They were both panting when she stopped. He made as if to tickle her and then grabbed her hand. He brought her fingers to his mouth and lightly nipped the tips, his icy blue eyes staring into hers with a shy hate.
Fiera stood up from where she’d been watching them, still not able to credit her hearing. Birshima never giggled or laughed, she’d taught her from very young not to. Seeing her play like a child with the demon child troubled her, but she smoothed her frown and walked down to meet Robert and Cherine. As is fitting, she first greeted Arthur. After she greeted Robert and Cherine, Birshima came to stand before her. Fiera frowned when she saw that Bobby had followed and was standing next to her daughter, his frosty blue eyes boring into hers. He was made nervous by her frown and took hold of Birshima’s hand. Mother and daughter looked at each other with surprise.
As severely as she could, she asked, “What have you learnt daughter?”
Birshima hesitated, afraid that what she would say will displease her mother. “I have learnt that it takes more strength and courage to love than to hate.”
“You will remember that when you are Fire Woman?”
“I will.”
“I am not disappointed, you may continue travelling with them.”
“Fiera, what news from your people?”
She pulled a face. “They are quick to forget all life has taught them, accepting without questions the easy ways of your people.”
Robert slightly bowed his head to her. “In that case it is our responsibility to prevent them from suffering because of us. We accept the responsibility. Will you join us for tea? It is not hot anymore, but should still be warm enough to drink.”
The next morning they dressed for rainy weather, carried food and the water that Arthur insisted they take with. “You do not know if the water there is potable. You don’t want your healers fighting strange germs instead of healing the land.”
They arrived at their last point and walked down the slope. The horizon before them seemed strange, rimmed by dark mountains until the clouds rose higher and reality dispelled the illusion. “It doesn’t make sense Robert, however much it rains in this land, such a massive cloud should continue to our home land.”
Robert pointed to their left. The cloud had parted and one half seemed to be drifting even further east while the other half drifted slightly to the west. By the time it covered a third of the sky before them, the major part of the cloud was over the ocean. Like a dark veil the rain fell on land and sea.
When the rain reached them, visibility was so poor that they were in danger of falling off a cliff edge - should there be a cliff ahead of them. The water running down and eddying around their feet made it impossible to see where they were walking, so they stopped. A thorn bush floated past them, moving at considerable speed. Robert immediately concentrated on creating an energy shield, placing the half curve behind them. They could bear the rain lashing at them, but one thorn bush hitting them could kill or shred them, filling their blood with poison.
The rain strengthened until they were gasping for breath. They felt as if they were drowning. Urgently Cherine concentrated on forming another shield, this one over them. Within seconds the rain was blocked. Bobby was clinging to Robert's leg with one hand and with the other he held Birshima. Her eyes showed she was in shock so Robert grabbed the back of her shirt. “Is there any point in waiting out the storm? Let’s go home for a few hours.”
“How do we teleport while we simultaneously maintain the shields surrounding us? Look at the water behind us Robert, if you let down the shield the water will sweep us off our feet.”
“Hold on to the kids, I have to concentrate.” Desperately he forced the shield metres into the rocks below and extended it so that the shield formed a tube with them inside it. He grabbed the kids. “Grow your shield, make it a roof sitting on my shield.”
Twenty minutes later the shields were severely tested by a mudslide. Mud and rocks slammed into the shield and parted, flowing to either side. The mud built until it was close to the top of Robert's shield. He yelled into her ears, “I’ll keep my shield strong, you let yours go and teleport all of us out of here.”
As they arrived Robert collapsed. Cherine screamed and let go of the children to place her hands on his chest. Her healer told her it cannot heal him, he is dead.
Ntchizi forced herself upon Cherine, for she had gone berserk. “Listen to me Cherine, his soul was torn out of him when his body was teleported because he was concentrating all his energy on maintaining the energy shield. Order your healer to keep his body alive, the heart must keep beating so that his brain is not damaged. Then go to the void, he needs you there.” Once she saw Cherine had heard her, Ntchizi called to Arthur by entering his mind to tell him he is needed in the void.
The Sparkles were holding Robert, protecting him from the void. Forgetting everything but her need to speak to him and hold him, Cherine tore into them and grabbed him. *Cherine! What happened? *
*You got torn out of your body.* She burst into a fit of sobbing that made it impossible for her to speak for a while. *My healer says it can’t keep your body alive, you must go back now!*
Robert tried and returned. *I don’t understand, I can’t get in.*
*Your cord has been broken Robert. May we examine your body? * They returned with good and bad news. *You could not enter for two reasons. Ntchizi has moved into your body to help keep it alive. When you were torn out the connections between your soul and body were damaged. It is indeed fortunate that you allowed us to examine the connection when it was healthy. If you send your healer with us and it obeys our directions, we might succeed in repairing the damage. Cherine, your healer reports damage to your body. Bobby panicked when he thought you had both died and he hit you a number of times.*
Arthur arrived and he shared what had happened. *Go to comfort Bobby, I’ll stay with Robert. Cherine, if you can, bring both Bobby and Birshima to the void.*
When Cherine opened her eyes she saw smashed ceramics, glass and wood littering the room and Bobby cowering in a corner, Birshima trying to console him without coming within reach of his hands.
“Bobby, come to me baby.” She sat up with arms outstretched. He ran to her, knocking her over as he smashed into her, his arms wrapping themselves around her neck. Cherine laughed and sat up again, holding him to her. “You are growing too big for jumping on me like that. Did I frighten you Bobby? I’m sorry, Robert was badly hurt and I panicked. Robert will soon be with us again, he is being healed.” She glanced at Birshima who was looking a little worse for the wear. “Birshima, Robert asked me to invite you and Bobby to the place we go when we leave our bodies. There are some very nice people there we called Sparkles. They are not like us, but they are friendly and have saved us a couple of times. Will you come with?”
Cherine was almost startled at how quickly Birshima heard and sensed her, but then she recalled that the girl does have psychic talents. With the two children’s souls cocooned within her she took them to the void.
Birshima spoilt it for Cherine and Robert. They’d expected her to lose control and show fear. Instead she absorbed her surroundings with interest. *I’ve been here before and I’ve seen them, the Sparkles. This is the dream world? *
Once Bobby was out of his body and the limitations the brain sets on all of us, he recalled his prior visit when he’d died. He remained within Cherine for a long time before gathering the courage to dare the void. Cherine and Robert danced around him and Birshima, flooding them with love motes. Birshima was shocked when motes Bobby sent felt like hate to her. She made the mistake of trying to send back to him hate motes and he withdrew from her, puzzled as to the reason she suddenly seemed to hate him. She quickly sent love motes and he calmed down.
They were all relieved when Robert did not show any signs of weakness or other damage. Bobby waited for him to scold him for smashing things, but Robert's mind was elsewhere. “Am I the only one who’s starving?”
Since both of them dislike cooking, they made a fire outside and slapped enough meat to fill their stomachs onto the wire mesh.
“Ntchizi, thank you for saving my body for me. How did it feel being in a male?”
“She says you’re welcome and that she did consider changing it to a female body so that it would feel nicer.”
“You’re joking!” She gave him a serious look and burst into laughter. He waited until she calmed down a bit. “Ntchizi, after we’ve eaten, could you enter my mind? I’m hoping you can teach me a little about my mind.” Robert had beer with his meat so Ntchizi suggested they wait until morning.
*I don’t understand why it is so easy to sense you in my mind when I always have a problem with Cherine.*
*Your problem is mostly psychological. With me you do not feel threatened and you think of me as some kind of advanced species while with Cherine, you tend to think of her as that little girl who was so determined to be your friend.*
*I’m sorry Ntchizi, but that is nonsense, I’ve always known she is far superior to me.*
*You speak of nonsense friend Robert? I fear it is you who speaks nonsense, you are superior to her in most ways to do with the mind and that to you is more important. She is superior in emotional gifts, as you say, to do with the heart. In many ways she is a child that will never mature, she only has to imagine something is possible for it to be possible for her. She allowed me to share the memories of when you first met and her effort to block herself. I have searched to find which part of her mind she accessed but I have been unsuccessful. It should not have been possible, but because it was the only way you would accept her as a friend, she made it possible.*
*I told you she is special. Ntchizi, I’ve heard you speak of finding parts of our mind that are not awake and you waken them, as with the energy shield and teleportation that you made available to me. Could you show me how that works? *
*You wish to find new powers? *
*Do your people find that words have power, affecting how we see life? *
*We do not use words as you do, imagine reading an entire page and sending it to me as one complete thought, a thought that includes many nuances, it is how we communicate among my kind. We had to alter our way of communicating for our first human hosts.*
*I’m not a learned man, but I feel that using certain words can achieve what we do not want. Psychic talent is mostly described as a power by everyone. I see them as gifts, such as the talent to compose music is a gift, not a power. To communicate by one-word-at-a-time or by a page-full-for-each-thought, those too are gifts, but the gifts are affected by the nuances of what we say.*
She sent a smile. *I shall use the word gift from now onwards. You must relax your psychic body so that I can enclose you within me. You will find my mind easier to understand as I explain how and what I do.*
*To start off, you need to be aware of a specific gift you wish to awaken. If such a gift lies dormant within you, you should be able to sense where it waits. Give me a gift you wish for.*
*Uh, how about levitation?*
*Concentrate on wanting to levitate, imagine yourself floating - do you feel attracted or called to search any particular part of your mind? *
Long seconds went by. *I can’t sense anything.*
*The mind did not react in any way? *
*None that I can tell…except, that part there does seem brighter than it was.*
*That is good, it means you communicate with your mind in visual ways. In others it may be smell or an attraction that almost feels like gravity. Your interest in painting is not a mistake, your soul is that of an artist during this life.*
*In this life? You mean my talent may be in something else, mechanical for instance, in a next life?”
*It often is the same for a number of incarnations, but then it will veer away to some other interest. Move towards the brightness, but do not try to affect it in any way.*
*You sound just like Cherine!* He sent a smile.
*Of course I do, I am Cherine for as long as I am with her. I have to identify closely with her for our coexistence to be harmonious. What she likes, I do, whatever her attitude about things that anger or please her, they are mine also. It does not mean I lose myself, but I willingly bend myself towards her. Once I have left her I am certain I will spend years studying her and how she has affected me in permanent ways. Now that we are almost touching the bright area, do you sense anything? *
*A tingle, a collapsing of myself into my core, a pulse, an expanding. Colours muted, needing to be sharpened by release. Reduce the black knots, unbind - oh god!*
*It is time to return to the normal senses of your body. Once you are stronger, try to levitate, will it and the gift will be yours. Congratulations Robert.*
*I can find other gifts in the same way? *
He liked her laugh, though her answer would need careful thought. *Are not all your gifts one?*
Robert's jubilation, his wild exhilaration, had Cherine pleading for the reason. Robert laughed and taking her hand they rose into the air, stopped by the ceiling. He pointed his hand at Bobby and then at Birshima and they rose to join them. Robert couldn’t stop laughing.
Cherine asked, “What did she mean about all gifts being one? I asked her, but she said you understood.”
“All gifts, those you use and those that still wait are parts of your mind, so that makes them one, since your mind is one. It is the same for each of us.”
She asked, “I can awaken any gift I have?”
“Yes. I will not be doing so. Cherine, I am used to being a boxee, I like being one, I don’t like sharing my thoughts and emotions with everyone. I will not waken that gift.”
“What if I find a way to reverse my block?”
“Then you will share with all except me.”
They talked until late in the morning and decided they will help others awaken gifts if they have them, but they will not teach them how to access all their gifts; they both felt it is bound to cause too many problems.Dear visitor, if you only joined us now, at post 29, welcome.
I think you have missed some beautiful parts of the story of Cherine and Robert.
If you feel the same way, this is a reminder, you can go to the top of this page and use the link to return to Post 01.
Thereafter, each post has the next link at the end of the story. Or else, from post2 onwards, all you need to do is alter the url, increasing the post number by one.
If you enjoy the story, I do not ask that you resteem or upvote; those to me are just bonuses, a sign you enjoyed reading Boxee. All I really want as encouragement is that you recommend the story to all your friends; those you think would enjoy a romantic fantasy story.
I would like to add a personal note, which is also a hope of mine. You may or may not enjoy my way of keeping my writing simple where I can; you may or may not enjoy the style of the adventures experienced; but, I am very confident you will each grow to love at least one character.
Is that character going to be Cherine, Robert, Arthur, Bobby, the Fire Woman or her daughter, or one of the others you will come to know? I will not even try to guess, but I know you will, for I have loved each of them and written of them with love :)
Thank you.
What the story is mud and shields and death and Shirin Haha
good job
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