Mind Playin Tricks on Me

[Thalia]

Nimeda accepted his explanation without questioning the why.

“Need is powerful,” she agreed. No judgement waited. She would listen to anything he had to share, but the detail itself was inconsequential unless he found the unburdening helpful. Given the way she could almost feel the hum of thought busy in his skull while his gaze slid between her and his Other, she suspected he would rather keep his own counsel.

The phrasing made her smile. Integrated was such a mechanical sounding word, like his additional piece was nothing but an augmentation or a tool to slide back into place. Her own instincts were more primal, and less easily funneled through words. Feeling pulled her, and often she acted without thought. Marcus reminded her a little of Jon, with all his questions and his desire to know everything. It prompted a little fondness.

“I think you are more integrated than you suspect,” she said, laughing, for she had told red-eyed Malik of her own duality, not the child Marcus. He might ask a river to cease flowing with the question he asked of her, though. She did not try to unpick the manner of her own nature, though he was not the first to try and turn her mind to the task. “We are not enemies,” she said, head tilted with the consideration before it slipped straight through her fingers. Nim did not care to chase the epiphany. She and her Other had never been at odds. They were the same, even without the shared space of memory; dual-natured, but single-souled. “Perhaps you should ask it of him? I would not let him hurt you here, if he tried."