After reliving the memory, Max awoke from where he had gone to sleep. Still sitting on the faded but comfortably plump chair, he checked over himself.
His eyes were still heavy and his throat and muscles were a little sore. He attributed those to a possible draft coming in. Yet, now that the sun had risen, Max found the temperature relaxingly warm. Central Zootopia seemed to maintain a steady climate, much like the other sectors of the city: almost tropical but livable. Max found himself quite jealous of those who got to live here and enjoy it. Max and his community had enjoyed good weathered lands in the past, granted. However, their nomadic lifestyle had always pushed them to keep travelling. Max himself had experience in frozen wastelands, humid rainforests, scorching deserts, dense woods and dry savannahs in his lifetime, and he was only really reaching maturity.
It has often been said that humans do not have a 'natural habitat.' Often used as another differential between humanity and every other mammal, Max couldn't disagree. Maybe, Max wondered, it would be better to claim that humanity's natural habitat was everywhere at once. He liked the sound of that.
Deciding that he had wasted enough time waking himself up, Max rose from the chair and made to leave the storage room that he had been resting in. Leaving the keys in the lock should cover his tracks: the sheep won't remember him, so will likely just think he had left his keys there, when he comes back to look for them.
Max set out again. He knew little about the details but he needed to find a scientist of some kind.
His mind began to wander as he walked, about his dream and the event that had spawned it.
"It is your eyes that give it away," the slender elder continued, prompted on by Max's bewildered silence, "It is said that humans had piercing stares. Seldom blinking, calculated. It was also said that humans once had more vibrant colored eyes, which you appear to possess."
Max could confirm all of this. He would describe his eyes as brown but, when they shine, they actually revealed themselves as a glowing mix of red, orange and yellow. Like leaves that fall in autumn. He had never put that much thought into them and certainly didn't believe that they gave him any special power. Yet, he remained silent and did not voice his doubt with the elders, allowing them to finish speaking before he interrupted again.
"You may hold these powers inside of you, but they are weak. Dormant. What you can do will be greatly limited," the more rotund elder stated.
"As of now, without any finesse or training, you could probably just give out basic commands. With the effort to do even that, I doubt you could manage to mesmerize any more than one at a time, and they would probably need to have weak minds too," the short elder one grunted out.
That sounded about right, Max thought.
The eldest of the three elders spoke again, "That is why it is important for you to find this training and to build finesse. You will now spend the rest of your time to hone this power. Do whatever is necessary to release it from dormancy. You may be the key to avenging humanity."
Max couldn't even remember how long ago that meeting was but that had been the catalyst that had set him on this path.
He had taken the elder's words to heart. He tried to understand the mesmerizing gift that he had. They had sent him off to practice once or twice, which also allowed him to learn about self-reliance and survival, as he would find lone animals and attempt to ensnare.
They had been right. He was incredibly limited in what he was able to do.
He had been improving but he could essentially only place animals into blank states and give commands, which they'd follow mindlessly and then break free. He could only do it to one animal at a time, as of now. He was trying to change that, to give them awareness or to make permanent changes, but he couldn't risk exposing himself.
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