Katrina

Chapter 10- The Soslupxe

They started walking towards that strange and striking light. Katrina was still a bit confused about the days and nights. She still had to get used to it.

"Hey." She said. "So it stays night all day today and tomorrow dawns again?"

Aerdnah brought one of her front legs to her face and Katrina barely noticed, but the panther had a kind of mini screen on her leg.

"Hey Aerdnah, how'd you do that?" She said, hurrying toward her with great curiosity.

"Have you never seen a mini computer?" Aerdnah asked, surprised and proud.

"Man, not like that; coming out of a panther's leg. Can I see it?"

"Yes, of course." Replied Aerdnah, in her typical indifferent tone.

Katrina came closer and could see that Aerdnah's leg was indeed a mini screen with thousands of touch buttons and very strange symbols on them.

"But what...?" Katrina couldn't finish the sentence when she went to touch the screen, completely fascinated by the technology that they had there.

"Hey!" Aerdnah shouted, removing her paw from her side. "You can look but you can't touch. Especially if you don't know how to use it."

"But, what is it? What can you do from there?" She asked, intrigued.

"Katrina, it's a mini computer. From here I can do everything. I don't know... Don't you also have this in your dimension? Why're you so surprised?"

"I dont know. It's just that it's so weird here... How's it that you have that in your body? Are you born that way? Or do you wear it when you grow up?" Katrina said.

"We're born with it for many years. Formerly, in the time of the horses, when Roro died and all that happened, they decided to create something with which we could be guided. To what was dangerous and what wasn't. Mainly, it served for that. The horses designed a machine to know what was edible and what wasn't. Over time, this machine was perfected and served for more things. You can guide yourself without getting lost. You could ask favors from Eanar without having to go looking for him." Aerdnah explained.

"But, that's not the case anymore. Eanar was stripped of the Ticud, when he became what he is now." Muuqe replied.

"Ticud?" She asked.

"Ticud in our ancient language means "guide". That's what we call the machine; guide. Although some still call it Ticud."

"Then, if you're born with it... Xer wasn't, right?" Katrina asked.

"No, but his henchmen were."

"Hey Muuqe, I have a question. If you weren't born with that before and now you are... How'd that happen? What'd you do to change and be born with that?" Katrina said.

"Well, literally we aren't born with it. They graft it in our mother at six months of pregnancy."

"Is it grafted? So Xer can get one? So I can have one too?"

Aerdnah was getting uncomfortable.

"Look, Katrina..." The panther said. "This machine is not a game, okay? It's more powerful than you think. It's too much sometimes, even for us. If a human, foolish as you or greedy as Xer managed to have one, then I'm sure that it would be the end of our dimension. Also, if you'd been paying attention instead of just thinking about how to get one, you would've known that the mother is engrafted at six months of pregnancy. Not the baby. Not even the mother in the second or third month. No, I repeat, the mother is implanted at six months of pregnancy. So it's impossible for you to have one at this point. Are we clear?"