Majgen Ch. 016

"What is wrong with it, Winin?" asked the Doctor.

"It seems to have a psychological addiction to mating."

'What is that supposed to mean?' The Doctor found himself unable phrase a proper question for elaboration.

Aejoa perceived the Doctor's confusion.

"Yesterday you told me humans are always in heat. That it is natural for them. Well my human has an imbalance regarding that."

"Ou," exclaimed the Doctor. Ou was a sound equivalent to a humans oh or aha, indicating new-found understanding. "That kind of mating."

"Yes, the reproductive interaction part of mating," confirmed Aejoa.

"Wherein lies the imbalance, Winin?" the Doctor hoped it wouldn't take too long to calm the Winin's worries this time.

"My human has been deprived of that kind of interaction since it was taken captive, and now it suffers from a severe withdrawal effect from it," claimed the Winin.

"Withdrawal effect from lack of sex, Winin?" asked the Doctor, wondering how the Winin got that idea.

"Yes, sex, that was the word." Aejoa wasn't used to using biological terms.

"Would you like me to take a look at it?" asked the Doctor. He had heard from veterinarians that pet owners were often calmed simply by showing their pet to the vet.

"I guess that would be best," admitted Aejoa, and opened his limbs a bit so the Doctor could see the human's head, the only part of Majgen that wasn't wrapped in a sheet.

"I am keeping her mind-sedated just now," explained Aejoa. "The withdrawal effect is giving her immense mood-swings, and strong discomfort. I don't want her to suffer needlessly."

"I checked its hormonal balance yesterday, it was fine then. Would you like me to check again, Winin?"

"Yes, do that please, later, just to be sure. But hormones are not what causes this problem. I learned from her that she has had the problem for years, that it is a psychological addiction. A human specific ailment. The translator couldn't find a yijejoan word for it. Normally I would feel confident treating psychological addictions myself, Doctor, but this one is human-specific. She has been receiving regular treatment for years. Apparently humans consider her condition to be chronic," explained Aejoa. "I was hoping that you could help me find a way to continue her treatment, since you know so much about humans in general."

The Doctor found himself to be immensely flattered.'A Winin just asked for my aid to solve a psychological problem.' Pride rose in the Doctor. Suddenly he didn't mind having been summoned to treat a human. "You said it knows the human term for its diagnosis, Winin?"

"Yes, but I can't pronounce it properly."

"Could you make it tell me the diagnosis, Winin?"

"Yes, I will hypnotise her to do it. I don't want to wake her before we have a solution," explained Aejoa. "She really is not well."

Aejoa focused on Majgen again, and pushed her into a hypnotic state. Using the translator he asked her diagnosis, and the doctor recorded the answer.

"Will you give me some time to read up on the problem, Winin? I am sure I can aid you better if I take a while to study."

"Certainly, Doctor. I will keep her sedated till you get back."

"I can drug it for you, Winin."

"That won't be needed, Doctor. I will take care of her."

----=(o)=----

More than twelve human hours passed before Aejoa released his mind-sedation of Majgen. The doctor had returned after four human hours, with detailed knowledge of what the humans called 'Brakwan syndrome' - including what it meant to have it to the fourth degree. Aejoa had questioned him for about two and a half hours. After the doctor had left, Aejoa had scanned Majgen, and thought, and scanned, and contemplated.

Aejoa was a Winin, someone the yijejo species would call a 'master of the mind'. High-ranked amongst the Eieie -- the yijejoan keepers of tradition, culture, ethics, and the practices of empathism -- Aejoa was well trained and highly educated in matters of the mind. Normally he would never need aid or a second opinion to deal with a psychological issue. His human's problems, however, were alien to him. A yijejo could never suffer from a Brakwan syndrome. Sexuality was an area were humans and yijejos were not similar, neither biologically, nor culturally.

Majgen woke slowly.

"Aejoa," she whispered, sensing him before she was awake.

"Little Human," he said softly.

"Am I dreaming?" asked Majgen.

Both of them were by now used to waiting for the translator. They hardly thought about their pauses waiting for it anymore.

"No, you are waking up," explained Aejoa. "I have kept you sedated."

"You have? I don't remember," she said, and snuggled to his chest.

"You are dazed because of the long sedation. You will wake fully soon," said Aejoa, hurting from the knowledge that her problems would return in moments.

"Why are you sad, Aejoa?" Majgen felt a desire to comfort him.

"I am sad because you are sick, Little Human, and I can't cure you."

"I am sick?" asked Majgen. "Do I get to stay in bed and drink hot sweet drinks then?"

Aejoa sensed childhood memories of such things in her, and understood the misplaced comment.

"I have no hot sweet drinks to offer you, Little Human," he admitted.

"I like to lie in your arms though. Or reaching limbs," said Majgen, still not fully awake, but suddenly she didn't feel good about being in his hold after all.'He is holding me. I can't get free. I need to escape.'

"Fight the fear, Little Human. Try to stay sensible. Hang on to your sanity a while if you can," Aejoa pleaded. "I want to talk to you."

"Aejoa please don't do it," begged Majgen, remembering why she had feared his morning.

"Try to listen to me, Little Human. Will you please try?"

She felt like struggling to get loose, but fought the urge.

"Yes, I will try, Aejoa."

"I know now what it is you think I will do to you."

Majgen tensed.'Please don't do it.'

"And I also understand that until I do it to you, you will continue to suffer. Like you did while I slept."

"Don't do it," interrupted Majgen, still fighting to control herself. She felt cold and nauseated.

"I have decided not to do it until you ask me to."

'Until?' she wondered.'Was that the translator? Doesn't he know I won't ask for it?'

Aejoa followed her thoughts. Although he couldn't catch her wording he understood. "I did mean until and not if, Little Human," he clarified. "I have scanned you thoroughly, and have gained some understanding of this ailment you have. Even though it is completely alien I have begun to understand how it works."

"Do you promise you won't do it unless I ask you to?"

"I promise," said Aejoa. Majgen sensed he was telling the truth. "But it is only a matter of time before you ask, Little Human. The drive within you will grow stronger and stronger until it is satisfied."

"I'm sorry you found out, Aejoa. I don't want to be like this." Feeling ashamed, Majgen started crying.

"You don't need to be ashamed, Little Human. I am a Winin. I understand what can be helped and what cannot. As for your sexuality, you are a human, your biology is different. I have no concept of those cultural things amongst humans that tells you what is right and what is shameful in those regards."

Aejoa rocked her gently in his arms.

"At least I can tell you, that I have seen what it is, and I am not ashamed of you. I do not really know if a human would be, and I do not really care. I am not ashamed, and I wish you weren't either."

"I am ashamed," said Majgen. After Aejoa had promised not to violate her without her permission, it was easier for her to stay fairly calm,

"I know. You are ashamed of something you cannot help, and cannot change. Because of the shame you fight something which you cannot fight. The shame creates immense conflict within you, Little Human."

"You are a yijejo. You wouldn't know what it's like. Yijejos don't have those urges," said Majgen.

"I don't need to understand the basis of your feelings of shame to understand what the shame does to you, Little Human."

"The treatment, it's horrible, Aejoa. It feels horrible," explained Majgen.

"I know, I've seen it in your memories."

"You viewed my memories of..." She couldn't bring herself to finish, she couldn't bring herself to say 'pleasure chambers'.

"Yes, I did." Aejoa saw the full question in her mind. "And I also viewed your memories of..." he needed a moment to find words for the alien concept. "...forced sex."

He paused.

"I am aware that the treatment was forced and sexual too." Aejoa couldn't find a way to phrase the differences and similarities between the treatment and the other violations.'I guess it would be best to not try, at least for now,' he thought to himself.

'I'd wish he hadn't seen that,' thought Majgen, and new tears came to her.

The mention of the other violations reminded Aejoa of another topic.

"You should know that yijejos are not susceptible to lose control over emanations. We don't need to focus to not get affected. We just don't get affected like that. So you won't need to fear yijejos attacking you for such reasons."

"Are you sure?" sobbed Majgen.

"Absolutely sure, Little Human." Aejoa couldn't help but smile a little at the human's need for verification. "The only way a yijejo would be affected by emanations, the way you have experienced human empaths to be, would be if he was from an unguarded egg. I promise you won't ever be with such a person. Even though people often accuse others of being from unguarded eggs it is extremely rare for an egg to be unguarded. It really is just a silly insult."

'Unguarded eggs?' Majgen had no clue what Aejoa was talking about.

'She doesn't know what an unguarded egg is,' realised Aejoa, and said, "I'll explain another time."

They went silent. Majgen's mood kept switching, like it had in the cage while Aejoa slept. Aejoa followed her mood swings.

'I hope she will let me help soon,' thought Aejoa after a while.

'NEVER!' Majgen thought, in response to perceiving Aejoa's thought.

'You will eventually,' Aejoa transmitted to her emotionally.

"Put me down," demanded Majgen. "I don't want you to hold me."

Her request hurt his feelings, but Aejoa didn't complain. He placed her on a dining table and seated himself close to her. Majgen curled into a ball inside the oversized sheet, and closed her eyes.

'A part of her still thinks she can control it, that she can live on without satisfying the addiction,' perceived Aejoa. He gave her peace to continue her futile struggle.'She will ask for my aid when she is ready.'

Over the next many hours, Aejoa was impressed by the will-power displayed by his Little Human. Maybe his first impression of her strength of character, as humans would call it, had been coloured by Majgen's low self-esteem. For hours he never left the top of her mind. He felt her emotional turmoil. He felt the burning need in her body fighting against the denial in her mind.

'I did not expect her to be able to keep fighting the addiction this long. She is a fighter,' Aejoa admitted to himself as he watched Majgen lying completely still on the table while a burning rage coursed through her mind.

She remained still when the rage became despair too, and when the despair became hopelessness, and hopelessness became anger, and anger became fear.

'Would it have been more merciful of me, if I hadn't left the decision up to her?' thought Aejoa.'Her suffering now, her fighting, it is only delaying the inevitable. It is too late to change my mind now, though. I gave her my word.' The promise of a Winin was not a matter any yijejo would take lightly, especially not the Winin who had given it.

"Don't you have things to do?" asked Majgen, suddenly.

"Not really."

"Think of something to do then. It's getting on my nerves that you are sitting there staring at me," complained Majgen.

For a while Aejoa didn't move. Since he became a Winin only one person had been giving him orders, and that wasn't a tiny creature without rank and status. He didn't correct the Little Human's inappropriate phrasing though, and after a good while he chose to comply with her request.

Calling his assigned servants, the Winin ordered for a massage and food. He had skipped his morning massage because of his human's problems.

The masseur was first to arrive, and the Winin dropped his clothes to submit to the relaxing treatment. The massage table was about fifteen metres from where Majgen was. To Aejoa such a distance was hardly leaving her side. To Majgen such a distance gave an illusion of privacy.

For a while, Aejoa let his worries go when the masseur vibrated the bone-plates under the skin on his lower back.

"That feels wonderful," complimented Aejoa, and began small talking with the masseur.

By the time the masseur started working on loosening Aejoa's neck muscles, a servant arrived with food, and began arranging delicacies and fruits on the dining table. The servant tried to ignore the human lying there, but Majgen clearly felt his animosity towards her.

'It is a soldier,' she realised, as she perceived memories from him. Memories of killing humans in face to face combat, killing or sedating and capturing.'He wants to kill me. He hates me and all of my kind. He is the kind that killed my parents, a yijejo soldier.'

She raised a mind shield for privacy, as grief and rage burned through her mind.

'Aejoa is a good person. He didn't deserve to die. I am glad I saved him.' There was no doubt in her mind regarding this.'But how can he protect me against the hatred between our species? My life is over. All I have left to look upon is a lifetime of captivity and shame.' Majgen's body and mind was in turmoil.

'So much the more shame because of this illness. It'd be so much better if I just died now. Right now, before it gets worse.' Majgen opened her eyes. She blinked when she saw an opportunity to die right in front of her eyes, within arms' reach.

'Yijejoan food.' She blinked again.'Poison!'

Laying perfectly still, she stared at the food closest to her, until the servant was done arranging the table. Then she sat up, holding the sheet around her. The servant moved away from the table, to stand at a wall while waiting for the Winin to be ready to eat. Majgen looked around her, at plates and bowls filled with what was deadly poison to her body. She felt cold and numb.

'The coward's way out,' she thought to herself with Baglian's voice.

'A solution to an unsolvable problem,' she thought to herself with Weissme's voice.

'My solution. My way out,' she thought, and reached out to a plate with small fruits.

The fruit she chose had the shape of a grape, but was a bit larger. It's skin was a bluish shade of black. She pressed it gently.

'It is soft. I should be able to chew it. I should chew it to be sure its juice is released to my body.'

"EEEJOW JUMAN!"

Majgen was startled out of her thoughts by Aejoa yelling his nickname for her - 'Little Human'. A second they stared at each other, both frozen in spot.

"Put it down, Little Human," ordered Aejoa, his voice stern and commanding. Majgen recognised his tone to be that from his memories of what yijejos sounded like when in different moods.

'She is just looking at me,' thought Aejoa, and yelled, "NOW!"

Instead of obeying, Majgen brought her hand to her mouth with a swift movement.

"NO!" yelled Aejoa, and sent a mind shock to her mind while pushing himself off the massage table.

Majgen had estimated that he would be unable to penetrate her mind shield at that distance. She had no understanding of the empathic strength of a yijejo that wasn't drugged. She was unconscious from the blasting pain of the mind shock before Aejoa's feet hit the floor.

Moving with yijejoan speed, Aejoa reached her less than two seconds after blasting her. With frantic speed he pried her mouth open and carefully took out the still intact fruit.

"FETCH THE DOCTOR!" screamed Aejoa.

His body shook so hard he let go off the human to be sure not to inadvertently harm her.

----=(o)=----

"The prisoner is fine, Winin," said the Doctor. "Only trace amounts of chemicals from the food entered its body. Not much more than it is exposed to by breathing. The anti-dotes we supply it through its food ward of such small amounts."

"What would have happened if she had chewed and swallowed the fruit as she had planned?" asked Aejoa.

The Doctor had kept Majgen for less than twenty minutes before bringing her back. Aejoa had trouble adjusting to the fact that the disaster had been averted.

"If that had happened, she might very well have died. Fruit is particularly toxic to humans, Winin."

A shiver travelled through Aejoa's body.

"She did it on purpose," said Aejoa. "She knows our food is toxic to her. It was a suicide attempt."'She looked straight at me and tried to kill herself,' he remembered, while looking down at Majgen's limp body.

"Call Ejue Yeenje. Tell him I want him present," ordered Aejoa.

"Certainly, Winin." The Doctor bowed and did as asked, using one of the communication panels in the leisure room.

Aejoa remained where he was, right next to the massage table, right next to Majgen. The Doctor had strapped her to a board after examination, and had carried her and the board to the Winin's quarters. Aejoa had not ordered him to unstrap the human, so Majgen was still on the board. Aejoa had not ordered him to wake the human, so Majgen was still sedated.

The Doctor had fastened the board to the massage table, the only other suitable surface in the room was the dining table. The Doctor had guessed the Winin, Aejoa, would have disapproved if he had used that surface.

After calling Ejue Yeenje, the Doctor moved back to the massage table, awaiting further instructions from the revered Winin. But Aejoa offered none, he just stood still, looking at the unconscious human. He remained silent until Ejue Yeenje arrived.

"Ejue Yeenje, my human tried to commit suicide." Aejoa waved Yeenje to rise from the kneeling greeting.

"Ei, Winin," said Ejue Yeenje - yes, Winin. He had heard. News travelled fast on the ship.

"I will need your assistance to perform the Yuuuai," stated Aejoa. Yuuuai was a yijejo ritual ceremony, where next of kin punished a person who had attempted suicide.

"I will participate as next of kin. You will be the judging party. The Doctor will be witness," explained Aejoa.

Emotions of discomfort rose in both the Doctor and the Ejue upon Aejoa's words.

"Winin..." Ejue Yeenje began a protest, but at first couldn't phrase the rest of his objection.

When the Ejue didn't speak further, the Doctor decided to phrase his own protest.

"I am sorry for your hardships, Winin, and I wish you better for the future, but I refuse to stand witness to a Yuuuai for the human." The Doctor spoke full truth.

"That human saved me," said Aejoa. "Have you no respect for the sacrifice she made for me?"

"I do respect that this particular human is an unusually respectable representative of the species, Winin. But you should not perform a Yuuuai for a human. It wouldn't appreciate the gesture, Winin."

"No one who attempts to commit suicide appreciates the following Yuuuai," said Aejoa. "It is not a pleasant thing to be exposed to, but it is the right thing to do!" Righteous anger flared in him.

"Winin," said Ejue Yeenje, coming to the Doctor's aid. "What the Doctor is trying to say is, the Yuuuai is not for humans, it is not the human way."

Momentarily confused, Aejoa forgot his anger towards the Doctor.

"Then what do humans do in this situation?" asked Aejoa, "if they have no Yuuuai?"