Cunning. He called me cunning. I bite my lip and hold back my school girl giggle. He thinks I'm smart.
"Of course, I think you're smart. You're bloody brilliant." He lifts his brows and tilts his head, watching me with an odd look of satisfaction. The tension of our hurts and the words we would have rather not said slowly evaporates as I find my reflection in his dark pupils. "Are you ready?"
"Will it be as uncomfortable as having Lylix in my mind?
"Not in the least. Has it ever hurt you to have me inside of you?"
My eyes grow wide. My mind immediately drops every ounce of maturity and runs straight toward dick jokes. Big dick jokes. Big dicks... are not a joke, as the memory of my rearranged guts reminds me.
I clear my throat. "No," I squeak.
Ziko laughs. "Close your eyes."
I squirm a little where I sit before I squeeze my eyes shut. I'm all too present in his mind, and I know the moment he closes his eyes too. To the pirates, I'm sure we must look like we are in some sort of deep meditation. Lincoln pushes back, edging me solely into my own head. I don't fight back, but the grasp of my mental fingers caresses up and down his conscious mind, the only touching I'm allowed to do.
His reach expands and surrounds my mental gates, wide open for him to enter, and he steps into my head. I crinkle my nose at the tingling sensation of him gripping my mind. The pinpricks ease back just a little, but his voice is overwhelming in my thoughts.
Shit, Briar. Bloody fucking hell.
What? What do you feel? Do I not have any magic? Did something go wrong? I'm quick to jump to conclusions, scared that I may be the queen who can't defend herself. I don't want to be her. I want to fight my own battles.
You have an immense power. Way more than I even guess was hiding in that old amulet of yours.
My mind is empty of thought. My only reaction is the nervous need to hold on to something for fear of falling over. I drop my hands to my side and push my palms flat.
Lincoln picks at my power creating a heat that grows inside of me. He stretches it, molds it. I can feel him flexing the muscles that I never even realized existed. It aches in the best way.
Pick a pirate, he says gently.
I open my eyes. There are quite a few working on the deck of the old ship. Some above the captain’s cabin where a large wheel juts from the top. A couple have climbed up the large pole and are fiddling with the sails. Even higher than them, one sits in the crow’s nest a single eyepatch pressed over one eye. I look back down to a woman who has her hair braided back and sits working knots into the rope that she holds. I fix my attention on her.
This one.
And whether she is lucky or unlucky is still yet to be determined.
Focus on her mind. Tap against her walls like you would mine if they were up, but more gently. None of that obnoxious banging. Remember, humans are very fragile.
Everything around her blurs in my vision. My mind pulls away from Lincoln, giving me a cold lonely feeling. Is this what it was like in my head before he put himself there?
I'm still here. Lincoln stresses.
Carefully, with the mild touch I would offer an infant I brush an imaginary knuckle against her mental wall. The pirate pauses her work for a minute, as if forgetting just what it was she was doing. Her mental wall collapses at the very touch.
Does she know I'm here?
You may throw off her train of thought, but in short, no. She hasn't a clue. With practice you'll be able to slip in and out without them even having to reset what they were thinking.
The pirate’s brain is busy with thoughts of tasks and duties that she must complete. Every skill she has sits at my fingertips, and if I so much as lift a finger she may jump up to start doing one. I can see the rope that she weaves from her point of view, I know the very next step she is going to take. Her mind paints a picture of what the next few days are going to be and the joy that she anticipates when she goes back out to sea.
Suggest that she do something.
My focus on her dims as Lincoln speaks and I quickly zero it back in. Like what?
Something that won't draw the attention of the other pirates, but something that she wouldn't do just on her own without reason. All you have to do is suggest it. In a whisper.
Yes, quietly. Because everything you do in the mind of a human has to be small. If I yelled, would it make her brains leak right out of her ears? I'm not going to try and find out. So I offer her a small suggestion, an inkling of something that would be fun for her to do.
She looks up from her work and toward the beach. Her hands still absently messing with the rope. When she looks back down her arms are tangled amongst the knots holding her in place. She struggles against the bindings, unable to get free, and mumbles, “Well, shit.” She’s already dreading asking someone for help.
Lincoln hums beside me. "Good choice. I would have gone for something even more embarrassing but this works."
How do I shatter someone's mind?
"Oh, we are not practicing that."
"No and I don't want to. I'm just curious so I know what to stay away from." I turn and look at him. He watches me debating on if he should tell me or not.
Grab their mind, the entirety of it, and squeeze with all your might.
"And what happens?"
They lose their mind, or become a vegetable. Some say it's better for them to be nothing at all than without their sanity.
"Can I do it to Fae?" The unasked question is... Can I do it to Cordelia? Should I feel wrong for the joy that it would bring me to break down her mind? To make her a watered-down version of herself now? One that couldn’t make coherent sentences anymore?
His voice is rough. "It's much harder. Fae are more trained in guarding their minds. Cordelia, specifically, has had years and years of practice guarding every mental gate she has. Even most untrained Fae are good enough to hold onto some portion of their mind... their greatest secrets, their most treasured memories, the image of their children... most have something they hold dear to them and would never let you hold at all."
"What else can I do?"
"That muscle, where I showed you it can flex...flex it." He licks his lips. "And think of something you want... something you know exactly where it is at. It won’t work for a person or any living thing... but anything else. Food, clothes, weapons..."
"Clothes, you say?" I arch a brow.
Grinning, I focus inward, on the muscle that feels like it's a part of me but also not, and I flex. Hard.
"Now think of where you want those items to be. Make it come to you." His voice sounds distant.
I yank my magic and hold my hands out in anticipation. Worn fabric drops into my hand. Two loud thumps land just a few inches in front of me. I crack an eye and squeal.
"Jeans and a t-shirt? Your old boots? That's... that's what you want right now?" Lincoln says, his voice full of skepticism. "You do realize you'll have to cut the back of the t-shirt out to make room for your wings, right? And weren't the pants short on you?"
My excitement deflates. He's right.
"But at least I did it..?" I ask.
"Oh, fuck. Yes." Lincoln claps as if he forgot that this was my first attempt and it was successful. "You did really well, actually."
"Wait. Let me do it again."