More mojo
Ok, here's a bit more just to remind folks of where things left off 5 years ago, but this is the last of the sneak peeks:
Meanwhile, deep inside the cranial cavity of a sleeping Hipponaur mare, Daniel Racher's essence was hard at work mending mangled memories of his human being. Synapse-by-synapse, the remarkable resurrection plodded with untiring persistence. Brain cells that had been blasted apart by the surgical strike of his misguided step-son, Bouceph, now quivered with new life - not only alive, but with purpose. That his brain was performing this phenomenal feat was a miracle even by Hipponaur standards. The reason why it was doing it was beyond comprehension.
The essence that flowed through every Hipponaur's veins was the distillation of pure life. It offered health and longevity for the rare few that posessed it, turning mortals into immortals, so long as they respected the limits of mortality. Broken bones, lacerations, and third degree burns were rarely life-threatening. However, recovery from trauma to internal organs presented more of a challenge, and brain damage proved to be particularly delicate. Hipponaurs had survived head injuries in the past, but the salvaging of severely damaged neurons was generally limited to the cells being born anew; each becoming a miniscule blank slate ready to be written upon by a fresh thought or feeling. The intricate interconnections that defined a previously remembered concept, such as one's favorite donut, were generally beyond hope of recovery.
Yet for Daniel Racher, it was happening.
Urged on by the lingering effects of Fred McHenry's uncanny embrace, Daniel's natural essence put his identity back together again. Though the lobotomy had been a complete success, Bouceph had carelessly left the ashes behind, and as every forensic detective knows, ashes tell the whole story. Like building a galactic jigsaw puzzle, the life force within him studied Daniel's soul pictured on the box and sorted through the burnt remains to match it. Piece-by-piece, it reconstructed his identity, and like the inevitable dawn, the unstoppable Phoenix rose.
This was not a natural thing for Daniel's natural essence to do. For the essence was technically not his at all, nor had he always resided in this body; he was, after all, born of human parents. But a small part of the Hipponaur brain was curiously receptive to human consciousness. It nurtured it, gave it self-awareness, allowed it to coexist, or in Daniel's case, exsit on its own. It was the only place in the Hipponaur's head where Daniel could be Daniel, and not merely someone else's memory of him. And now Daniel was becoming Daniel again.
But the process was slowing. A little more than fifty percent of his memories had been restored when his cellular brain surgeons became lethargic, losing momentum, wondering if there were better things to do. Without the continued influence of Fred's ability to rally the microscopic troops into a singular mission, they fell back into their old ways of milling about, looking for parasites to eat or broken capillaries to repair. All of his obliterated brain cells were minimally functional again. That was probably good enough; this puzzle was getting boring.
For even if Daniel's shredded human existence were fully reknitted, it would be but a small patch on the titanic tapestry that was now his inherited terran experience. The cumulative memories of his ordinary life before meeting Rovaun were already outnumbered a million-to-one by the unkind inklings of a mare named Zhorelle. With those torturous memories awakened, Daniel could now recall quite vividly centuries of cruelty and abuse that his proxy had inflicted upon his mate and upon others. These memories were unfair, for they did not belong to him, but that made them no less painful to relive every day.
Subconsciously, Daniel was confident that his divine equine gray matter could cope. With his own human identity resurfacing, guided by his human soul, the combination within a Hipponaur body made for a truly formidable being. This being needed to be acknowledged to be whole. It needed a proper identity to function, for it was neither Daniel, nor Zhorelle, nor some concoction of the two; it was something entirely new. While Bouceph thought he was resurrecting Zhorelle, instead he gave life to Pandora - a Hipponaur with humanity.
But Daniel remained incomplete for now. Half finished memories dangled confused in his head, yearning to be whole again. He found himself contemplating the wounded concepts that cried for completeness. And as one would expect of a human who thought of things as he slept, Daniel began to dream.
Once again he was in Oblivion's womb, but his role this time was that of observer rather than participant. Endless void enshrouded the theater; deathly quiet enveloped him; blessed nothingness soothed him. Peace ruled this empty realm. And then the Universal Mother gave violent birth. A brilliant white stallion burst forth from the infinite black uterus and splashed onto the screen before him. Though fully grown, he remained umbilically attached to his Dam. As he approached, he slowed and stood tall for the sole viewer, letting the cord fall away. Daniel began to feel a peculiar mix of unease and elation as the environment drew him in, modifying his role from passive to active. He found himself sitting in the front row seat that had relocated onto the screen itself. The stallion, instead of merely looking in his direction, was now looking - at - him.
When confronting such equinity, Daniel's normal reaction would be to stand up and embrace the heavenly horse, but this dream would not permit it. He did not move, nor could he move if he tried; yet his paralysis was unalarming. Instead he remeained content to gaze upon the brilliant white stud, standing in calm dark solitude, the frilly ends of his perfectly pearly mane and tail lifting gently in an unfelt breeze.
Daniel reasoned that this was a memory from his early childhood, though he could not remember precisely when or where. Even back then he knew that such images affected him deeply, in ways far differently than his peers. With pre-adolescent shrieks they'd briefly "ooh" and "ahh" the pretty horsey on the mountain top before turning the page to gasp and hail the fierce dragon that followed. Though he'd rather look at cliff-dwelling ponies, little Danny did not protest, for the image had already imprinted itself indelibly onto his psyche, and in his mind's eye it still stood before him, alive and powerful, like he was now, watching him, reading him, penetrating him.
He remained transfixed on the creature as something to be admired and feared. But then his focus changed when a subtle trace of color appeared in this starkly black and white tableau - a scarlet spot just below the stallion's left eye emerged. This was something new, something disquieting, something wrong with this picture. The bloody teardrop bloomed, drawing a red line down the face of the stallion, who remained a living statue of perfection with this singularly disturbing flaw. Daniel watched the red line creep along the white canvas that made no effort to stop it. He felt a knot in his gut as it disappeared under the stallion's chin. And then a second tear of flaming red appeared, challenging its sibling to slice the flawless face into shards.
Daniel opened his mouth to plead with the stallion, to beg him to reveal what was wrong, but no sounds emerged from the muted man, for the dream would not permit any audio to defile the silent scream it depicted. The look in the stallion's eyes was that of profound sorrow, for these were not tears of an ocular injury; these were tears of loss. That much was plain to Daniel, and he felt this grief as surely as if it were his own. The second teardrop disappeared under its muzzle, two streaks whose bleak future could no longer be seen. The stallion said nothing, but his message became clear: if Daniel just sat there, two innocents would perish.
Daniel awoke with a start while Rovaun and Shianna lay sleeping peacefully beside him. He knew where he was and he knew who he was, but he also knew that he was not yet whole. He needed to be whole in order to understand what to do. His first instinct was to rouse his mate, but then something held him back. The world around him was quiet, just like in the dream. The white stallion had been silent for a reason. Daniel studied the worry-free brows of his mate and his lover and believed he understood. They would not be able to help.
He carefully rose to his feet and quietly disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness to seek the help of the only man that could.
"Fred!" he whispered desperately in a voice that still sounded very feminine. The black mare nudged the man's sleeping bag. Fred rolled over hoping the nightmare would go away.
"Fred, please wake up!"
"Pandora," he growled, "you aren't making any new friends."
"It's me... Danny!"
The words took a few moments to register, since they were not spoken in Daniel's voice. Fred opened his eyes and looked up at the mare staring him in the face. "Danny?"
"I need your help! I need my memory back!!"
The man sat up shaking the groggy demons from his head. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! But I think I'm supposed to know."
"Can't this wait?"
Daniel pawed the ground as the frustrated equine he was. "I think something bad is about to happen... and I think part of me knows what it is... but I can't remember. Please, please help me."
"Okay, okay," he said, scooting out of his sleeping bag, mostly out of fear of being trampled. The man stood up, shivering in the cool morning air, and Daniel suddenly realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Fred without clothes. The expression on the mare's face along with her obvious focus of attention was not lost on Fred, whose mood changed dramatically.
"You fucking asshole," he spat, awkwardly covering himself as he pulled on his pants.
"What?? No..."
"You don't need my help anymore, jerk! Looks like Daniel Racher is alive and well. Go find someone else to ogle!"
"No Fred, please... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I really need your help."
"Fuck off."
"NO!" the mare whinnied, bringing Azgard suddenly to his feet.
"Companion," snorted the Clydesdale taking a defensive posture between man and mare.
"It's ok," said Fred, patting his massive flank. "Danny was just leaving."
"Danny?"
"Azgard... please," cried the mare.
"What is this all about, Pandora?"
Daniel lowered his head, trying to calm himself. "Something terrible is about to happen, but I don't remember enough to understand. All I am asking is for another embrace from Fred."
"A NAKED embrace!" explained Fred to his mate.
"No... A healing embrace."
"Yeah, right."
Azgard turned to his mate. "Companion, you are not naked. What makes you say that?"
"You didn't see him drooling ten seconds ago when I was a lot less not naked."
The stallion turned back to the mare, who stuttered, "Pl... please... We're running out of time... Please Azgard. Help me."
It did not take long for the stallion to choose sides. He addressed Fred without equivocation. "Embrace him," he commanded.
"Azgard..."
"Do it now, Companion."
Fred clenched his jaw at his mate, then agreed to do this thing just to keep things civil between everyone, but his heart was clearly not in it. He approached the mare placing his palms lightly on either side her chest as if he were about to hug a porcupine. It startled and unnerved him when the mare brought her head down over his shoulder to pin him tightly to her chest.
"Ow... Danny, I can't breathe!"
"Please Fred," the mare whimpered, loosening her grip. "Please..."
For a brief moment, Fred felt her angst, and he patted and rubbed her sides to let her know. "It's... okay, Danny."
But the mare was impatient, and her fidgeting kept him off balance. She stomped the ground, missing his toes by millimeters. "It's not working!"
"Danny, calm down. Give me a chance!"
The mare did here best to hold still while Fred tried to heal her, though he still had no idea what or how to do it. It had something to do with empathy, a particular state of mind, that much he was sure of. But he had no training in this field of zen, not even a yoga class. The miracles he had performed hours earlier were all accidents, and he expected it might require months of intense training to make them happen on purpose. His self-doubt was enough to turn off whatever magic he possessed, and he knew it.
The mare in his arms began to convulse with the staccato symptoms of a soul losing its battle to hold back a flood of tears. Fred had been around horses long enough to know that they cried, and it was one of the saddest things on earth.
"What is wrong, Danny?" he asked out of genuine concern.
The mare pinned him tightly again, nuzzling his back with her chin. "I'm so scared... Someone's getting hurt... I had a dream..."
Fred took a deep breath and sighed, determined to take this task more seriously. If Danny was telling the truth, then it was the least he could do to help. He raised his arms up and hugged the mare's neck with the same fervor that she hugged him. They held each other in silence for several seconds, then a calm befell them both. It was then that a secret was revealed - a secret as philosophic as it was scientific. The healing process went both ways. It was give and take; energy was conserved. From Daniel, Fred received enlightenment; from Fred, Daniel received order.
The mare began to quiver as her essence took on a singular goal again, concentrating in her brain, frantically reconstructing lost memories. Fred did not have to be told it was happening; it was obvious that he and Daniel were inextricably connected, exchanging psychic energy. Azgard watched with proud amusement.
Daniel resisted the urge to break free as his brain began to overheat, exploding with fast-forwarding flashes that told his life story as a human. But Fred was yet to be able to control his ability; the longer he held on, the more energy transferred. Daniel fed Fred, who fed Daniel in an infinite loop of power that microwaved the Hipponaur's head. Fred felt the radiation on the back of his neck but was incapable of shutting down; in a few seconds Daniel's brains would be splattered all over him.
"D...D...D...Dan...nn...ny...st...st...op..." he pleaded, but the mare would not release him.
With a million photographs dropped onto the floor of his skull, Daniel rifled through a lifetime of images that had been restored but not yet sorted while his essence feverishly tossed new pictures onto the pile. He began to lose consciousness while waitng to recall a certain sequence of events, and one particular image that held the key to the enigma that plagued him.
And then he saw it: A friendly equine nose... floating fifteen feet off the ground.
The mare broke free and stumbled backwards several feet. "I know!"
Meanwhile, deep inside the cranial cavity of a sleeping Hipponaur mare, Daniel Racher's essence was hard at work mending mangled memories of his human being. Synapse-by-synapse, the remarkable resurrection plodded with untiring persistence. Brain cells that had been blasted apart by the surgical strike of his misguided step-son, Bouceph, now quivered with new life - not only alive, but with purpose. That his brain was performing this phenomenal feat was a miracle even by Hipponaur standards. The reason why it was doing it was beyond comprehension.
The essence that flowed through every Hipponaur's veins was the distillation of pure life. It offered health and longevity for the rare few that posessed it, turning mortals into immortals, so long as they respected the limits of mortality. Broken bones, lacerations, and third degree burns were rarely life-threatening. However, recovery from trauma to internal organs presented more of a challenge, and brain damage proved to be particularly delicate. Hipponaurs had survived head injuries in the past, but the salvaging of severely damaged neurons was generally limited to the cells being born anew; each becoming a miniscule blank slate ready to be written upon by a fresh thought or feeling. The intricate interconnections that defined a previously remembered concept, such as one's favorite donut, were generally beyond hope of recovery.
Yet for Daniel Racher, it was happening.
Urged on by the lingering effects of Fred McHenry's uncanny embrace, Daniel's natural essence put his identity back together again. Though the lobotomy had been a complete success, Bouceph had carelessly left the ashes behind, and as every forensic detective knows, ashes tell the whole story. Like building a galactic jigsaw puzzle, the life force within him studied Daniel's soul pictured on the box and sorted through the burnt remains to match it. Piece-by-piece, it reconstructed his identity, and like the inevitable dawn, the unstoppable Phoenix rose.
This was not a natural thing for Daniel's natural essence to do. For the essence was technically not his at all, nor had he always resided in this body; he was, after all, born of human parents. But a small part of the Hipponaur brain was curiously receptive to human consciousness. It nurtured it, gave it self-awareness, allowed it to coexist, or in Daniel's case, exsit on its own. It was the only place in the Hipponaur's head where Daniel could be Daniel, and not merely someone else's memory of him. And now Daniel was becoming Daniel again.
But the process was slowing. A little more than fifty percent of his memories had been restored when his cellular brain surgeons became lethargic, losing momentum, wondering if there were better things to do. Without the continued influence of Fred's ability to rally the microscopic troops into a singular mission, they fell back into their old ways of milling about, looking for parasites to eat or broken capillaries to repair. All of his obliterated brain cells were minimally functional again. That was probably good enough; this puzzle was getting boring.
For even if Daniel's shredded human existence were fully reknitted, it would be but a small patch on the titanic tapestry that was now his inherited terran experience. The cumulative memories of his ordinary life before meeting Rovaun were already outnumbered a million-to-one by the unkind inklings of a mare named Zhorelle. With those torturous memories awakened, Daniel could now recall quite vividly centuries of cruelty and abuse that his proxy had inflicted upon his mate and upon others. These memories were unfair, for they did not belong to him, but that made them no less painful to relive every day.
Subconsciously, Daniel was confident that his divine equine gray matter could cope. With his own human identity resurfacing, guided by his human soul, the combination within a Hipponaur body made for a truly formidable being. This being needed to be acknowledged to be whole. It needed a proper identity to function, for it was neither Daniel, nor Zhorelle, nor some concoction of the two; it was something entirely new. While Bouceph thought he was resurrecting Zhorelle, instead he gave life to Pandora - a Hipponaur with humanity.
But Daniel remained incomplete for now. Half finished memories dangled confused in his head, yearning to be whole again. He found himself contemplating the wounded concepts that cried for completeness. And as one would expect of a human who thought of things as he slept, Daniel began to dream.
Once again he was in Oblivion's womb, but his role this time was that of observer rather than participant. Endless void enshrouded the theater; deathly quiet enveloped him; blessed nothingness soothed him. Peace ruled this empty realm. And then the Universal Mother gave violent birth. A brilliant white stallion burst forth from the infinite black uterus and splashed onto the screen before him. Though fully grown, he remained umbilically attached to his Dam. As he approached, he slowed and stood tall for the sole viewer, letting the cord fall away. Daniel began to feel a peculiar mix of unease and elation as the environment drew him in, modifying his role from passive to active. He found himself sitting in the front row seat that had relocated onto the screen itself. The stallion, instead of merely looking in his direction, was now looking - at - him.
When confronting such equinity, Daniel's normal reaction would be to stand up and embrace the heavenly horse, but this dream would not permit it. He did not move, nor could he move if he tried; yet his paralysis was unalarming. Instead he remeained content to gaze upon the brilliant white stud, standing in calm dark solitude, the frilly ends of his perfectly pearly mane and tail lifting gently in an unfelt breeze.
Daniel reasoned that this was a memory from his early childhood, though he could not remember precisely when or where. Even back then he knew that such images affected him deeply, in ways far differently than his peers. With pre-adolescent shrieks they'd briefly "ooh" and "ahh" the pretty horsey on the mountain top before turning the page to gasp and hail the fierce dragon that followed. Though he'd rather look at cliff-dwelling ponies, little Danny did not protest, for the image had already imprinted itself indelibly onto his psyche, and in his mind's eye it still stood before him, alive and powerful, like he was now, watching him, reading him, penetrating him.
He remained transfixed on the creature as something to be admired and feared. But then his focus changed when a subtle trace of color appeared in this starkly black and white tableau - a scarlet spot just below the stallion's left eye emerged. This was something new, something disquieting, something wrong with this picture. The bloody teardrop bloomed, drawing a red line down the face of the stallion, who remained a living statue of perfection with this singularly disturbing flaw. Daniel watched the red line creep along the white canvas that made no effort to stop it. He felt a knot in his gut as it disappeared under the stallion's chin. And then a second tear of flaming red appeared, challenging its sibling to slice the flawless face into shards.
Daniel opened his mouth to plead with the stallion, to beg him to reveal what was wrong, but no sounds emerged from the muted man, for the dream would not permit any audio to defile the silent scream it depicted. The look in the stallion's eyes was that of profound sorrow, for these were not tears of an ocular injury; these were tears of loss. That much was plain to Daniel, and he felt this grief as surely as if it were his own. The second teardrop disappeared under its muzzle, two streaks whose bleak future could no longer be seen. The stallion said nothing, but his message became clear: if Daniel just sat there, two innocents would perish.
Daniel awoke with a start while Rovaun and Shianna lay sleeping peacefully beside him. He knew where he was and he knew who he was, but he also knew that he was not yet whole. He needed to be whole in order to understand what to do. His first instinct was to rouse his mate, but then something held him back. The world around him was quiet, just like in the dream. The white stallion had been silent for a reason. Daniel studied the worry-free brows of his mate and his lover and believed he understood. They would not be able to help.
He carefully rose to his feet and quietly disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness to seek the help of the only man that could.
"Fred!" he whispered desperately in a voice that still sounded very feminine. The black mare nudged the man's sleeping bag. Fred rolled over hoping the nightmare would go away.
"Fred, please wake up!"
"Pandora," he growled, "you aren't making any new friends."
"It's me... Danny!"
The words took a few moments to register, since they were not spoken in Daniel's voice. Fred opened his eyes and looked up at the mare staring him in the face. "Danny?"
"I need your help! I need my memory back!!"
The man sat up shaking the groggy demons from his head. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! But I think I'm supposed to know."
"Can't this wait?"
Daniel pawed the ground as the frustrated equine he was. "I think something bad is about to happen... and I think part of me knows what it is... but I can't remember. Please, please help me."
"Okay, okay," he said, scooting out of his sleeping bag, mostly out of fear of being trampled. The man stood up, shivering in the cool morning air, and Daniel suddenly realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Fred without clothes. The expression on the mare's face along with her obvious focus of attention was not lost on Fred, whose mood changed dramatically.
"You fucking asshole," he spat, awkwardly covering himself as he pulled on his pants.
"What?? No..."
"You don't need my help anymore, jerk! Looks like Daniel Racher is alive and well. Go find someone else to ogle!"
"No Fred, please... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I really need your help."
"Fuck off."
"NO!" the mare whinnied, bringing Azgard suddenly to his feet.
"Companion," snorted the Clydesdale taking a defensive posture between man and mare.
"It's ok," said Fred, patting his massive flank. "Danny was just leaving."
"Danny?"
"Azgard... please," cried the mare.
"What is this all about, Pandora?"
Daniel lowered his head, trying to calm himself. "Something terrible is about to happen, but I don't remember enough to understand. All I am asking is for another embrace from Fred."
"A NAKED embrace!" explained Fred to his mate.
"No... A healing embrace."
"Yeah, right."
Azgard turned to his mate. "Companion, you are not naked. What makes you say that?"
"You didn't see him drooling ten seconds ago when I was a lot less not naked."
The stallion turned back to the mare, who stuttered, "Pl... please... We're running out of time... Please Azgard. Help me."
It did not take long for the stallion to choose sides. He addressed Fred without equivocation. "Embrace him," he commanded.
"Azgard..."
"Do it now, Companion."
Fred clenched his jaw at his mate, then agreed to do this thing just to keep things civil between everyone, but his heart was clearly not in it. He approached the mare placing his palms lightly on either side her chest as if he were about to hug a porcupine. It startled and unnerved him when the mare brought her head down over his shoulder to pin him tightly to her chest.
"Ow... Danny, I can't breathe!"
"Please Fred," the mare whimpered, loosening her grip. "Please..."
For a brief moment, Fred felt her angst, and he patted and rubbed her sides to let her know. "It's... okay, Danny."
But the mare was impatient, and her fidgeting kept him off balance. She stomped the ground, missing his toes by millimeters. "It's not working!"
"Danny, calm down. Give me a chance!"
The mare did here best to hold still while Fred tried to heal her, though he still had no idea what or how to do it. It had something to do with empathy, a particular state of mind, that much he was sure of. But he had no training in this field of zen, not even a yoga class. The miracles he had performed hours earlier were all accidents, and he expected it might require months of intense training to make them happen on purpose. His self-doubt was enough to turn off whatever magic he possessed, and he knew it.
The mare in his arms began to convulse with the staccato symptoms of a soul losing its battle to hold back a flood of tears. Fred had been around horses long enough to know that they cried, and it was one of the saddest things on earth.
"What is wrong, Danny?" he asked out of genuine concern.
The mare pinned him tightly again, nuzzling his back with her chin. "I'm so scared... Someone's getting hurt... I had a dream..."
Fred took a deep breath and sighed, determined to take this task more seriously. If Danny was telling the truth, then it was the least he could do to help. He raised his arms up and hugged the mare's neck with the same fervor that she hugged him. They held each other in silence for several seconds, then a calm befell them both. It was then that a secret was revealed - a secret as philosophic as it was scientific. The healing process went both ways. It was give and take; energy was conserved. From Daniel, Fred received enlightenment; from Fred, Daniel received order.
The mare began to quiver as her essence took on a singular goal again, concentrating in her brain, frantically reconstructing lost memories. Fred did not have to be told it was happening; it was obvious that he and Daniel were inextricably connected, exchanging psychic energy. Azgard watched with proud amusement.
Daniel resisted the urge to break free as his brain began to overheat, exploding with fast-forwarding flashes that told his life story as a human. But Fred was yet to be able to control his ability; the longer he held on, the more energy transferred. Daniel fed Fred, who fed Daniel in an infinite loop of power that microwaved the Hipponaur's head. Fred felt the radiation on the back of his neck but was incapable of shutting down; in a few seconds Daniel's brains would be splattered all over him.
"D...D...D...Dan...nn...ny...st...st...op..." he pleaded, but the mare would not release him.
With a million photographs dropped onto the floor of his skull, Daniel rifled through a lifetime of images that had been restored but not yet sorted while his essence feverishly tossed new pictures onto the pile. He began to lose consciousness while waitng to recall a certain sequence of events, and one particular image that held the key to the enigma that plagued him.
And then he saw it: A friendly equine nose... floating fifteen feet off the ground.
The mare broke free and stumbled backwards several feet. "I know!"