Augmentation

§ 2019-07-28 00:22:53

[00:22] Over the coming days, Valcen's own unease at the incident and its consequences faded.

Baishar found his relationship with Valcen improving beyond his wildest hopes – Nayabaru permitting, he was being drawn into all of Valcen's projects. Valcen kept no secrets from him, that much was clear. He spoke of things that Baishar knew he would have once found reprehensible, before he had known with certainty that Valcen knew what he was doing:

How, for example, ought one compromise between the Nayabaru's wishes of twisting kavkema into shadows of their former selves and the kavkem desire to retain their individuality? The line had to be drawn somewhere and Baishar and Valcen were finally free to discuss it without fear muddying the water, without doubt clouding the narrative.

[00:23] What ought to happen to Ryrha if she ever faltered? The options were limited, but they both agreed that thought it was very much not her current wish, the sanest solution would be to repeat the procedure Valcen had subjected Baishar to. They both hoped they wouldn't have to ever do that, but they were in agreement what would happen if they did.

What should be done if the Nayabaru cottoned on that the qidravem could be used in conjunction with the Torunyema to keep their prisoners alive indefinitely, before Valcen had advanced enough with his plans to escape and overturn the whole unpleasant status quo altogether? Nothing – let them do what they wished. Regrettable, but thankfully not very likely.

With his new perspective, Baishar was increasingly, acutely aware that the person doubting Valcen the most was Valcen himself. It was painful to see – someone with such a sure stride analysing his every step. Some of that same sure stride no doubt came from the scrutiny, but it was excessive. Valcen would resolve to act in one way, then regret having done so.

Baishar had already learnt that he couldn't simply tell Valcen that all was well and that he shouldn't beat himself up for the sacrifices they had to make along the way – it was true, and Valcen acknowledged it whenever it was spoken, but it made the budding havnateh angry every other time. So Baishar's encouragement had become more subtle, but no less determined.

Then, one day, Valcen joyfully announced that the Karesejat herself had given him permission to give Baishar the same cybernetic implants that let him manage the Torunyema as well as let him see the world beyond the world.

Of course, it required trusting the Yeresoa of Katal.

"We can do this under general anaesthetic or local anaesthetic, your choice. We recommend former, as this is extremely fine-grained surgical work, and while we can keep you sufficiently immobile that a twitch at the wrong time might not jeopardise the outcome, we can't rule out the risk," one of them was saying, hovering over Baishar in the brightness of the infirmary.

[01:54] It was deeply strange having a Yereso giving him options.

When he'd first heard the news that he would be granted his request — made so long ago now as to almost be forgotten — the news had filled Baishar with elation. It was as if the Progression itself were rewarding him for accepting his fate, whispering encouragement in every step along the path. A sign that after months of frustration and confusion, of stumbling around blindly in the brightness, he'd finally found the true path forward.

Of course, it was still only by the Karesejat's word that this was allowed. It was only by the Nayabaru that it would be accomplished. There was still fear there, but it was tempered — the Karesejat needed Valcen, and Valcen needed him. In theory, he was safe. In practice, he was in Katal.

The arrangements were made, and Baishar had swallowed what little fear he'd had. He'd been escorted out by Tanak, for the first time since he'd arrived into Valcen's care. And now he was in a facility for the treatment of kavkema, far too bright and far too sterile, being given options by a Yereso.

Which option should he take? Both required trusting the Nayabaru, though the general anaesthetic would require more. In either case, he wouldn't be able to do much if they tried doing anything else to him.

What would Valcen do? The Nayabaru were doing their job; hopefully that would overcome any spite they might have for his kind. They were pathologically honest; it was unlikely this was a trick. They can be trusted to do what they say they will do; and not one feather further. "...The general then, please." The tone was soft, subdued, meant to be as nonthreatening as possible. Much as he'd tried to avoid interacting with Nayabaru since his relative freedom, he still knew how to speak to one.

[02:29] Of course, Valcen was there, observing the whole thing – but he was physically quite unable to subdue an errant Nayabaru on his own. But perhaps significant harm would be sufficient if something went wrong.

"Remember," Valcen interjected from the side of the table Baishar had already dutifully clambered on. "The connecting tissue needs time to heal. You'll be blind on that eye for a while, so don't panic when you wake up and your vision feels strange." They'd gone over this before, of course, repeatedly, but the point was evidently important to Valcen.

"Understand that it will take a while to fully set in," the Yereso remarked. There were sedatives that worked instantly, but they had side-effects one didn't want to induce in allies – or rather, that Valcen had insisted not to induce in allies, the Yereso hadn't seen the point. "We'll use the time to set some things up."

Valcen touched his muzzle against Baishar's neck and clasped his forepaws against his arm, both an encouraging gesture. Having a kavkem onlooker likely subtly perturbed the Yeresoa in more ways than one – both due to a kavkem not under their direct care being in the room, and for the awkwardly familial gesture that knew no Nayabaru equivalent.

The Nayabaru was running fingers along the inside of Baishar's left leg, firmly feeling along the structure of muscles and sinews, slightly roughly brushing aside feather tufts in the process. Its visual focus seemed more focussed on Baishar's blunted claws – a good kick could still do some damage, after all, and he wasn't tied down.

Then fingertips pressed down against Baishar's skin as though to mark the spot, and the Nayabaru's other forepaw came around to slip a needle in under the skin of his foot – a sharp, foreign sensation, edged with the threat of toxicity like the bite of an insect drawn in deeper than it had any right to sink.

§ 2019-08-03 21:00:52

[21:00] Baishar gave a shake of his muzzle at Valcen's reminder. "Yes, I remember," he replied quietly. It was a little frustrating being told this again, but he understood Valcen's concern. He knew it would be disorienting and didn't want to have a panicked kavkem accidentally harm the Yereso. Better to be certain that Baishar understood than to risk it.

The gentle gesture was met with Baishar letting out a jittery, nervous breath, then nuzzling the edge of Valcen's jaw. Valcen is here; everything is going to be okay. Rationally, he knew that was far from guaranteed — there was only so much Valcen could do if something went wrong here — but it felt deeply comforting nonetheless. "Thank you," he whispered, nipping lightly at a stray feather.

Then the needle sank into his skin, and his body tensed — held as still as he could, resisting the urge to kick the needle and the attached Yereso away. This is for the best. He inhaled slowly, audibly, fingers clenching around Valcen's for support until the needle was withdrawn.

[21:22] The substance in the syringe was an immediate foreign sensation, but it felt oddly disembodied, Baishar's mind unable to grasp precisely where it spread, other than in the vaguest sense of 'up his leg'.

The Yereso held the needle in place for a while as though to make sure that none of the drops within it went to waste, then slid it back out in a way no doubt uncharacteristically gentle.

A certain tiredness already began to creep into Baishar's limbs, but it was clear it would take a while for it to reach his consciousness and drag it into artificial sleep.

The Nayabaru had turned away, discarding the syringe in favour of a different contraption. When he returned his attention to Baishar, he slipped one hand in under Baishar's muzzle, not bothering to ask for permission or warn him of the gesture, and set the frame against the side of his face.

Why the Yeresoa had this contraption – it didn't look like the improvised, single-use items that Valcen constantly commissioned – was really something no sane kavkem wanted to know. But as it were, frame and muzzle came to rest on the table in a gesture from the Yereso and the metal structure was fastened to his muzzle by pressure points against his jaw and skull.

Then fingers slid in between the lightweight structure and the Yereso pressed fingertips against Baishar's eyelids, the firm gesture with pinky and ring finger easing them apart, leaving the orb of the eye as exposed as possible.

The other hand slipped the cool metal of finer elements of the contraption clasped to Baishar's head in under the lids, the smooth chill a ghastly, alien sensation, the gentle outward tug of it filling some unwelcome, primal part of Baishar with a deep unease, stirring the sedative-doused embers of terror into his gut.

Some part of him was convinced the unnatural distortion should hurt, but it refused to.

[23:37] There was a moment of relief as the needle slid out, and he felt his posture relaxing even without his intending to. It felt like a slowly spreading numbness creeping up his legs, remarkably patient in staking its claim on his body.

Then the moment of relative calm was over, as the Yereso began attaching the metallic contraption to his face. There was some resistance to having his eyelids held open in the overwhelming brightness of the room, but not enough to interfere with the Yereso's actions. A sense of primal panic, dulled by the numbness of the anesthetic, dug into his gut as the cool metal slid under the eyelids; there was a soft whimper of distress, but he otherwise remained still.

This is the last thing you'll see with this eye. Thankfully he wouldn't be conscious for the procedure itself; hopefully the drug would steal the consciousness from him soon.

[00:04] The anaesthetic tugged at Baishar's mind like a physical weight. Gradually, motion became more exhausting, as though the atmosphere itself were crowding around him, its increased density pressing him onto the table.

There was still a threatening sense of something foreign attached to his face, prising his eye open, but even now the shape of the Nayabaru was blurring into shapelessness. Breathing seemed inexplicably more difficult, without being measurably hampered. The touch of the Nayabaru's fingers adjusting the posture of his kavkem patient was still surprisingly crisp.

Then the shadow looming above Baishar lost itself in the light of the room and a kind of waking paralysis held him for long moments, threatening to be his constant companion through the procedure – effectively already blind, the muscles of his eyes relaxed, unable to move or vocalise his distress.

Just as the light about him washed back into grey, some indistinct motion occurring above him obvious without having a clear visual source, just as the world threatened to begin to carve out his eye, as a different pressure began to be applied to his face, his consciousness melted into a deep sleep.

It was impossible to tell how long he stayed in that state – from his perspective, there was nothing to tell the time and no awareness to measure it. The grip of the sedative on his mind was so death-like that no dreams graced him.

When he returned to consciousness, it felt like he was collecting his thoughts individually while wading through molasses, fishing them out of a sticky environment reluctant to return them to their rightful owner.

The first thought was to breathe, which proved difficult to do with any conscious intent, but thankfully continued on its own even when not guided by his mind.

The second was to otherwise move, though his body refused him the courtesy.

He tried to remember what had happened – it felt like a chunk of him had been carved away, a part of his soul more than anything physical. For a brief moment, there was a glimmer of something amongst the morass, a grand insight on his mangled state, the clarity of how his mind had been butchered weeks ago- but then it was gone, leaving only a mild confusion.

One of his eyes was refusing to send him even blurry signals. The side of his face felt strange, a lingering, punctual numbness where the frame had been held, and the painless sense of deep violation threaded through his skull between nostril and eye-socket, flaring around latter.

It was an ill feeling, as though fungus had grown under his skin, but so slowly as to let his body accommodate for the change.

The more his awareness returned, the more the parasitic feeling morphed into the deceptively diplomatic beginnings of a headache, gnawing at his skull as though something hoped to crawl from his eye into his brain.

[01:29] A harrowing disfigurement.

Those were the words he first remembered thinking, once he remembered that he could think using words. They felt strangely appropriate, as if something had reached into his soul and torn something out... but it was a struggle to remember what had happened to put him in this state.

He was half-blind, and his skull was threaded through with parasitic tendrils — like he'd become the host to some other lifeform in his sleep. His awareness was slowly returning, one thought at a time — he was half-blind. There was a reason for that; he tugged on it to try and unravel it.

Valcen. The eye. The procedure. Words Valcen had spoken that were themselves blurry in his mind, but their meaning was clear: Don't panic. Not the easiest thing to do, when something was worming through his skull, trying to eat him from the inside.

[01:36] And Valcen was still there. As though his sensorium too was made up of the fragmented thoughts that were only gradually collecting in his mind, the crisp realisation that Valcen was still clasped to his arm came suddenly.

It was a nice sensation, promising comfort, care and guidance.

"Baishar?" There was more to the query than just his name, of course. The implicit question was a different one – are you all right? "The sedative might take a while to fade. The procedure went well. Can you speak?"

[02:08] All at once, Valcen's presence registered to him, the light pressure on his arm and the sound of his voice sending an arc of euphoria down his spine. Valcen is here. Everything is going to be okay.

The words he spoke took their time making sense in his head, but they were reassuring once they did. The procedure went well. That was good, that meant that the growing headache and feelings of nausea weren't signs that something was wrong.

Could he speak? That was a good question; he wasn't sure yet. He experimentally traced his tongue across his blunted teeth, testing the texture; it still felt fuzzy and numb. He made an attempt to speak, but it came out little more than a soft sound of appreciation. Long moments later, he managed a whispered, slurred "Valcen".

[02:14] Valcen's relief was palpable. "Oh, good," he said, bringing his muzzle down to rub gently across the top of Baishar's head, the motion soothing and repetitive. "You're going to have a little bit of a dull pain in and around your eye-socket for the next few hours, the entire area is irritated. You can probably already feel it – is it bearable, or do you need pain-killers?"

§ 2019-08-05 01:32:37

[01:32] Something like a smile tugged at the corners of Baishar's lips. The pain was so far more 'blistering headache' than 'dull pain', but it didn't matter. It was over; he'd finally gotten what he'd asked for all those months ago. Granted, a lot of things had changed since that day — but he knew now that this was the true path forward.

He'd known this before, of course, but between the operation's success and Valcen's approval, it was a reassuring confirmation. What more could he need? What was a few hours of pain in comparison to all the wonders he could learn, now that he had the senses he needed?

"'ll be okay," Baishar replied, his voice still soft and sluggish. Fingers tentatively brushed against Valcen's arm, weakly seeking purchase. A few moments later, he asked, ambiguously, "...How long?"

[01:42] Valcen's muzzle shifted to nip at Baishar's weakly extending arm, then bump gently against his shoulder, only to slip up into the mane of his neck, rubbing lightly across it.

Withdrawing, Valcen let his gaze drop to Baishar's face, leaning in a little to make more of himself visible to his bisected vision. "If my experience was any indication, the pain'll likely last at least five hours, up to around forty depending on how you define it. As for your new sensorium, you should gain access to it in two or three days at latest."

§ 2019-08-16 21:49:55

[08:22] Three days, half-blind. Three days, and then he would be able to See. See the phantom light that Valcen and other Threadwielders could; see whatever Valcen saw when he operated the Torunyema. See the inner workings of the qidravem — though whether he'd be able to understand what he saw still remained to be seen.

"Soon," he replied, certainty infusing his tone despite the weakness that was only slowly receding. He closed his one functional eye for a long moment, simply breathing, trying to rein in the headache. After a long pause, the eye opened again, finding Valcen. "Thank you." Fingers grasped at Valcen's arm, strength slowly sapping back into them. "Thank you," he repeated.