• Published 14th Mar 2017
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Mother X: Father - Tatsurou



Giegue finds solace from madness raising a filly Moon Dancer...unwittingly laying the path for his own salvation.

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Song of Love

In amongst the asteroid fields, the ship floated. The lights were dimmed, the engines off, the shields the lowest possible to deal with the occasional stray space debris. To all appearances, the ship was dead. The only sign of life was in the cockpit.

The alien was tall and thin, the only visible muscle definition in the rippling of his torso. His brown eyes glowed in his elongated head, his gray skin given a white sheen by pale starlight. His arms and legs ended not in hands or feet, but in wavy tendrils that could grasp anything. A similar tendril shaped his tail, though it ended in a thicker stub as a vestigial defensive weapon. He had no need of weapons, though, as he floated seemingly serenely in the air as he stared out of the cockpit towards a blue star. However, that seeming serenity was far from the truth.

His name was Giegue, and he had just suffered a most humiliating defeat in his greatest of goals. His race - the Geeg - had been blessed with powerful PSI abilities that could reshape the world around them with mere thoughts...and for reasons of their own, the Geeg had placed the infant Giegue with humans to be raised. Giegue did not know why...nor did he know why George and Maria - the humans who had raised him - were sent away without warning. The Geeg told him it was because they had betrayed him, used him to give PSI to humanity. This must be truth: Giegue could not conceive the concept of untruth...and yet, George and Mary had said they loved him, and what he understood of love was incompatible with betrayal so they must have reviled him all along the rotten miserable-

He pulled his mind away from the destructive line of thought. Emotions were weakness, he knew this. George and Maria had loved him, and feared him. Fear had been stronger than love, and that had led to betrayal. He believed this. Thus, he'd come to the conclusion that to remove emotion from humanity would make them stronger, above betrayal. He had told this to Cerue...and she had recoiled. He'd tried to explain, but the gutless wench chose her science over the only thing that kept him sane-

Again, Giegue pulled his mind back from the destructive train of thought before it could start damaging the world around him, or further damage his mind. That bridge was broken, a wound in Magicant that would never heal. Should there be a need, he would excise the damaged portions completely. That would leave him with a clear mind to accomplish his goal...and find out what went wrong. Instead of excising emotion, his experiments had locked the subjects in states of rage and madness...

And then the humans had come. Ninten, his nephew, grandson of George and Maria, gifted with powerful PSI. Anna, another child with potent PSI at her command. Lloyd, another child, gifted with machines but not PSI. Teddy, a young adult with great strength who had watched over them. They had used against him a melody they could not have known, further proof of betrayal-

Again, Giegue pulled back from the destructive thought. The song had brought back the happy memories, as it was the song Maria had used to sing him to sleep. But now, it was tied to the division in his mind, the madness that was tearing him apart. Already, he could feel the division inside, and see Niiue taking shape as the representation of his innocence, his capacity to...love. Soon, Niiue would have to be excised to allow Giegue to continue to function...but doing so would drastically damage his psyche.

Gazing out into the field of stars, he saw a smaller asteroid moving fast enough to have a tail. A shooting star, George had called them. They were supposed to grant wishes. On an impulse, he decided to make a wish. Tracking its progress, he thought silently, I wish there was another way...a way to be whole...

In the moment of making the wish, Giegue had forgotten just how powerful his mind was. He had poured his whole - for lack of a more accurate descriptor - heart into the making of the wish, for that one moment of uncharacteristic wistfulness...and all that power was bound to have an effect. It reached across the cosmos...and connected with another surge of power, drawing the two together.

Giegue floated back, staring down at the tiny creature that had appeared literally at his feet. The creature somewhat resembled the horses of Earth, but was much smaller, almost the size of a house cat. It had a yellow-gray coat, large purple eyes, a red mane and tail with a purple stripe, and a horn growing out of the center of its head. For some reason, it was wearing large square glasses and a massively oversized dark blue turtleneck. To Giegue's surprise, it had a strong PSI impression, one that was distinctly female.

As she caught sight of Giegue, she started to wail, her eyes closed and her horn glowing. A wave of energy - that was similar to but not PSI - washed over the chamber, gripping everything movable and swirling it around her...and applying enough torsion to things that weren't movable to threaten to tear the chamber apart. Giegue carefully probed the force with his mind, and swiftly learned two things. First, his PSI would bounce off the whirlwind of force she had created if he tried to destroy her. Second, if he didn't find some other means of stopping her tantrum, she would tear the cockpit apart...and her tantrum had already damaged the door to the point he wouldn't be able to leave before explosive decompression occurred.

He stared at her, doing his best to examine the creature...and reached the conclusion she was an infant. He knew of a way to calm a crying infant...though it would tear at his mind. Still, he would be alive. He couldn't guarantee that if he didn't stop her. Taking a deep breath, he began to sing, his voice echoing in the small canopy.

Take a melody
Simple as can be
Give it some words and
Sweet harmony
Raise your voices
All day long now
Love grows strong now
Sing a melody of
Love, oh love
Love is the power
Love is the glory
Love is the beauty
And the joy of spring

Love is the magic
Love is the story
Love is the melody
We all can sing

As the song echoed, the tiny filly's cries slowed, then stopped. As it reached its end, she floated into Giegue's arms, curling up there all bundled up in her oversized turtleneck. She blinked up at him, smiled softly, and went to sleep.

A surge of strong emotion shot through Giegue's being, so strong it nearly broke him...but it was not anger. It passed before he could fully analyze it, but it left him with a desire to...know more about this child. He would...study her.

As he watched, she started to fuss in her sleep, her face contorting in pain. It looked like she was going to cry again. Not wanting to have to deal with that again - or to have to sing again - Giegue reached out with his mind to try and banish her dreams...only to discover that the child had a fully fleshed Magicant, the world of the mind. If he wanted to know more about her, he didn't need to limit himself to observation. If he was careful - and gentle - he could enter her Magicant and learn her secrets that way. To do so to a Geeg without permission was - as Cerue had told him - an egregious violation of every rule of conduct not to mention a violation of deepest trust...but this creature was not a Geeg.

As he stepped into her Magicant, he found he still held the filly in his arms. Finding himself in the first area of Magicant - the 'Home Zone', where the one whose Magicant it was would find the most comfort and ease - he found himself surrounded by books, stacked as high as he could see. And there on a desk was a nameplate, the filly's name.

'Moon Dancer'.

Powers that were and weren't PSI, a manifest Magicant, and a name...this child was full of surprises.

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