Chapter 8

The mountains around Gold Lake were full of interesting spots for rock climbing. At first I took it up to be able to get a few hours of peace away from Splay. As great as the Yaru are, climbing isn't their strong suit, and the face of a cliff was one place I could go where he couldn't follow, and doing so didn't violate the conditions of my punishment.

I was surprised to discover that I liked climbing. I had the hands and upper body strength needed, and I discovered a patience that I didn't have for most other strenuous activities. I later discovered that it was a popular activity on Precipice, Cascade and Earth. Earth especially had had a real burst of popularity with it once the emergency grav belt had eliminated the fear of fatal falls.

We had been to all those places over the course of the summer, but not to Earth. A Yaru was a rare but not unknown sight on those other facets, but there was no way one could be mistaken for any Earthly animal, so I had not been able to make any trips back before the start of the school year. When it was time to leave Aruh and leave Spray, I found I would actually miss the little trickster. His caustic wit may take some getting used to, but I had made the adjustment, and now found myself finding the empty spaces where his caustic comments would have normally been inserted.

I was back in Angels Camp a week before school started. Cross Country pre-season conditioning was already going on, but I was able to demonstrate that I was already conditioned and the coaches stopped giving me crap about joining them late.

Teddy was happy to have me back and arranged a night alone for the two of us at her house the first weekend after my return. She must not have had any more chance to relieve her sexual energies over the summer than I had. Between the two of us, a hurricane force storm of sexual release and gratification swept us up. We actually had to take time, once things had calmed down, to air out a few rooms and do some laundry.

Afterwards, we lay together trying to get to sleep, Teddy's head resting in the crook of my shoulder. Thew hurricane had abated for now, but I still felt like I was caught up in a whirlwind. The energy and emotion in Teddy, in her response to me, had been frighteningly strong. Strong to the point of almost being overpowering.

I wasn't prepared to be overwhelmed by emotions, or by the surge of energy the feedback from them gave me. It was an energy that fed me, like the Light could feed me. I had always kept myself shielded from its full effect in the past, just as I usually kept myself from people's minds and thoughts. This was something very different though. Nothing I'd learned in Soul Diver school, or from anyone in the family either on Arbor or anywhere else, had suggested that the emotions of others could be an energy source.

This was something new. Something not a part of my legacy as a McKesson. Those who lived within the Light did not know of this; weren't capable of using emotion like they did Light.

I could though. What was I?

By Christmas of my sophomore year at Bret Hart high, Teddy Seville and I were universally accepted as a couple. I'd found barely a twinge of regret at Ben's choice. His girlfriend Kristina in fact, became one of the small group that Teddy and I socialized with outside of school. She was just so sweet and outgoing, you felt yourself wanting to draw her in to bask in her radiance. For some that was just a compliment, but for me, it was literally true. She radiated positive emotional energy, and when I was near her, it filled me. It never rose to the high energy levels I experienced with Teddy, but it was steady and so damned positive!

Teddy was high energy as well, but she was a large mix of light and dark emotions. Most people, I was discovering, were emotionally neutral most of the time. Only occasionally did they rise up out of their state of emotional neutrality. I tried very hard to avoid large crowds of emotionally charged people. I was able to block the emotional energy, but there was a lot of leakage in my shield. It was completely self-taught, so I wasn't sure even how I was doing it, let alone where the leaks were coming from.

I spent more and more time rock climbing. As with Splay, it was a way to be alone when I might otherwise have been with Teddy. She said it out loud the first time, before I had a chance to even formulate the thought for myself.

"You're a loner at heart, aren't you?" I had my head resting on her tummy, listening to her breathing slowly come back to normal after our lovemaking. I opened my eyes to look up at her, but a firm, conical breast and prominent nipple blocked her face from my view. Her nipples and areola were much darker than mine, a dark golden brown to my dusky pink. Her observation made me think, and I didn't answer at first, staring at the beauty in front of me, but blind to it for the moment.

"Yes, I guess that's true," I answered finally. "It is a part of what makes me what I am though." The soft puffs of air from my speaking must have hit the right spot, because as I said them, her nipples began to stiffen. "It is something you could never be, and that is one of the reasons that we could never stay together after high school. I will be alone for long stretches of time, if my life goes as I plan."

"That's one of the reasons you seem to gravitate to solitary activities like rock climbing, isn't it?"

"That's exactly right. Does it bother you?"

"No. It might if I thought it was just to get away from me, but its not. You need time to be alone, it doesn't matter that is me that you're leaving to do it, it would be anyone who was there. I know it's not personal."