#colmea

[sasster]

Colmea, why can’t Gus infect you?

"I have never been infected by anything, not just him. It is one of life's great mysteries."

[sasster]

Colmea does your lusus talk to you? does she talk to Myriad?

"I have yet to find out a way to have a conversation with her directly, but Myriad's gifts put her in the position to play receiver. Though, I've been with her so so long that there is no need for translation most of the time.

The relationship between a lusus and her charge is quite special, is it not?"

[sasster]

Roots

Hello, I started and finished a book about mushrooms today. Whipped up something real quick about it. [doc] --

"What do you see, Myriad?"

Colmea's voice came from far away, muffled by layers of soil, rot, creepy crawlies, and whatever else made up the living ecosystem under foot. At the same time, though, his voice was all around. Stern, authoritative as it always was. Commanding the attention of all his surroundings.

"It's dark." Myriad replied.

And wet, and claustrophobic.

Something tried to get into her mouth, but with no way in, it settled for crawling over and around the length of her body. The sensation used to freak her out, but this wasn't her first rodeo. Instead of paying attention to the beetle, or worm, or centipede that must've called its friends over to join the party, she focused on Colmea's voice as it echoed impossibly loud, unbearably muffled.

"I need you to really try with me here. What do you see?"

It was hard, disappointing Colmea the way everyone else in the world seemed to. His disappointment was seldom aimed in her direction, but it felt suffocating when it was. Like the whole world around her was closing singularly around her body, compacting her into nothing.

Myriad's eyes were open, she knew that they were. Open but unseeing, like a freshly unearthed mole flashbanged on a moonlit evening.

She wished she was outside, staring up at the twin moons. Nothingness blotted her vision like a cold and uncaring oblivion.

"I can't see anything, Colmea."

He sighed, the earth shifted to accommodate for his frustration.

"I told you, not with your eyes. Find another way to see."

Myriad took in a deep breath, and this time the world surrounding her moved into place as if inviting her home. The mealybugs, or soil mites, or gnats started to congregate against her base as if to take shelter from Colmea. She, too, wanted to take shelter from the coolness in his voice.

The anger he would never outwardly display poisoned the earth with a sigh.

She tried to focus instead on seeing, stretching and feeling through the dirt for any sort of connection she could exploit.

It was easier when the connection came to her, sprouting across her mind like a spore cloud, the fungus eager to deliver whatever message it was they had for her. Down in the dirt, though, it felt more like she was an intruder. A child digging her fingers into something sacred, that didn't want to be disturbed.

Colmea didn't understand what she was saying when she tried explaining it that first time. Insisted that, "It cannot be a one way connection, that would make less sense." So, she didn't bother trying to explain it anymore.

Something scurried out of the way of her hand, or what felt like her hand, as it hungrily sifted through the soil around in search of something she didn't understand, but knew intimately.

For a long while, no instructions came from overhead, and she could imagine the old man sitting and watching attentively, a takeout container of dumplings long forgotten going ice cold as he jotted down his observations. She wondered, if she asked, if he would share his notes with her.

Colmea always seemed to see things he shouldn't have ever had access to.

Suddenly, with little warning, an image of the man fills her mind. Not from her usual vantage, but from the other side of a glass. From far above him, and he looked so much less daunting from that angle. His back was to her, haunched over a scrawny little thing on the table he loomed over. He scribbled something down.

"I see you!" She finally said, her voice sounded far away, then she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding, and watched the tiny thing under him deflate. "It's not a memory!"

Beyond the glass Colmea stilled, turned his head to survey the colonies. A small smile on his face like a blessing. Relief flooded her system.

He always looks at us like that. Something at the back of her mind said.

Down below, she felt her hand, her fingers, tangle into a nest of some sort only it was rubbery and wet... Something fleshlike, something that wants to be flesh but couldn’t get the texture right. Another hand that tangled into hers, holding on tight enough that it suddenly became impossible to guess what tendrils sprouted from which hand.

The image of Colmea and that impossibly small girl fell away, the world outside her connection to the monolithic colony in the lab became a blur.

Hi! They said all around and through her. The greeting traveled from tendril to tendril with palpable enthusiasm.

We have been waiting to meet you.

It was so lonely before.

Welcome home!

Something ice cold, a thrill, filled her veins, the ecosystem she projected herself into alive with more than just the hustle and bustle of critters. 

And she did feel at home. Nestling into the comfort of their embrace.

"Is this forever?" She felt herself ask so very far above, muffled by soil and glass.

Maybe.

We aren't sure.

Do you want it to be?

They felt young, as young as she was. She could tell, though, that they were attached to something much older. An extension that flooded through to the core of Alternia, older than anything she could comprehend. The idea to try to get past these infant gatekeepers to tap into that infinity appeared and disappeared before she could voice it.

She felt lightheaded.

Oh, we aren't ready for that.

If you're not careful we can get lost in there.

He would miss us.

“I would miss him too.”

Go back.

Come back when you’re ready.

Tell him we said hi.

They released her hand and with a snap she was alone, back in her body above ground, on an operating table staring up into Colmea’s eyes. She could feel the connection stronger than ever, as though her heart stayed down below, pumping life into her from that old thing that hurt her head to comprehend.

“Welcome back.” He said, any excitement in his voice gone as he returned to writing in his notes. He wasn’t disappointed anymore, though. “What did you see?”

“I mostly heard. And felt.”

“Felt?”

“Big. And little. At the same time. I’m sorry.. I don’t have much, it was brief. They said I wasn’t ready.”

There was a heavy silence between them, he didn’t look up from his book.

We can try again. She felt herself almost say. It came out as, “I’m sorry. I wanted to go for Big Mama…” as she indicated the mushroom covered jellyfish that floated serenely in a tank behind him. It felt like she, too, waited anxiously for answers pulled up from the soil.

“Oh, dear, Myriad.” he started, discarding his notes to swipe the container of dumplings from the desk. “You’ve done excellent. There's nothing to be sorry for. There is still work to do, but this is a very big first step.”

All of the colonies surrounding them seemed to relax as she exhaled the breath stuck in her chest.

[sasster]

Would Colmea enjoy a delicious Matcha beverage?

"It is a bit earthy for my tastes. I prefer chai if there is tea."

[sasster]

so you cant get sick, can you get drunk or high?

"Mind altering substances have very little effect on me."

[sasster]

Dr Nomura do you like poetry? art?

"Yes."

>Go girl, give us nothing.

[sasster]

How do you think she got the mold colmea?

"My lusus? I imagine that an ocean dwelling fungal parasite needed a host and attached itself to what was available at the time. There are a lot of places to hide in a jellyfish of her size.

Over the sweeps it grew and assimilated to her nerve net. Fungal parasitism becomes a convenient means of growing a central brain where one is not.

She would not be what she is without one or the other."

[sasster]

Dr Nomura how would u describe your relationship with your fungi / fungal experiments?

"Do you expect me to have some sort of sentimental attachment to them?"

>Hint: he does.