Koldan, Sin and the Doomed Ship

If you have read A beginning..., you should already know how Koldan and Sin met and why their relationship isn't normal. As I didn't want to introduce too many things at the same time, I have not explained how it actually happened. The two friends — are they still just friends actually, who knows? — had been seeing each other regularly at the Shemales Hideout, randomly at first but more like a rendez vous when they found out that they, in fact, really appreciated the company of each other.

One evening however, they could not be present in person at the same place at the same time, so the demoness contacted him directly in his mind. What happened afterwards was unexpected, even if you should already know the conclusion (but not in that amount of detail).

Reunion

  Sin whispered in Koldan's head with the excited voice of someone who meets a dear friend. "Hello Koldan, I hope you're having a great moment tonight."
  Koldan Illarion mentally flinched in reaction to the surprisingly intimate presence of the mental voice, then relaxed, his defenses lowering and his mind welcoming her. "Well. This is a great moment right now."
  Koldan Illarion: First time for me, anyway.
  Sin: It is for me too, and I apologize if I surprised you.
  Sin talked with a reassuring tone, conscious that the intrusion could have been surprising for the wolf. "Please tell me if it bothers you. I could not wait talking with you."
  Koldan Illarion: Heh. No worries, Sin. I'm sure you have many things you like to do on here. I'm not going to demand every moment of your time.
  Koldan Illarion nods, then realized she couldn't see it. His thoughts were in English, but somehow he knew they were communicating on some more primal level than that, thought without the need for clumsy verbal wrappings. He thought for a moment, then said earnestly, "No. It's good. It feels right to have you in my mind."
  Sin: I'm happy if it feels this way for you, as it does for me. It's strange, this connection that we have together... But I like it.
  Koldan Illarion: We have met before. Not sure where. Or when. But I feel it. Like I knew your scent before I was even born. We...haven't always been friends. But we are now. If this makes sense.
  Sin: I... don't know. My memories are completely black since that day I told you about when we met...
  Sin: I hope we were not enemies. You're such an important person to me... why would we have ever been in conflict?
  Sin had a sad face for a moment, thankful that Koldan could not see it. But her voice betrayed her mood. "I would like to know more about what happened to me before that day. Don't you?"
  Koldan Illarion: "I don't know. But we don't have to be enemies again." He pictured her face. The physical response to the image could be perceived through the fabric of his thoughts, pulse quickening and a surge of protective instincts. His own peculiar, nonhuman form of love. There was really no hiding one's true thoughts in telepathy.
  Sin didn't reply, but could understand exactly what Koldan was feeling. Again, she didn't know how nor why, but she had the impression she had known this kind of feelings since she was born. Where was she born again, anyway? Was she crazy? Why would the person she felt she knew the most was so far away from her own kind? What could link a wolf to a demoness?
  Sin suddenly realized she was thinking openly in Koldan's mind. "I am sorry. I didn't mean I was uncomfortable. I love our relationship, Koldan."
  Sin blushed, shy and a little anxious at what just happened. She had more questions than answers, but in a way she liked it.

Split 

  Koldan Illarion tried to recall his past, as he had so many times before, a rapid-fire series of images forming in response, plain for her to see too in his unshielded thoughts. Impossibly small, a whelp, looking up at a towering cadre instructor as the adult clouted him across the snout. An electronic klaxon sounding and red medical alerts flashing in his heads-up display, looking down at his armor as his blood fountained out into space, the cold of the interstellar void seeping intot he wound. Day after mind-numbing day of barest survival, alone in a jungle where green light filtered through trees. And finally - hands reaching out from a glaring nuclear furnace, so bright it stung the eyes even as a thought. A malevolent, somehow female presence that whispered, "Persephone" like a death threat. He withdrew, mentally, the images stopping. "Sorry."
  Sin assimilated the images, in shock, taken in the sudden and intense sensations that went through Koldan's mind. She took some time to recover, trying to understand what she had just seen. She had no knowledge of any of it, except maybe a weird sensation when hearing that electronic klaxon. A deep, dark sensation she had never felt... at least not to her knowledge.
  Sin: What... what just happened? You never talked about all of this to me. I recall you saying you lived in a jungle at some point but... not in this circumstance.
  Koldan Illarion: "I don't know," he answered sullenly. It was an embarrassment, somehow. Pitiable to not understand your own memories, like trying to walk and crawling instead. "Always the same. Always...she stops me." Persephone, whoever she was. "I was...am...afraid of her." It was not an easy admission. He was afraid of little, but Persephone filled him with a cold dread she could feel in his thoughts.
  Sin sensations showed surprise, but no reproach or distrust. Actually, the opposite: a serious concern about you, concern that some dark memories may hunt you and destroy you. And she was starting to be concerned about her, too, as this had triggered a dark sensation she didn't know she had ever felt.
  Sin: Persephone... I am wondering who that may be.
  Sin: Maybe finding her and confronting her would be useful... but maybe we want to know more first. But where should we start looking?
  Sin sends reassuring thoughts to the wolf. "I wish I could do more right now to comfort you..."

Reinforcement 

  Koldan Illarion: "I don't know, Sin." Ever since he had met her, he used her name reluctantly. To him, the word did not seem to fit her. "I am not sure I want to find her. She wants to kill me. And you." His paws clenched, gripping weapons he had trained with that were no longer in his possession. A strong, automatic reflex. "And she's not a she. An it." He accepted the comfort, wrapping her up in his calming thoughts.
  Sin smiled in a subtle mix of comfort and fear. "I don't know how you take it so calmly. I definitely want to learn more about all of this, especially now that I know she is after you... and me."
  Koldan Illarion: "What about you?" he asked, waiting for the question to sink in before continuing, in case she had a chain reaction of memories like he had. "Do you remember anything?" Here inside his mind, his vaguely Russian accent was gone, since thought had no dialects.
  Sin thought about it for a long moment. "Not really... I obviously always questioned my origins, especially since I have a home in Hell, but I never doubted more than now..."
  Sin: Could we have known each other before we met? ... In which context?
  Sin: ...and how could this Persephone know me?