Page 34 of Bizarre Bonds
It’s amazing the duck-like being could fly at all with its undersized wings, which are much less impressive than its extra leg or the fringe of fur sticking up from its feathered head like a mohawk. After its sudden entrance, it seems to have given up on the whole idea of flight.
Instead, it’s been trundling around the nearby terrain on its three feet for a couple of hours. Rollick’s assistants have blocked it from roaming too far while monitoring it with his devices, but the demon decided we should observe the creatures in a more “natural” habitat.
I spot the punk-duck waddling through a patch of coarse grass several feet beyond the trailers. Rollick left earlier this afternoon to take care of other business, but a couple of his shadowkind assistants hover nearby, one of them holding a metal wand that detects the creature’s energies somehow. One of the shadowbloods is observing the scene too: Zian, the big guy with the pinkish-brown skin and smooth black crewcut.
As I step closer to the creature, it ruffles its feathers with a spastic twitch. A twang of sweet-and-sour emotion drifts off it.Like most of the other strange shadowkind who’ve come through the equally strange rift, it mostly feels mixed up and confused.
Is it echoing the push-pull vibe of the rift? It veers this way and that, its webbed feet smacking the ground, its neck swaying from side to side as if it’s reaching out to us and trying to get away at the same time.
It can’t have both. Is there some way I can explain that before it gets peeved?
I crouch down a short distance away and cluck my tongue at the creature like it’s a cat I’m trying to coax over. It ignores me.
Maybe I should try quacking?
Well, I don’t need it to come toward me anyway. I’m only supposed to be following the shifts in its emotions.
Another ripple runs through the flavors coursing off the punk-duck. Its whole body shudders with a flap of its stunted wings.
It shakes its head—and its neck contracts closer to its body.
A fourth leg juts from its belly. A lashing tail shoots from its torso.
A surge of harsher emotion smacks me like I’ve tried to bite into an unpeeled cactus fruit.
It’s angry—it’s scared—it’s hostile—it’s panicking?—
There’s so much discomfort in the whirl of urgent feelings that I wince. The poor thing.Someonehas to help it.
The only someone who knows what it’s going through is me.
My mind leaps to the soothing calm that filled me when I pictured the peaceful, cotton-candy-laced sky. Without thinking, I grasp on to that sensation and push it toward the creature.
The morphed beast was just charging at one of Rollick’s assistants as if it thinks it can bowl over her ten-times-bigger form. I’ll give it credit for ambition.
At my shove of emotion, it swings its head away abruptly.
With a hiss that sounds vaguely disconcerted, it retreats, its raised hackles coming down. The aggressive and anxious impulses keep churning inside it, but not quite as frantically as before.
My jaw goes slack. Did I do that?
I’ve never changed what anyone else was feeling using my own emotions before.
Zian prowls closer, frowning. “What just happened? It backed off all of a sudden.”
As I straighten up, my legs wobble. “I think—I think I might have managed to cool down its temper. I pushed some calm at it… and it ate the feeling up.”
Should I be surprised? If agony and joy can blaze out of me, why wouldn’t I be able to project smaller emotions in moderation?
I just never tried before. With other beings, a smile and a conversation made more sense than lobbing feelings like snowballs, hoping they’ll stick.
Zian’s eyebrows have shot up. “Rollick will definitely want to know about that.”
I’m sure he will. The other possibilities send a thrill through my limbs.
If I could offer this weird shadowkind creature peace… could I maybe help the men I’ve found myself connected to as well? Moderate their emotions when they’re struggling to control their powers?
If only I could find out without tapping into the connection they’d rather shut off.
