"Do you really have to name the bird after me?" Xain asked, letting out a heavy, long-suffering sigh. Deep within their shared mindscape, he was staring at the glowing screen of the television, passively watching everything Annie was seeing and doing in the outside world.
*Don't be such a downer,* Annie replied seamlessly within her own thoughts, a sly, private smirk tugging at her lips in the physical world. *Besides, he looks just like you.*
Xain didn't bother offering a verbal retort. He simply stayed silent, sinking deeper back into the cushions of the mindscape's couch.
This bizarre internal dynamic had been their reality for nearly a month now. Exactly two days after Annie had hijacked his body and set out on her own, she had started to hear Xain's voice echoing in her head. At first, she had fully anticipated a violent, exhausting mental battle for dominance over their shared vessel, but what she got instead was an interaction she still remembered vividly...
28 Days Ago
*Where are you going?*
Annie came to a sudden, rigid halt in the middle of the desolate, lonely dirt road. Her blue eyes widened in a fleeting moment of genuine surprise, but a sharp, knowing smile quickly stretched across her face. Relaxing her posture, she smoothly resumed her walking pace.
"So, you woke up already?" she asked aloud, her voice carrying clearly in the quiet, open air.
Deep within the recesses of their mind, Xain was sitting stiffly on the couch, staring blankly at the TV screen that broadcasted her exact point of view. "Can you really call it waking up?" he muttered. "I barely understand any of this... whatever this is. Especially with you suddenly being an actual person now, and not just a mental breakdown."
Annie let out a bright, ringing chuckle. "Oh, I am definitely still a mental breakdown, just not in the exact same way," she teased, her tone taking on a dark, playful lilt. "I mean~ if I happen to come across a bandit or something on this road, I would be more than happy to show you."
On the couch, Xain quickly shook his head, his expression grim. "I don't need to see that. I really don't, please," he insisted.
His voice sounded incredibly weary, a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion weighing down his words—a subtle detail that Annie picked up on immediately.
"You sound terribly tired, hero. Why is that?" she asked, her smile sharpening in amusement. She tilted her head slightly, keeping her gaze fixed on the empty road ahead. "And when exactly are we going to start the desperate struggle over who gets to control this body?"
Xain let out a deep, long sigh. "There isn't going to be a struggle. You can... you can just have the body," he muttered, his gaze downcast, staring blankly at his own hands. "It is not like I was doing any good with it anyway. I nearly killed someone by my own choice. And on top of that, when that Beast took over... I nearly killed so many people. I hurt so many more. I don't deserve to be in control."
Out on the dirt road, Annie's playful smile instantly vanished, leaving her expression chillingly flat. "Is that how it is? You just gave up?" she asked coldly.
For ten agonizing seconds that stretched out like ten hours, heavy silence reigned in their shared mind. Finally, Xain gave a slow, defeated nod. "Yes. Yes, I do," he murmured.
Annie kept walking in absolute silence for several long minutes, her face an unreadable mask. Then, slowly, the sharp smile crept back onto her lips. "Oh well, what can you do? You gave up, and that is it, I suppose," she remarked with a careless shrug.
When Xain offered no response, she broke into a light, mocking skip down the road. "Now you get to sit back and watch me live out my life in your body. Doing whatever I want, hurting whoever I want, and you won't do a single thing about it~" she taunted gleefully.
Inside her head, Xain finally looked up at the television screen and let out a dry, humorless exhale through his nose. "I don't worry about things like that," he replied flatly. "Because I know you are not the type of person to just hurt random people for no reason. You have specific people you want to break. That kind of bluff won't work on me."
Annie simply giggled at his deduction. "I guess you will just have to wait and see, won't you?"
Back In The Present
Ever since that day, over the course of the past month, Xain had spoken very little. Annie almost always had to initiate the conversation to get him to speak up—or deliberately provoke him, like naming her new Terror Raptor after him just to drag a reaction out of him. There was, however, one other topic that reliably drew him out of his brooding silence.
*How do you think Joshua is going to react when he sees you split between a bird and a girl?* she remarked internally, prodding him as she rode.
On the couch, Xain blinked. "Eh?" Shaking his head, he let out a tired breath. "I don't think he's gonna to think that. But he will definitely still be confused about the whole situation... assuming he even remembers what his precious 'pupil' did to me, that is."
Annie chuckled aloud in the physical world at his grim response.
Riding beside her, Chae cast a scrutinizing glance her way. "Why are you suddenly laughing so much to yourself?" the older woman asked.
Annie offered a nonchalant shrug, gently patting her raptor's neck. "Just thinking of an old joke, nothing more," she replied breezily. Looking down the long, open stretch of road ahead, a thrill of adrenaline rushed through her. "Let's speed up, shall we?"
Without waiting for an answer, she dug her heels in and spurred the raptor forward. The large bird let out a sharp, eager screech and bolted, surging ahead of the group in a sudden blur of vibrant blue feathers. Chae, Tiyun, and Zamin cried out in surprise, immediately forced to spur their own mounts into a heavy, thundering sprint just to keep up with her erratic pace.