Her emotions battered against him in waves, imitating the rain that continued to ravage the terrain. It was becoming increasing difficult to brace himself against the deluge. A part of him did not want to, intrigued by the way her moods affected him. Her gaze felt heavy, and a foreign sensation swept over him inits wake.
He did not understand that part of himself, as strange to him as naming her emotions, but it grew in purpose and need. He did not understand how to cope with that either.
Why had The Four not warned him it would be this way?
She touched the control beside her, and the shelves rotated upward on her side and down on his. This sort of mechanism could be useful back at home, and he stored the visual memory of it inside his mind to tell the others later.
Her body bent at the waist as she pulled more pots from beneath the cupboard and set them in front of her with aclick clack.
“Are you not going to tell me your name?” she asked, her voice husky, the sound doing things to his insides he had not experienced before.
What was that sensation, thatfeeling? He did not have a name for it.
Her brow pinched, her eyes moving from him to the pots in front of her. “Or don’t you have one?”
Her question brought a memory, a time when others called to him without touching his mind. A time when arms wrapped him tight and kind eyes filled with tears and worry.
The memory settled inside him, and with it, a name surfaced.
“Iax,” he said, the word tasting odd in his mouth. When was the last time he spoke it aloud?
So many years ago, he could not remember a specific day.
Her head snapped up, her eyes meeting his again, and his heart thumped heavily in his chest. He realized he liked having her focus, her full attention.
“Iax?” she repeated.
The sound of his name from her mouth created a cascade of shivers across his shoulders, a pleasant sensation he wanted to experience more.
“That’s your name?” The sharp emotions she had sent him earlier morphed into something calmer, though no less potent.
“Yes.”
“Iax,” she said again with a nod. “Okay.” She returned her attention to her pots. “It’s a nice name.” Her eyes met his briefly. “Did someone name you? Or did you name yourself?” She shook her head a little.
He searched backward in time, the answer existing in the same place as past emotions.
“Someone named me,” he answered while old memories surfaced.
A woman hummed a song.
A home filled with laughter.
“Who?” Her hands stilled. “Who named you?”
He did not understand why she asked this question, but he again searched for the answer he needed.
A man who carried him on his shoulders.
A hospital bed and whispers of concern.
“My parents.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and a strained chuckle escaped her lips. “I thought maybe you all grew from pods or something.” She concentrated on her task for a while before asking, “Were you always Calypson?”
He tilted his head, considering her question.
“Or were you changed?” she added, clarifying. “Did you travel to Sector Ten?”
