Chapter 423: Mother N’bayé
Two tall women walked side by side along the sidewalk, they both wore robes that seemed a bit strange and out of fashion.
One of them was bald and had dark brown skin with tattoos visible on her exposed skin. The other woman had grey hair and calm grey eyes. Her skin was a fair tan and she possessed a mature appearance.
These two women were N’bayé and Priya respectively.
Their appearances had changed a bit. Their ears were now shrunk and twisted to mimic those of these humans and their tails were gone.
One other sign that would have given them away to someone who knew was their eyes. Priya’s eyes were very grey, like those of a blind person, and N’bayé’s eyes were a piercing yellowish-brown.
Still, if one looked carefully, they would see that small red and blue runes swirled around in N’bayé’s eyes.
N’bayé kept her head forward and her eyes focused while Priya was looking around, clearly fascinated by all that was going on around her.
N’bayé had a destination in mind already before coming here and was focused on heading there.
Priya’s eyes gleamed occasionally as she read the surface thoughts of half of the human population inside the city at the same time.
She was absorbing information, and she was absorbing it fast.
Priya had established a special connection with N’bayé, allowing her to directly send all the information she was getting into N’bayé’s mind.
N’bayé received all this information into her powerful mind and was constantly decoding the language. Her vast computational abilities and powerful pattern recognition allowed her to learn rapidly.
"Fascinating," Priya said, speaking in the language N’bayé had just sent to her.
Instantly, she sent the language model into the private spirit channel for the others to receive.
"They have more than one language, it appears. I can only construct this language model and I am unsure if I have all the words in their dictionary," N’bayé said, frowning at the imperfections of her work.
"Don’t worry about it, we are heading to the library and should be able to learn everything we need from there," Priya said.
"Not necessarily," N’bayé shook her head, "We are surrounded by them. Hardly does anyone have a thought of going to the library. Yet they know enough.
I think it is because of those things they call phones. They seem to have so much knowledge contained within those sleek things,"
Priya shrugged her shoulders, "You must have memorized every single information I sent to you huh?"
"You didn’t?" N’bayé asked.
"..."
"Their libraries are not like ours. The so-called books that they have are very limited in the amount of information that they can store.
If we are to understand this civilization, we have to use that which they call the Internet."
"Oh, okay. The arkship had access to their Internet before we left. How do we get access now?" Priya asked, her eyes trailed a certain black car that had just driven past them.
The humans in that black car got her attention. One of the humans seemed to be very cautious and was thinking about a certain inheritance, while the other was thinking of...
Priya frowned, those thoughts were very dark. Not that it moved her, but compared to other average humans who lived in this modern era, it stood out.
The last person that she had sensed so many dark thoughts from was Katari when she sat close to the elephant caste leader.
Yes, killing intent, a very thick killing intent that was born from the individual thinking of ways to kill.
"What?" N’bayé asked, noticing that Priya was absent-minded for more than a second.
"Oh, I thought I saw something. I’ve already left a spirit mark on it though so I’ll check on it later.
Why don’t we take their phones?" Priya said as she eyed one certain woman coming their way.
With a thought, she infused suggestions into the woman’s mind. At first, it seemed like nothing happened, the woman’s expression didn’t change and she continued walking to wherever she was going.
"Here miss, you can have my phone," The woman said, having to look up at Priya due to the height difference.
She was pretty much average height when compared to the two tall women.
The woman reached into her brown leather purse and took out a small sleek black slab with a screen on one side.
She gently stretched out her hand and handed it over to Priya.
Priya smiled, "Thank you very much, you won’t remember anything concerning what just happened," She said.
The woman nodded before walking away, completely forgetting that her phone was no longer in her purse.
Not far away, attached to a tall pole was a street camera which captured everything that just happened.
Priya handed the phone over to N’bayé who took it. N’bayé had memorized a lot of things a moment ago including cues on how to operate a normal phone.
"So, this is pure technology, no magic?" N’bayé asked herself as she opened the phone.
The phone needed a password.
"Hold on," Priya said, reaching into the woman’s mind who by his time had already turned into another street.
"There," Priya said after transferring the information to N’bayé telepathically.
What Priya had sent to N’bayé was not specific as she had extracted a whole lot of passwords from the woman’s mind.
N’bayé began trying out all the passwords one by one. Her fingers moved super fast, blurring over the screen.
By the fourth try, she managed to open the phone, therefore gaining access to a whole new world.
"N’bayé, can we talk about Ozia?" Priya suddenly asked.
N’bayé continued to operate the phone without a change in expression.
"What about him?"
"It’s just that, you seem a bit...distant...toward him," Priya said as she began to play with her fingers, having nothing else to make the conversation less awkward.
" I don’t understand," N’bayé lied, continuing to operate the phone and successfully navigating to a search bar.
"Yes you do, you understand me well. You act like you don’t care very much about him," Priya pressed on.
"Oh, perhaps..." N’bayé didn’t complete her words, making it hard for Priya to interpret them.
"You know your issue of avoiding emotional things is not necessarily a good thing right?" Priya said, "It’s affecting Ozia."
"In what way?" N’bayé asked, "I don’t see anything wrong with his life,"
"Stop lying, N’bayé. You saw the way he held Isabel’s hand the other time, what does it remind you of?
You’re giving Ozia issues and he’s subconsciously trying to compensate with the next best thing.
Genuine or not, Isabel fills up Ozia’s heart and takes a role in his life that should be yours.
She is being the mother figure that you never were to Ozia, creating a very subtle trauma bond.
Do you think Ozia is cold and strong like you? That he doesn’t need any emotional support?
He’s five but still a child at heart, N’bayé. Don’t let your absence serve as an opportunity for people like Isabel to infiltrate our family."
N’bayé scoffed, her eyes resting on the two-story building in the distance.
"It’s all part of growth, he must learn to live without his mother at some point," She said.
"But he has never lived with you, all he knows is that you’re his mother. You don’t actually feel like a mother to him," Priya countered.
N’bayé shook her head, "So what do you want me to do, Priya? Do you want me to call him, rock him against my bosom? Do you want me to hold his hands like you do with Silas? Do you want him to constantly comfort him?
Do you want me to keep on telling him that his relationship with Isabel is not pure?
I won’t.
He’s the first prince, a tri-chimera. If he doesn’t learn these things now, when will he learn them?
The earlier he experiences the truth about life, the faster he can grow and be useful to Kael."
"You’re just saying that to avoid investing emotions into him. At least Katari makes an effort..." Priya was saying.
"Hehehe," N’bayé chuckled at Priya’s last sentence, "Katari would instantly kill her daughter without batting an eye if Kael ordered her to.
Don’t be naive, you should know by now that Katari is just molding the children into perfect extensions of power for Kael."
"But at least, she’s making the effort," Priya defended, struggling to accept the truth.
"Don’t avoid the topic, Priya, you brought it up, you might as well accept it before it’s too late," N’bayé said with a calm smile.
They had arrived in front of the library, and there was barely anyone around this place. No one really had the desire to come to the library unless they were looking for a place of peace.
N’bayé put down her phone and turned to face Priya. Priya’s frown did not deter her at all. She stared directly into Priya’s grey eyes as if daring her to do her worst.
"What would you do if Kael asked you to kill them?" N’bayé asked.
Priya did not answer, she maintained eye contact with N’bayé.
"Would you kill Silas if he ever becomes a threat to Kael?" N’bayé asked again.
"I don’t know!" Priya snapped at N’bayé.
"So emotional," N’bayé chuckled, "Do you want to know what I would do to Ozia if he ever becomes a threat to Kael?"
Priya sighed, her shoulders slumped, "Don’t bother, I doubt Kael would let it reach that point,"
N’bayé merely smiled, not saying anything more. The topic was closed and the two tall women walked into the library.