Sable regarded the commander warily. Plantagon guards were not known for their 'soft' side.
And you want your father's memories, why?" she asked.
A thorn encrusted claw pounded the table she was resting her Simian Sundowner upon. The reptilian, lidless eyes of the Plantagon gazed at her with undisguised contempt. "None of your business Occulite!"
Unexpectedly, the Commander became distracted by a radio transmission in his earpiece, and Sable breathed a grateful sigh of relief. His gaze roamed the room until it fell on the old woman who had entered the bar sometime before. Although shrouded in obscurity by a brown hessian hood and cloak, her age was given away by the effort each movement cost her. What such a person was doing in the seedy, rundown bar frequented by strange and questionable types like Sable herself, in the outermost rim of galactic hyperspace, was as unclear as it was mysterious. The old woman stuck out like the proverbial 'sore thumb'.
The old woman's milky eyes stared sightlessly at the Plantagon.
"Are you the one they call the 'White Owl'?"
No response.
"Answer me! Or are you deaf as well as blind old one?" the guard roared, with increasing anger.
"I do not call myself such."
"Do not play with me old woman!"
"Only a child plays with toys," said the woman, "and I am not a child," she cackled, evidently amused.
"Enough!" bellowed the guard, grabbing her walking stick and making to beat her over the head with it.
Sable, like the marten she was named for, moved quickly. Leaping from a table and launching herself mid-air, she managed to get a hold of the stick before the guard brought it down on the old woman's head. The Plantagon's surprise at Sable's sudden appearance overhead, was enough to cause him to loosen his grip on the stick and for Sable to secure it as a weapon in her hands. As her body began its freefall to the ground, Sable bore all her weight against the stick, aiming it directly at the beast's left eye. The tricky part was to avoid piercing herself on the Plantagon's horn in the process. But using the guard's shoulder as a push off point, Sable managed to leap free of the monster after striking him. Her aim hit its mark and the Plantagon fell to the ground in a heap, the old woman's walking stick still protruding from the monster's left eye.
"Thank you, Sable," the elder mumbled graciously as Sable returned her walking stick.
"What did you call me?" queried Sable.
The old woman resumed her staring.
"How do you know my name? Who are you?" demanded Sable.
"The Plantagon was correct. I am known in some parts as "the White Owl". The owl is our clan's totem as it is able to see through the darkness. It is often a symbol of wisdom and sight, in the psychic sense of the word that is. I myself am physically blind, but when I access the power of the clan . . . . I see – all. But you may call me by my birth name, 'Betty'."
"How do you know my name Betty? Did you recover it from a memory – someone who knows me?"
"Your mother . . . . . " Betty began but before she could finish, Sable interrupted.
"I have no mother!" Sable was breathing hard now, her patience with this woman wearing thin.
Betty's hand fluttered to her chest in a gesture of sudden pain. Despite her anger, Sable found herself reaching out to support the woman. As she did so, a wave of energy rippled through Sable's whole body and at the centre of it, her mind became still, a million scenes playing themselves out before her. At the centre of them all was Betty: As a baby with striking green eyes; As a small child with a Royal Guard who removed her eyes with a red hot poker; as a newly crowned Queen with a coronet of pearl; as a refugee fleeing her homeland and leading her people to safety in the mountains; as a newly delivered mother of a newborn with the same striking green eyes as her mother had had, a pearl pin keeping the babe's swaddling clothes together; as a forlorn and broken woman delivering her baby into the arms of a servant riding into safe exile. With each scene, it was as if Sable was experiencing all of it. By the end of it, Sable collapsed, exhausted and heartbroken, having lived a lifetime of memories. A wail of deep loss and a sadness Sable had never known in her own life, erupted from the very depths of her being.
Sable did not need to look at her reflection in the bar mirror to know what she would see – the same striking green eyes and the same pearl pin fastening her cloak, as the baby had in her vision. She reached out her arm to the old woman lying nearby – "Mother?" Her cry was piercing in the unspoken question and emotion it embodied.
"The woman in the vision Sable, it's not me," sobbed Betty. The woman gasped, her eyes widening with a sudden realisation – something only she could see. "My sister – go to her, Sable!"
"Betty!" Sable exclaimed, leaping to the old woman's side. But Betty was gone - only the brown hood and cloak remained.
