That which dreams cannot truly be dead...
The being that had been Duo wondered about the validity of such a statement. How could we know that the dead do not dream? They certainly moved and talked and infested the world at every turn. They had seen this, felt it, been touched by it. So who was to say that the dead could not dream?
And so--as was their custom--they argued among themselves. But they found it was a hollow argument, superficial, bereft of any true insight. Why could they not formulate their ideas? What was this fog that obscured their own mind from themselves?
Indeed, why were they considering such an idea in the first place?
It was with great difficulty that they searched their memory for the answer. They swam through the misty depths of their own subconscious. What a strange feeling, to find your own mind(s) such a desolate and alien place. What had happened to them? What had happened to their mind(s)?
Then, among the mists, they heard voices. No, echoes of voices, of things said hours ago, or days, or years. Was that Ham? Helena? Was K crying out in pain? Was Kryk T'k shouting at him not to go? Was that their own voice(s), calling out to someone--something--in the darkness, daring them to face them?
Flashes of light erupted from within the fog. Duo recoiled as if blinded, shimmering afterimages swimming in their vision--a great ruin, grasping vines, vicious flying creatures.
And they felt the mind. A legion made one. Like them, but so unlike them. A twisted mirror image, born in some unnatural crucible, spiraling out of control. It called to them, but they dared not answer.
Darkness came for them again.
Why had they dreamed such things? Why were they pondering their dreams while still asleep?
That which has died can only dream of life...
Another thought came unbidden to their mind. Was this their own thought, or a Whisper, worming its way into their subconscious? Why was death so prevalent in their thoughts?
They fumbled for what had been lost in the fog. The echoes, the afterimages, the thoughts... yes. These were Duo's thoughts. They belonged to them. The pieces began to fall into place--what had happened to them made clearer as the fog receded. But their mind(s) was/were still weak. Where once they spun their webs of the consciousness out into the vast and teeming ether with ease, now they could hardly cling to their own cognition.
They needed more minds to share.
With every ounce of strength, they reached out to find their place in the waking world. A familiar aura radiated back at them--the Slipfang. That comfortable, formidable beast, with its own quiet consciousness that slumbered just beneath the surface of the hull. Those faithful crewmembers--Ham, Helena, K, Kryk T'k. And someone else, someone new. And something that made them recoil, draw back into themselves, before venturing more carefully out once more.
They reached beyond the confines of the Slipfang. They sang the song of their ancestors into the leaves and limbs as their ship sliced deftly through them. And the call was answered--younglings and elders alike; plump and striped older brother; lithe and jet black little sister; uncle, with his great hairy body and ponderous gait; auntie with her shimmering belly and glistening webs; grandma and grandpa and all the cousins they could muster.
Each and all heard the song. Not all of them came. Not all of them were ready. But those that were clambered aboard the Slipfang, breaching the tiniest gaps or leaping aboard as it passed in the night. They came and they listened. Duo touched their minds, led them to their own conclusions, let them find their own sapience amid the riotous cacophony of life in the Wildsea. And those that did were given a choice.
Join them, or seek their own way.
And so Duo's mind(s) grew stronger. They wove their web--in the world of metaphors and in the world of the senses--cocooning themselves in their silk, soft and strong. There, they pieced together the remnants of their mind(s). What Duo had been was gone. But what remained grew strong once more.
That which dreams itself alive again can never truly die...
Duo awoke.
The Slipfang rocked gently beneath them, like a gentle ardent mother tending a baby's cradle. They looked around their room, where remnants of webs hung everywhere. Their body, such as was left, was now wreathed in their silk, clad only in what few scraps of cloth and tarp they had scrounged from the ship. But before them lay their cloak--no longer stitched together from disparate pieces, but woven from their silk, light and glittering.
They gingerly stood on new legs, their body now hunched and quadrupedal. Still weak, they donned the cloak and went to their door. As it creaked open, they heard the shuffling of feet as someone--or several someones--came to investigate. For a brief moment, they were frightened, shaken, wanting to retreat into that cocoon they had emerged from once more.
But then they saw them. Their crew. Their friends.
"Ham? Helena? We... how glad our hearts to see you again!"
Duo had returned. They weren't certain how or what exactly they had come back from. But they were. And their friends were. They all were.