Outcasts of Gideon

My Name is Houith

Houith felt brittle. There wasn't another way for her to think about it. Brittle, like a stone made of sediment or a spike of frozen water. She couldn't recall feeling this way. Nothing in her distant wanderings offered anything similar. Her memories were unhelpful with the sensation.

She wasn't herself. Of course she wasn't. She had undertaken the transference. It was a risky endeavor even for one who had danced upon the light of a dying star. Houith wasn't this thing she occupied. She was Atua, a being beyond this realm.

She raised her arm and glanced at it. She knew it as her arm just as she knew that the digits gathered at its end formed a hand. Of course, she didn't know these things herself. They were unknowable to one who did not possess such attributes. But they were knowable through the transference. They were knowable to her because the being that belonged to this body knew them.

Narrow, was the term she had used to describe this being. Now she was the one who was narrow. While her mind envisioned a far more complex realm, these eyes could see none of it. To the being who normally occupied it, this narrow world was not narrow at all.

She would have to gain her bearings. Attempting to whisk herself upward, she found that she could not do so. This being did not possess the ability. There were many things she was now incapable of, many things she would have to accommodate.

"Dawn, are you okay?"

She heard the sounds. They emerged from one of the beings. The word "left" teetered on the precipice of her understanding. This being was to her left. Opposite was to her right. Down was where she stood. Up was were she might have soared had she been herself.

The being's sound evaporated into the space around them. She could not see the words. She could not feel them. Their life was far too brief for her liking. Expecting them to linger, she had failed to catalog them. She would have to be more aware for the next time.

Turning her head toward the sound, she discovered a man. She only knew he was a man because the woman knew it. At that moment, she understood herself to be a woman. Distinct. Different. Data about herself was readily available. She retrieved it, pushing much of it aside as she might have swept the dust from a falling comet.

"Dawn?"

A question. It was a question. This much she understood. A matter of inflection. In the language of these beings, a question was to be answered. Was she to answer it? If she was, would she be able? "Of course I'll be able," she said aloud. The sounds that left her evaporated as well. The eyes of the man before her opened wide. "That look is called surprise," she said.

The man backed away. He looked around. There were others nearby. Sensing them only by their movements, she couldn't hear any of them. She turned her head to observe them. There she found one similar to her. Woman. The other was different. Man. He appeared frail. She had to search for the meaning of that word. It did not have significance in her language.

She felt something for the frail man. It was unfamiliar, a sensation within her. She would have to remember it. A feeling of concern? She didn't understand it.

"Dawn, did you see them again?" asked the frail man.

"It would appear that I am not who you think I am." These words were important. She could tell because all three of the beings reacted by moving toward her. Their attention was focused on her.

It was strange to see these reactions. She understood the power of words. Her thoughts could ignite wonder and passion in others. But she could sense none of that here. She could see movement, but knowing what lay beneath the movement was beyond her.

The frail man held his hand up to his face. It was near his mouth, beneath his nose, upon his chin. These words flew into her mind and out again just as she thought them. This mind wasn't hers, but it possessed these thoughts, these images. They would be useful to her.