient gemstone replied.

“I made my position clear Naan.” I reminded it.

“Do you think for a second that your frail soul can stand up to mine?” Naan asked.

I couldn’t help but smile. I couldn’t say why. Naan simply didn’t understand me on any level, I could only pity it for that.

I wasn’t doing this to kill Naan. I was doing this to protect the people I cared about. If Naan was left as is, then who knows what the outcome would be. I would have settled for being its conscience, or even its shackles. I'd have tossed it into the lake and forever parted ways. What lay beyond this moment? I didn’t know. Did my intentions matter? If this was anything like the abilities or magic I’d experienced so far then I could only hope so.

I closed my eyes, squeezing down on Devin’s hand, I felt him grip me back.

Taking one last breath and letting out a single sob I finished making my choice and forced my will into action.

I expected pain. I expected agony. What I didn’t expect, was the sound of a gem fracturing inside of me. While I couldn't see it, I could feel it, it was akin to watching the snuffing of a candle flame. One moment it was there… then it shattered into smoke… the smoke drifted outwards, and then there was nothing left.

“What…?” I asked as a very strange sensation overcame me. It was jarring, to say the least. As though I could see… outside of myself. See… other things. Lines… Numbers, words a language that I couldn’t help but understand even though I didn’t understand how I could possibly do so. I started to feel sick almost immediately, there was too much and I felt like the gaze was moving around even as I tried to stop it, like two kittens playing with a floating eyeball. I tried to avoid looking through that strange sense. Ignoring it seemed to help, it was still back there… somewhere. But actively pushing it from my mind helped a lot.

“What… have you done?” A voice asked in my head.

“Naan?” I asked back perplexed by this.

“Yes…” The voice in my head replied.

“Oh, shit…” I couldn’t help but say out loud.

“What? What happened?” Devin asked clearly worried.

“I… don’t know.” I admitted.

“When why did you say, ‘Oh shit!?’” Devin demanded.

“Because… Naan’s gemstone is gone… but it’s in my head.” I tried to explain.

Devin stared at me, “What? What does that even mean?”

“I already told you… I don’t know.” I reminded him with no less panic.

There was nothing but silence for a time.

I broke it internally, “Naan.”

“Yes?”

“This is just a thought… but… you don’t think that this is because of the contract do you?” I asked.

“Perhaps.”

What did we do? What did I say? What the hell was this!?

“Naan… you can see what I see too right?” I asked.

“It's… strange, but yes.”

“We quite literally are sharing a body….” I was the first one to admit it.

“So it would appear.” Naan agreed.

“Can… you control my body?” I asked horrified by the prospect.

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My fingers slowly flexed without my saying so.

“Oh, shit…” I repeated myself.

“Now what!?” Devin asked.

“Stop asking me that! I’m freaking out!” I proclaimed.

“So am I!” Devin joined in.

“Naan…. Don’t do that.”

“Yes, you should avoid moving my gaze as well. That was quite unnerving and almost painful.”

Painful? I'd say it was more sick than painful. But maybe it didn't understand the sensation? I nodded, “Right… so hands off of each other's shit… I can agree to that.”

“Right…” Naan agreed.

“Also… I guess now that we are one person we shouldn’t really plot to kill one another… that probably won’t work out well for either of us.” I pointed out.

“Agreed.” Naan replied.

We sat there for a while just… freaking out for the lack of anything better.

After some time Devin asked, “Should… Should I get you something to drink? Would that help?”

I nodded, “I think so.”

I mostly zoned them out as he worked with the goblins to make that work.

“Naan… Are you using your ability to speak with me?” I asked it.

“No…” Naan replied.

“It’s not that different for me. How different is it for you?” I asked.

“Much… I normally see each mind I can communicate with as a possible connection. However we… are just a single mind now.” The voice in my head replied.

“You can still talk to people though right? Other people…” I asked.

“Yes…” Naan agreed.

I wasn’t sure why I bothered to ask. It wasn’t like anything was broken, it was just all wired strangely.

Devin returned after a time and handed me a familiar water skin. I took it and drank from it. Besides the obvious mind-melting senses that I was pretending didn’t exist I felt so totally normal that it was hard to imagine I was sharing my head with another being.

Still, this might have stopped us from wanting to remove each other from the world, but it did pose questions that needed answers.

“We should restore our dungeon’s claim.” Naan said while I thought.

“Why?” I asked.

“If we stay as we are we cannot use any of my abilities, or use the two souls that are stored… in… our body.” Naan noted.

“Those are still in here somewhere right?” I asked using my dream ability to sense for them once more. I was glad to detect them even before Naan replied in the affirmative. Even more, now that I was feeling for them... I could feel like I could almost touch them... like there was a wire between us gently vibrating. No, that was Naan's don't touch it, don't think it!

“Alright… I guess I agree. But what's the issue?” I asked.

“You turned them all on me. Or did you forget?”

I glanced around at everyone who was very must just staring at me unabashedly.

“Naan and I have… I guess decided to form a bit of a truce considering things. We… are kind of the same being now.”

“What?” Devin asked clearly disturbed by that.

“Yeah… Um… It’s really weird, and I’m not going to lie we have no idea what we are doing. But we both agree that for the moment we should at least re-establish the dungeon I… broke earlier.”

“Alright…” Devin said glancing around, “Not that I understand that.”

“Yeah… I get that it sounds strange. But I need you all to relax and trust that the dungeon isn’t going to do anything weird or hurt you.” I pointed out.

Scout frowned at me, “But did.”

“It’s your fucking fault Naan!” I passed the blame internally.

“I did not harm you or your goblins.” I heard from somewhere in the back of my mind, it felt different than usual. Yet all the same I knew it was Naan speaking to someone, if not all of the goblins.

Scout replied firmly, “Anna tribe.”

Flawless goblin logic was flawless. What could I say?

I could tell Naan was annoyed.

“Naan won’t do anything now. If I get hurt, it will get hurt too.” I explained.

Scout seemed skeptical.

“Trust me?” I asked him.

Scout frowned but nodded, “You forgive… We forgive. But watch…” He insisted with purpose.

I gave him a smile, “Thanks.”

“So?” I asked Naan.

“Perhaps it will simply take time? It seems like they weren't so easily accepting it… Even if you tell them to.”

“I guess that makes sense. You really overdid it.” I pointed out.

“You are not without fault, but... I do regret.” The voice in my head replied.

“Yeah… that makes both of us.” I sighed.

Just sitting there I realized I felt tired, run down like I'd been hit by a mental truck. How late even was it at this point? two? four in the morning? How long until the sun came up?

“I think we should call it a night before any of us do anything else stupid.” I pointed out.

“Wise choice…” Naan agreed slightly sarcastically.

I slowly began to rise and Devin moved to my side, “Are you alright to move around? You really don’t look so good.”

As much as ignoring the sensations in the back of my mind was helping it wasn’t like I wasn’t still experiencing them somehow. It was no different than staring at a piece of paper and reading it. You could still look at something even if you weren't actually giving a shit about it. I was experiencing what Naan was looking at, seeing, and experiencing at the same time it was doing that for me. There really wasn't much of a divide between us. It was like we had crammed two rooms together and with no wall or even screen between, it left us both in an awkward situation.

“Yeah… I know.” I agreed.

Devin helped me up the ladder without prompting and helped me to our room. I lay down on a few pelts he had laid out from the goblin stash.

“And here I was planning to treat you tonight.” Devin said.

I smiled fondly at him, “I appreciate the sentiment… but could you just hold me?” For once I honestly couldn’t even think about such things.

Some part of me was concerned about what would happen when I went to sleep. Would Naan take control? Or would it be unable to control a sleeping body? Would we both sleep? I was driving myself crazy with the possibilities.

Devin however unaware of my internal thoughts or issues laid down behind me offering and wrapping me up in his arms. “You’re always so weird… but you really scared me back there.” He said softly behind me.

“I’m sorry.” I said feeling his arms with my hands. “Today… this is just been stupid crazy.”

“Then get some sleep. We’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

I nodded resting my head on Devin’s bicep.

I wish I could have said sleep came easily, but it didn’t. My mind was full of nothing but worries and concerns, and foreign senses that didn't really stop. It could even see in the dark which only made it worse. My mind kept going over and over with no answers. Still, Naan was quiet. Perhaps feeling much the same.

No doubt both of us were realizing that if only we had worked something out this wouldn’t be happening.

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