Erkateren, summer 1642

Mindwalker, mindwalker walking my mind. So pretty and shiny those golden eyes. Beautiful hair and those lovely hands. Wonderful one get out of my head! I can't sleep I can't wake. You have stolen my dreams. Please walk elsewhere and leave me alone! I promise I'll worship I promise so please!

Yes, yes, whatever you say. I'll do your command as long as it's not thought inside my mind, so yes, yes if that's what you want I'll do it for you if you just leave me alone. Please leave my head! I can't be two inside here, please!

A chair and a table, will that be enough? Thank you, thank you, thank...

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Neritan turned her eyes away from the farmer dangling from his ceiling. Unthinking now he was of no concern to her, but there was still more to be gleaned and she needed to know. She turned her attention to the housewife bound and gagged in a chair. Another mind to be walked, to promise and threaten. She would get the secret still, and if not from this woman, before she screamed herself to death, then more lived in the village. All sleeping and dreaming in a night not as quiet as Neritan led them to believe.

It took some effort to force them all to stay dreaming, but she reveled in making it look effortless, even if no one but she was there to admire her skill.

She bent over the woman and placed long, slender hands over a sobbing face. She loved her hands, wonderful hands. She didn't really need to touch before walking a mind, but it felt so good, so very good.

Smiling, Neritan gave the woman a stare, scaring her into silence. The sobbing was ungraceful. Shortlives were ungraceful, and yet they had the audacity to call themselves humans. A disgrace as well.

She pushed, hard, and was inside the meaty, soft complexity shortlives called a mind. Nothing like the brilliant metal sheen and order of true human thoughts. Then she started walking, delving deeper among secrets and forgotten memories. Dirty threats and broken promises, and it was astonishing how much filth the shortlives managed to amass in a mere thirty or forty years. She took a shortcut through a few layers of hidden emotions, hidden by an almost overwhelming sensation of raw fear and disgust at not being alone, and there something lay dormant.

Neritan spat with frustration. Not the secret as such, just a trail ending with another villager. She withdrew, but not until she had created a recess of guilt and self loathing.

She unbound the woman and left into the night. The housewife was asleep now, and first thing come morning she would hang herself aghast at having murdered her own husband. A giggle dropped from Neritan's lips. So good, she was so good at knowing how the shortlives thought, and she had such wonderful hands.