Majgen Ch. 012

She focused on sensing her teacher.

'He is too frustrated to listen to reason,' Majgen perceived,'When it comes to me he always is, except right after beating me. He doesn't do that often, he only beats me when he has a legit reason - within the mentarion ways. I am usually too well-behaved to offer such opportunities.'

Looking out the window of the moving vehicle, Majgen tried to figure out what she could do to convince the Ottearon to let her return to Femaron Baglian.

'My rebellious behaviour so far today, gives him legit reason to beat me. Afterwards he will be less frustrated. even though the beating is a punishment for my behaviour, his mind will accept it as relief for frustrations. After the beating he will be more willing to listen to reason. There is a problem with that though: After the beating I will be too afraid to try to reason with him.'

Majgen closed her eyes.

'The logical solution is quite evident, isn't it?' she asked herself,'I have to tell him now, and hope he will remember and think of it later, when his frustrations are out of his system. Nobody is perfect, neither am I, but right now I have to pretend I'm not a coward.'

"I have a request, Ottearon Weissme," Majgen said.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up."

"You did, Ottearon, I am disobeying that order." Majgen's words earned her his full attention.

"I very strongly advice you to cease this insolence, Student." The threat in his words, voice and emotions was unmistakable.

"I understand what you are saying, Ottearon, however I will not follow your advice."

"Are you intent on spending the next month in a hospital?"

"If that is what it takes for you to get your frustrations out of your system, then that is what it takes, Ottearon."

Majgen's words woke feelings of righteous rage in Ottearon Weissme.

"How dare you imply that I would beat you for my own pleasure. During your time as my personal student I have only beaten you once, and that was well justified."

"Justified, yes. But you enjoyed it," Majgen said. These words infuriated Weissme further, shocked him too.

'How can she even think that about me, Femaron Baglian I'd suspect of such a thing, but me? Never!'

"Femaron Baglian never enjoyed beating me, Ottearon, even though he hit me several times in the time I was with him. But that was different; Femaron Baglian had no problems with his loss of privacy, you do. Having me within sensing range is a constant burden to you."

"Shut up. Right now. I am warning you!" His words did not silence her.

"My request is, Ottearon..."

"SHUT UP," Weissme yelled.'What do I need to do to shut her up!'

"My request is," Majgen repeated with intonation, "that when you have beaten me to a bloody pulp. When your anger has left you..."

She paused as Weissme tried to silence her with a mind shock, the empathic attack didn't penetrate her raised mind shield. He had not caught her off guard. Majgen reinforced her mind shield, straining her empathic ability to make it as strong as possible. Weissme himself had taught her how to do that, it was a skill he considered necessary for her, since she possessed politically sensitive information.

Weissme too focused, gathering his composure to shock her again. His first attack had been impulsive, unplanned, and not the strongest he could muster.

'She won't be able to resist a full scale attack. I am a master of my craft, an Ottearon,' Weissme thought to himself with anger and confidence, and launched the next shock.

The second shock didn't penetrate Majgen's mind shield either.

Weissme stared at his student, disbelief written on his face.

'That was my strongest attack,' he thought,'she waved it off as if it was a probing attempt.'

Majgen was almost as surprised as the Ottearon, she stared back at him for a few seconds, then she remembered what had caused the attack.

"When you have beaten me to a bloody pulp, Ottearon. When your anger has left you. When your frustrations are out of your system. When you feel calm and at peace," she continued her speech, "At that time, Ottearon, my request is: That you consider transferring me back to Femaron Baglian."

Majgen went quiet when her speech was finished.

'With will-full purpose I fought off my personal teacher's attempt to punish me,' Majgen realised, phrasing the thought with official words,'Grief, I didn't just aggravate him to the level of being willing to beat his frustrations out on me, I handed him a perfectly legit reason - within the mentarion ways - for torturous levels of abuse.'

"Are you done being disobedient now?"

"Yes, Ottearon Weissme," Majgen said, and thought,'Done is done, too late to regret.'

Bowing to him -- with her head -- Majgen lowered her mind shield. Half a second later Ottearon Weissme attacked her mind with a fresh mind shock, once again using his full empathic potential to put force behind it. Foresee-ably, Student Majgen fainted from the pitch black pain caused by the attack hitting her now unshielded mind.

----=(Guilt)=----

Ottearon Weissme felt relaxed. Brewing himself a cup of mocca, he was feeling like a man who had just completed a task too long delayed.

'Does feel good to have that out of the way,' Weissme mused to himself.

He shook his shoulders up and down a few times, to loosen his muscles. After that, he moved his head to stretch his neck muscles.

'I am a bit sore. I've gone out of shape as of late, it has been a while since I had a work out like this. I really am too old to neglect my physical shape.'

When his cup of mocca was done brewing, he decided to add sugar - in spite of usually preferring his mocca bitter.

'I need the fast carbohydrates,' he thought and smiled to himself,'I've burned a lot of energy this evening.' He added sugar and spice.

'With spice, the sweet isn't all that bad.' He tested with a sip.

"Perfect." He spoke the word with a feeling of satisfaction.

Standing at the drink cabinet, he took a few more sips of his mocca.

'Maybe I should check out that new comedy broadcast Ottearon Yori mentioned.' Weissme started crossing the living room to get to its control panel, he was planning to turn the room's setting back to relaxation.

'After all, he said it was...'

A whimpering sound interrupted the Ottearon's line of thought, and made him turn his attention to the centre of the living-room floor. What he saw there caused a strong feeling of deja vú in him.

He blinked a few times.

'Where did I see this before? When?' He couldn't recall. He closed his eyes to search his memory.

Within a few seconds it came to him.

'It was that awful day, the first time I ever saw...' His eyes opened -- sooner than he finished phrasing the thought -- and they widened as he compared the image in his memory to what he was looking at now.

'No, not that.' He froze in the face of his own associations.

"What have I done," Weissme whispered to himself. He heard his mocca cup hit the floor. He had let go off it, but he didn't care that his carefully brewed drink was now a large puddle on his carpet.

He closed his eyes again, to try to understand.

The two images haunted him even more with his eyes closed. The image of what he had seen six years ago overlapped what he had seen just now with too much similarity.

The image from the past which now played in Ottearon Weissme's mind was the sight that had met him six years ago, the first time he had seen Majgen Rahan. What he had seen then, was a thirteen year old bruised, sobbing, and naked child. A shivering youngster who had covered her face with her arms, lying on her side.

He opened his eyes again, automatically his empathic senses reached out, to confirm what his eyes saw. But couldn't sense her empathically.

'I've killed her,' he thought with shock. But then noticed his student's chest heaving slightly from her breathing, and remembered why his empathic senses couldn't feel her.

'She isn't dead, I'm still wearing the anti-empathic crown.' Relief shot through him.

He shook his head.

'Get a hold of yourself, Old Man, of course you didn't kill her. You did nothing wrong, this had to be done.' He stealthed himself and turned his eyes back to the battered, naked body of his student.

'She is lying exactly the same way she did that day, that's the only similarity,' he tried to convince himself.

'This was justified. I didn't have a choice,' Weissme's hands rose to the device which was blocking his empathic senses,'Did I?' The afterthought made him lower his hands again, leaving the crown-shaped anti-empathic helmet on.

'You didn't have a choice, Old Man,' he concluded to himself with stronger assertion,'She didn't give you a choice. She deliberately insulted a Syvaron, that in itself was grounds for painful punishment. She was directly insolent and disobedient while we drove home, that too can never go unpunished, she knows that too.'

Weissme bent and picked up the cup, which he had dropped a moment earlier. He walked to the drink cabinet and put the cup in the sink there.

'But she didn't stop at that. She dared to fight me, she defended herself from my empathic attacks to be able to continue her disobedience. She should know that actively fighting any mentarion who outranks her, is cause for very severe punishment.'

Weissme turned again to look at his personal student.

'I couldn't allow myself to go soft on her, and I can't. Im lucky she didn't try to counter attack, her empathic potential is of unbelievable proportions for a human.' Weissme forced the last remnants of the unexpected guilt and regret out of himself.

'She is not a child anymore, and it is my job to keep her under control.'

"Are you done being disobedient now, Student Majgen?" Ottearon Weissme asked with a loud, hard voice. His student's body jerked in response to his voice, she whispered a reply too quietly for him to hear.

Weissme walked to her shivering form and kicked her on an upper thigh.

"Please stop," Majgen whispered, terror and fatigue was evident in her voice. Weissme assumed she was in pain as well.

"Louder, Student, speak properly."

"Please stop." This time she spoke with an audible volume.

"Do I need to repeat my question, Student?"

"I won't disobey again, I won't. Please stop hurting me, just please stop."

Weissme kicked her backside, around the bottom of her ribcage. He didn't kick with force, and wasn't prepared for the piercing scream Majgen elicited when his foot hit its target.

'Grief, I forgot I broke some of her ribs earlier,' Weissme cursed silently, but didn't let his voice reveal that the amount of pain caused by his last kick had been unintended.

"Have you forgotten how to address a higher ranking mentarion, Student?"

"No, Otte...aron..." The student forced her words out in fractions, unable to squeeze a full sentence out at once; his kick had reawakened her injuries -- her lungs and stomach hurt even harder when she tensed her diaphragm to utter words.

"My apo... lo... gies, Ott... te... aron... Weiss... me."

'She is able to scream and talk, no bubbly sounds, seems her lungs have not been perforated. Healthy skin tone - in between the bruises. Natural pattern of fatigue shivers. No sign of critical injuries,' Weissme thought to himself, automatically running his mind through standard corporal punishment check-lists.

"Are you in pain, Student?" Weissme inquired, without having doubts what the answer would be.

"Yes, Otte...aron... Weissme"

"What you are suffering now, is nothing compared to what you will suffer if you try to attack my mind, when I take off the anti-empathic helmet."

"I'd... never do... that... Ottearon."

Weissme took the crown shaped helmet off, and immediately scanned the top of his student's mind, to certify if she was telling the truth.

'A more correct phrasing on her part would have been to say that she didn't and doesn't intend to attack me,' Weissme thought,'but I shouldn't blame her for not being able to phrase such a meaning properly under these circumstances.'

The young woman was terrified and suffering from a great deal of pain, not just from her ribs, but she was not aggressive.

Weissme went to her room and took a standard rank 10 cloak and a pair of shoes from her closet. He went back to the living room with the mentarion uniform piece over one arm, and the shoes in his hands.

"Get on your feet, Student."

Majgen did her best to obey, but she failed her first couple of attempts at beginning to get her upper body raised. It was impossible for her to find a painless approach to it, and it was very hard to find a way to move -- by which the level of pain was below the threshold where her body refused to obey.

In the end she managed, although the effort blackened her vision completely. Once on her feet, her sight returned slowly.

Without speaking, Weissme pulled the tenth ranked cloak over his student's head. He pushed her arms into the sleeves for her too. He pulled her hood up and forward till her bruised face was well hidden. After adjusting the cloak he helped her get the shoes on.

"We're going to the hospital," he said.

----=(Sleepless)=----

A few days had passed since Majgen's rebellious rudeness towards Syvaron Delk. Now Majgen was lying sleepless on her bed, in her small room in Ottearon Weissme's apartment.

'I'm a coward,' she thought to herself while staring at the ceiling.

Like all Hawlun orphan's she was afraid of complete darkness, and had a night-light on when going to bed. However that was not the fright she was mentally referring to just then.

'I should do something. I should rebel again. I really should, not just because it would be better for me, but because it would speed up my training.'

Majgen closed her eyes, tears trickled quietly down her cheeks now that there was no longer room for them.

'But I wont. I am too afraid of what he will do to me if I disobey again. I'm too scared.'

Her ribs didn't hurt just now.

At night, Ottearon Weissme allowed her a greater amount of painkillers, than at day. The amount of pain she suffered during her recovery from the beating, was part of her punishment. Her doses of painkillers were only larger at night because, Weissme didn't want sleep deprivation to slow her training.

'Femaron Baglian wouldn't have allowed me pain killers at all. Not after deliberately insulting a Syvaron, and if it had been Femaron Baglian's mind shocks I had will-fully warded off he would not have punished me any less than Ottearon Weissme did.

'Weissme automatically assumed that I believed Baglian would have been more lenient towards my offences. He didn't even bother to check for that in mind scans.

'Weissme takes so many things for granted.

'It took two days, before he realised he was wrong.' Majgen opened her eyes again.'He isn't stupid, he just doesn't want to know how I feel, how I think, who I am. Baglian doesn't really care who I am, but he isn't afraid of finding out either. Weissme cares, but he doesn't want to care.'

The door to her room opened, and Ottearon Weissme walked in. Majgen sat up with a surprised jerk. Her ribs complained in response to the sudden movement.

'No aggression in him, he isn't here to hurt me,' Majgen perceived, the knowledge calmed her.

"Greetings, Ottearon Weissme," she said.

"Greetings, Student Majgen," Weissme said and seated himself in her chair at the wall.

'He is looking for some form of redemption,' Majgen sensed, she couldn't really sense how he planned to find that.

"I want to talk," Weissme said.

It wasn't a question so Majgen didn't reply. She was watching Weissme's face, while displaying appropriate, attentive, behaviour.

'He left the door open.' Majgen forced herselfnot to move her eyes from her teacher's face to glance at pitch black darkness in the room outside hers.

"I just want an old fashioned talk," Weissme reiterated, he had turned his empathic senses off and was rubbing his eyebrows. He could neither sense nor see his student's distress.

Weissme went quiet a while.

Majgen's eyes betrayed her, they shot briefly towards the doorway, she forced them back on Weissme.

'There is darkness over there,' she thought, she could still see the dark contour of the doorway out of the corner of her eye,'There are things in the darkness, they scream, they whine, and they kill. They got mum and dad and they are coming to get me too!'

Majgen tried to force the old thought out of her mind.

'There is nothing in that darkness, it was long ago,' her face turned towards the doorway.'Kill me, kill me tooooo. Kill me, kill me tooooo. Kill me...' the remembered rant rung in Majgen's head.

The voice had been hoarse, beyond recognition, when she had first heard it back then. She hadn't been able to hear if it was a boy or a girl or how old. She hadn't been able tohear if it had been a child either, but she hadknown.

She had known because all the adults were dead.

'There are things in the darkness. And they kill!' her own voice rang the old verse in her head, but dissipated to the other rant again.

'Kill me, kill me tooooo.' She had held her ears, and she had screamed, her throat had begun hurting, but the other child's rant had not stopped. In the darkness the rant had gone on and she had not had the strength to scream forever.

Majgen stared into the darkness beyond the doorway. She was sweating, sweat was running down her cheeks in bigger drops than her tears had before.

'There are things in the darkness! AND THEY KILL!'

She wanted to run over and close the door, but she couldn't move. She wanted to close her eyes, and hide under her cover, but she couldn't move. She wanted to turn on the lights, but she couldn't remember the voice activation code.

"Help," she tried to scream it, but it came out as a nearly inaudible whisper. Ottearon Weissme didn't hear the sound at all. He was still trying to gather his thoughts for an old fashioned non-empathic conversation. He finally found an approach.

"Student Majgen," he said while taking his hand of his eye-brows, "I..." He forgot he had been talking when he saw the state of his student.

Even in the moonlight setting of her room he could see she her skin was shivering wet. Her eyes were widened to a point of terror he hadn't even seen when beating her. Weissme's eyes followed her unmoving stare, to the dark doorway.

"GRIEF!" Weissme exclaimed, he jumped out of the chair, ran the few steps to the door, and slammed it shut.

Majgen shrieked with terror at the sudden movement, her hands flew to her mouth to stop the sound.

'How could I forget the darkness,' he berated himself,'what kind of a person am I? How could I forget!'

Majgen turned her face and big rounded eyes towards him. She lowered her hands again, and whispered to him. She whispered in a voice he hardly recognised.

"We have to be quiet, we have to be very quiet, there are things out there. They kill all the parents. They will kill you too. Be very very quiet. There are things in the darkness."

'Evil grief,' Weissme thought,'how could I forget not to expose a Hawlun-orphan to darkness.' His heart was bleeding for her.

Weissme turned and switched the lighting in Majgen's room from moonlight to daylight.

"They killed Mum and Dad, they will come for you too, and then when I am all alone again, they will come for me. In the darkness."