And so I was a captive on the sky vessel. A young otter taken from the open water while I was on vacation. While was bearing the metal plate on my head, I was resting in my cell. I heard the approaching footsteps of someone else on the ship. I recognized it as the sound of the caretaker cyborg when I saw her enter the room.
"Is something wrong?" she asked in her soft, caring voice.
"Well, I definitely feel I have pushed myself more here. Or, I guess I'm not fully in control of myself when those are active." I said. "I guess even you can't help me with that."
"I can't." she replied.
"I don't get why I am not controlled by them right now." I said, referring to the cybernetic implants forced upon me.
"There are limits to what the system can handle. Only so many bodies can be controlled at once," she said.
"You would think your leader would have fixed that before invading my planet." I responded
"And why did you think we were from another world?" she asked.
"Huh?" I asked. "I thought you were some kind of aliens."
"Is that because of our technology?" She asked.
"You showed up in UFOs. You were definitely at least trying to trick us into thinking you were from another world." I responded.
"If we were people of another world, why would we be speaking your language?"
"You know, I thought of that, but thinking is a bit hard when you have something stuck inside your brain." I said.
"Would you like something to eat?" she asked.
"Not now, but thanks for the offer." I replied.
"I prepare your food, yes, but I'm not the one you should be thanking for it," She said. "Ultimately, only she is the source of food for all her children."
"Huh?" I asked. I was confused as to what exactly she was talking about.
"She is vast, and the source of the substance from which all living things are made. She is the one who allocates the souls for every reincarnation. She has many names, in many cultures. And many names within my own culture," she said. I figured she was talking about some sort of goddess by this point, and I think I knew who.
"Mother Earth?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "May she protect and sustain us, for all creatures are her children."
"That isn't exactly what I believe..." I said awkwardly, trailing off towards the end of the statement.
"I don't expect it to be. It is the faith of my people, though," she replied.
"Even your boss?" I asked.
"Well, he doesn't have quite the same value of the natural world as I do." she replied.
"Well, that explains the whole cyborg thing." I snarked.
"He is a very honorable mole, and I owe to him my life," she responded. Well, that at least answered one of the questions I had, now that I knew my captors were also Earth people.
"So, you're a mole?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "I guess you don't run into many members of my exact species where you come from."
"On Fishtail Island, not that I have noticed." I replied.
"Your file says your species is native to a different continent than that," she mentioned.
"Yeah, my family came across the sea over a hundred years ago, at least." I said. I wasn't sure of the exact number of years, or where each of my ancestors arrived from exactly.
"Well, you speak a tongue related to the native language of my people," she mentioned.
I was a bit intrigued, and rather liking where this lesson was going. "Well, it seems most of the people of my country learn to speak Aldish." I mentioned.
"You see, long ago there was a culture that spread throughout the Great Continent, from the shores of the Olive Sea all the way to the mountains and my homeland South of them. And most of the languages spoken today are descended from the language they spoke," she explained.
"Wait, which mountains?" I asked. And she projected from the red device on the back of the metal glove she wore a three dimensional globe, and glowing brighter than the rest of the geometry was a band of mountains to the Northeast of a large region that, if I considered those mountains a boundary, would be roughly four sided like a kite, with a noticeable island near the Southeast corner. It would be that island that the legion would invade in the months following the incident I am describing. And it would be that island where I would be set free.
"I believe that answers your question," she said.
"So, what were you saying earlier?" I asked, now that I had in my mind an image of our world.
"Well, to some, Mother Earth is a massive turtle, although I believe it makes sense she can take the form of any of her children," she explained.
"And all of the Earth people are considered to be her children?" I asked.
"Not only the people, for she is the source of all life. The insects, worms, plants, and even the fish which I know you very much enjoy," she said.
"And how does Mother Earth feed us?" I asked.
"Well, the same way any mother would," she replied, pointing at my belly.
"As I said earlier, that isn't what my faith teaches," I said.
"Well, you believe the material from which all of us are made is from the Earth, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, that's true." I replied. I then saw her looking up something with her eyepiece. A wall of text that moved too fast to read scrolled by her covered eye, and she held one of her clawed hands near her chin in thought.
"Is this one of yours?" she asked, before reciting a prayer that definitely calmed me down. Although I wasn't of the impression it was what she believed, it was something I was familiar with. Although I found a certain dissonance in her praying for peace, knowing that I was turned into a cyborg for the purpose of waging war. But this just made me think she was being forced to fight against her will by the cybernetics embedded within her head. It seemed that, deep down, she really wished for a world of peace, where we would have no need for weapons and focus our energies on producing food.
