The Realization of Understanding

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

09/22/98:

I laid on my bunk, shifting through the data on the PADD I
held in my hands, but not really paying any attention to it.
My mind was still to unbalanced from my time as Rhea, so
recently finished. Spending two weeks as an animal has a
tendency to mess with one's mind in interesting ways.

For example, take the way I was laying. I had my legs
folding to one side, my haunches twisted, and laying on the
stomach, my hands folding close to my head as I read through
the PADD. To sum up, I was laying like I did as Rhea. I've
know about it sense Grasion had pointed it out an hour ago,
but I keep slipping back into it every time I stopped paying
attention.

I guess though there wasn't very much wrong with that. It's
happened before after my time as Rhea, and usually went away
after a short time. No more then a couple of hours. After
two weeks though, I expected it to take a couple of days to
wear off.

That was something that I could easily brush off though,
simply because of the overwhelming feelings I got for the
fact that Oria was doing well. Doing perfectly,
fantastically, amazing, tremendously, magnificently well!

Oh... it was great to be young, in love, and a father to be.
Not to mention a grandfather to be. Letting out a short
snicker I smiled to myself. I had an interesting family, and
I was enjoying every minute of it.

Setting my PADD down I closed my eyes, resting my cheek on
my crossed hands. Purring softly I just sat a thought about
my life to date. To say the least it had been interesting,
many ups and down, and a few left turns. The loss of my
world still hurt me, but not as much as it used to.

Lots of things hurt less then they had before. I guess
finally being with Oria has added a sense of fullness to my
life that was never there to begin with.

Of course, there are those things that hurt even more now
then ever before. What Ken did to me springs to mind. That
anger was for later though. As much as I hated him for how
he played with my mind he still helped to bring me back from
being Rhea, and for that I owe him at least my respect.

A muffed chuckle from across the hall reminded me of one of
the other things that was of a great annoyance to me.

Raising my head, I sighed. "Don't the guards get tired of
you're talking to me all the time?" I asked Grasion.

He shook his head, leaning up against the bars of the cell.
The top of his bald head was reflecting the artificial light
in a way that was disconcerting to look at. "Not at all, it
means I'm not working to drive them insane, so they don't
mind it."

"Some of the rest of us do!" A person a few cells away
called out.

A response came from the other side of us. "I don't mind at
all. It's cheep entertainment, better the most of the stuff
they show on the vid!"

A few more responses echoed down the corridor before they
finally petered out on there own.

Grasion laughed, sticking his hands through the bars of the
call and waving to each side of him. "You hear that, they
love us."

I snorted. "Great, we can do Broadway," I responded, picking
the PADD back up.

"Come now Fox," Grasion replied, pressing against the bars
of his cell, as if he could move the whole wall of them
closer to me. "You enjoying are little conversations as much
as everyone else, admit it."

"Hardly," I said, keeping my eyes lowered so not as to
encourage him to continue talking to me.

He stayed quite for a few minutes, I could hear some
movement in his cell, but he didn't say a word. Risking a
peak of the edge of the PADD I saw that he was sitting on
the edge of his bunk, doing some sort of crossword puzzle.

I smiled to myself, thinking maybe I should bring him a copy
of the New York Times and a pen, see how well his man made
intellect would handle that.

Once I realized what exactly I was thinking, I shook my
head, throwing the thought away. I would do nothing to
entertain him.

"Fox," He finally said, standing up and walking over to the
cell wall. He wasn't smiling this time though, in fact he
looked a bit concerned.

"What?" I snapped with an exasperated sigh.

He frowned a bit, "There's been a rumor going around that
someone tried to kill you while you were away from the
prison, but got your lady instead."

I nodded slowly, twisting around on the bunk and standing
up. "Yes, Oria was shot, she is all right though. Out of the
hospital and doing fine." Leaning up against the bars I
glared at Grasion. "One of your associates trying to kill me
I would imagine."

He shook his head slowly. "None of the people who I've
associated with in the past would do something as simple as
try to kill you. There is no fun in that. No, they would
make you suffer, more likely by attacking your lady.
Twisting her around so as to destroy her, and there for hurt
you."

I leveled a slow glare at him. "Like finding her world and
setting a trap inside her home. One that would turn her into
a real lioness, slowly and painfully. Putting the mind of a
real lioness on top of hers, trapping her so she can only
watch as the animal recovers from so much pain, in a strange
place, with strange people. The natural response would be to
flee, and when they try to stop her, she would attack and
maybe kill those around her. Those who would hopefully be
people close to her. While Oriana watched, trapped in her
own body, unable to do anything at all."

"Yes," He said, a slow smile twitch over his lips. "Exactly
what they would do." He paused, narrowing his eyes slightly
and tilting his head. "It hit you didn't it... that's why
you were laying like that. They tried to do that and made a
mistake with the activation part of it and it hit you.
That's why you where laying like you where, that's why you
where gone for those two weeks. It's also why you have claws
and always were your pendant, isn't that right?"

I nodded slowly. "Yes, that's right."

"It didn't take though, not properly, or else you would have
done just what they meant for your lady."

"Her name is Oriana," I snapped, "And yes, the mind took a
few weeks to set in properly."

He paused, tilting his head slowly, his pink eyes locked
with mine. "Did you die?"

I didn't respond.

"Damn it Fox," Grasion said with a hiss, "Did you die?"

"Yes," I responded. "It didn't push my mind back, it
replaced it. I was dead for a week."

He let out a sharp laugh, slapping the palm of one had
against the bars of his cell. "Yes, that was exactly what I
wanted to hear! The cinches everything, I was right all
along."

I snorted. "Glad to see you're so happy about it."

"Oh, I'm more then happy." He said with another laugh. "It
proves that my decision to stay here was right all along."

"In what way?" I asked.

He paused, smiling so wide I could see almost all of his
teeth. "Prophesy my friend."

I rolled my eyes, sitting down on the end of my bunk. "So
you have mentioned before. What does it have to do with my
former death?"

He leaned forward, against the bars of the cell. "When I was
young, I was given a prophecy, one that would instruct me
into the most vital portion of my life."

I chuckled. "Jail time does seem to be what you deserve."

"It's not that Fox," he said with a smile. "I was told that
one day I would be defeated in a fair fight. Not stopped,
but defeated. That after the person who had beaten me had
died he would came to me, asking for my help against his own
greatest enemy."

I let out a single short laugh, biting it off just as it
escaped from my mouth. "You think that is me? After I beat
you on the moon base you think that makes me the person that
has been prophesied? You really have a screw lose to think I
would ever ask for you help!"

"I know you will," he said, his voice lowering to nearly a
whisper. "You are the only person to ever have beaten me
mind to mind. No one as ever come close."

I snorted.

"I always knew it was going to be you," he continued, "since
the first time we meet I knew you where the one who was to
beat me. Then I thought I had to prevent that, but you
surprised me, each time we meet you reacted differently.
Using your mind more with each encounter, you are a smart
man, smarter then I think even you know. Some day you will
need my help, some day you will come to me and ask for it.
Until then I shall wait in this cell, for you to understand
that this is true. When that time comes I shall still be
here, waiting ever so patiently."

I shook my head. "I can not believe you, this is just silly.
Your sitting in this cell, waiting for a request I know will
never come."

"Prophecies have a strange way of coming true."

I laughed, "Not with me they don't." I said, falling back to
lay on my bunk.

"You can doubt me now," Grasion said, "and you will doubt me
later, but when the time comes you will know it. You may be
angry at yourself for doing so, it maybe the last possible
option, but in the end, the only thing left for you to do
will be to come to me."

I laughed again, folding my arms behind my head and starring
up at the ceasing of my cell. "Your cockiness is your
weakness Grasion, it's what put you here in the first place.
I didn't out think you, I just knew how to do what was
thought to be imposable."

"Yes," he said, I just knew that he was smiling from ear to
ear, even if I couldn't see his face. "It teaches me never
to discount anything that could be done, even if thought
imposable. There has to be a limit, but I shall never
discount anything that could be done."

"I think you should drive yourself insane then," I said with
a smirk.

He made a 'hurm' type noise, but said nothing.

I grinned, glad to finally have finished a conversation
between us, and started to reach for my PADD.

"I was also told to ask you about the Neverending."

In a flash I was to my feet and pressed up against the bars
of my cell. "Where did you hear that name?"

He laughed, now sitting on the end of his own bunk. "You see
what the power of such prophesy is."

I shook my head. "Don't play games right now. I've heard
that name twice before." Once inside Becky's journal, and
once by the unicorn that seemed to always appear before me.
"What do you know about it?"

He smiled, a wide, nasty smile. "I know nothing about it,
except that it seems to be intertwined with your future, as
well as your past."

I nodded slowly. "It seems to be interested in me. It has
tested me once. I'm not sure for what, but it has a unicorn
watching over me."

He laughed. "A unicorn? There are no such thing!"

I smiled. "You should try to believe the imposable, it's
really quite an interesting thing to do. Personally I try to
believe in six imposable things before breakfast."

He returned my smile. "Some times Fox, I'm sure your the one
that is impossible. So, I think I shall believe in them for
your sake. Do you know what it is, or why it seems to have a
fascination with you?"

"I don't really care," I said, knowing as I said it that I
was lying both to him and myself. "It's an annoyance,
something that's bothering me, anymore is just speculation."

With a quick shake of his head, and a wave of his hand at
me, he laid down on his bunk. "I think you know more about
it then even you realize that you know. Things like this
work in such ways. You'll understand it all some day, maybe
in a brilliant flash of light. Just hope it's not to late.

I sighed, laying back down on my bunk as well, groping for
my PADD and scrolling up the text. Maybe he was right, and I
wasn't understand all that I had been told, or even
understood that I had been told it.

"By the way," Grasion said, speaking up again. "I haven't
heard much word about my little adventure. I know the laws
of that world, I'm sure people are working to build there
own version of the Council's power systems."

I rolled my eyes, He some times would come up with the
strangest topic changes. "They people in R&D say there's
about five years before anyone can do what you did."

He laughed. "We'll see."

I shook my head, looking back down at the text on the PADD's
screen. Then with a sudden bolt of clarity I suddenly
understood how to solve the problem it was describing.

Rolling onto my back I burst into a fit of laughter. Accost
the way Grasion had a puzzled looked on his face. He had no
idea that he had just helped me solve one the major problems
facing our yet to be born government.

Frankly, I wasn't going to tell him either.

-----

This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.