Date Point: 16y3m6d
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Technical Sergeant Adam “Warhorse” Arés
“Firth, I gotta ask ‘ya something.”
Per Colonel Powell’s standing orders, they had the rest of the day off for individual training time after a mission.
Adam always took maximum advantage, but some of the other operators might use it to catch up on rest, and so they would take a light day…including Firth. Especially Firth. But that wouldn’t do, not anymore.
Adam…wasn’t really happy with how Firth’s physical development had progressed. That was a strange thing for a hyper-competitive dude like him to admit, when he was literally the fastest and strongest man alive. Hell, the fastest and strongest man to ever live. But it was lonely at the top and Marty had helped him put into words a thought that had been bugging him for a while: That ultimately, Adam liked competition more than he actually liked winning.
He had other reasons for being dissatisfied too, but the truth was there was only one human being left that could compete with him…or rather should have been able to compete, except not so long ago, Adam had almost literally broken him in half.
Firth was the only man there was that might one day beat the tar outta Adam at his own game, but to do that he had to break out a lifetime of an unconsciously better-than-everyone mindset. That needed to change. Not just to satisfy Adam’s own need for genuine competition, but because of the Mission.
One day they were gonna need him at his best, especially if they were going to keep ahead of threats like the Hunters.
The trouble was, Adam couldn’t exactly correct Firth on that in public. Training sergeant he might be, but Firth was still in charge, deservedly so, and Adam had almost fatally injured his senior NCO’s reputation—and his own career, too—by going all caveman on him in a particularly stupid fashion.
So, he’d had learned the trick to correcting a superior NCO: do it in private. Be respectful.
But also be unyielding.
“Yuh? What’s up?”
“Uh…in private.”
Firth quirked an eyebrow but Adam didn’t relent. “Okay.”
Most of the Lads had gone away to attend to their individual training anyway. Moho was getting changed and playing his forever-big-brother role for Miller as he did so, but the locker room was a useful L-shape, and the end near the showers was relatively private. They retreated around the corner and lowered their voices.
“Wassup?”
Adam cornered him and dropped back into an old conversation. “Bro. Kickboxing? Right now, when you’re warmed up for something heavy? You ain’t got time to be dicking around, Firth. Hit the weights. You have a fuck of a lot of catching up to do if you ever wanna beat me.”
“This shit again? I know how to fuckin’ train, ‘Horse.” Firth grumbled. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer’n you.”
“Yeah, you have. And I’m way better than you.”
Out in the other half of the locker room, Coyers and Miller finally fucked off and left them alone. Maybe they’d heard everything and wanted to give them some room, maybe they were just off to do whatever they were doing. It didn’t matter. Adam retreated out of the shower, which always kinda smelled nasty anyway, and returned to his locker.
Firth followed, wearing a scowl. Adam knew that the truth hurt, but the taller man simply couldn’t argue that point. Not with the memory of their fight still kinda recent in both their memories.
“I’m better at everything.” Adam added, and casually retrieved his heavy ’kettlebell’ from his locker to do a set of too-easy swings. It was an oversized jerry can they’d cast iron into, and he’d taken to keeping it in there after one of the techs had tried to move it and wound up hurting their back. Most people couldn’t lift it at all. Or even budge it. Adam, on the other hand…
Well. Not even Firth could comfortably swing it like a kettlebell. Point made.
Adam was being aggressive as fuck, really. But he knew Firth, and that kind of blunt statement married to a visual demonstration was about the only way to smash through his ego. He put the can down at the end of the bench carefully, so as not to damage the floor tiles. “I’m better. Not just at bein’ strong, either. By so goddamned much it’s embarrassing. And we both know it.”
“What’s your point?” Firth growled.
“My point is, why the fuck are you wasting your potential? You should be embarrassing me every single day on every single training event we do, but you ain’t. Instead you’re wasting your time on kickboxing and other bullshit when you should be getting stronger. I’m pretty much at my limit, but you aren’t even close to yours yet.”
“I do actually need to perform, y’know,” Firth retorted. “That means I gotta stay on top of my combatives.”
“Dude. You know combatives. Better’n anyone! But I can still break you like a fuckin’ twig, and you can’t do shit to me even when I let you.” Adam shoved his bag in the locker and closed it. “Wanna know why that is, bro? It’s ‘cuz you ain’t hard enough, and you ain’t fast enough, ‘cuz you ain’t strong enough.”
Firth glowered for a second, not specifically at Adam. It looked more like he was glaring inwardly at himself.
“…Alright. Fair,” he admitted after a moment. He could take criticism well, once he’d let the anger slip by, but Adam was glad to see it was gone. The fight was behind them both, and he wasn’t eager to repeat it.
“You’ve got…what, another twelve years left on the Crude?” Adam asked.
Firth nodded. He’d started his Cruezzir-D regime later than Adam or ‘Base, like all the others from the original crew. And after Murray and Powell, he’d been one of the oldest among them even then.
“…Yeah. Something like that. Closer to thirteen.”
“Right. And you’re just now getting the full effect, right?”
“Yeah…” Firth looked across at the mirror and folded his huge arms at his reflection. “An’ fuck, look at me. I’m fuckin’ young again! It’s a goddamned head trip.”
Adam could imagine. Where the Crude had only paused his own maturation, in Firth’s case—and Powell’s, and Murray’s, and Blaczynski’s—they’d all visibly got younger in the face. Their wrinkles had vanished, their hair had thickened, their scars had healed. It was a fountain of youth. Adam had practically grown up seeing old, craggy Firth every single day, and now…he was young again, his old injuries completely healed and gone thanks to the Crude and other advanced regenerative medicine. He wasn’t weather-beaten, he wasn’t all smashed up anymore…hell, he was handsome now, in a brutal sort of way.
Everyone on the team was pretty fuckin’ genetically blessed, Gaoian and human alike, and there wasn’t a man among them who didn’t score well in the looks department. The “ugly” ones had always been Thurrsto—who really wasn’t, he just didn’t look like a traditional Whitecrest—and Firth, who had looked like what happened if you took a very good-looking young man and beat his face in every day for years on end.
Now? Well. It was strange to think about, but on a good day, Firth was maybe as handsome as Adam and behind only Sikes, who was officially the Most Prettiest Superhero on the team.
Adam still wasn’t quite used to that.
He was looking forward to the way things were going with medicine these days. There was a mild anti-cancer and longevity supplement that was coming onto the market, derived from the original Cruezzir. It wasn’t anything drastic, but it did promise the same Fountain Of Youth benefit all the Lads got from Crue-D. Which honestly, was most of how they did what they did anyway. A man normally got a year or maybe three in the full flower of his youth. What could he do with twenty, and the ability to recover almost instantly? The HEAT were living testimony.
Fortunately, the public wouldn’t be getting any of the “supersoldier” enablers the Crude had in it that even Cruezzir didn’t…but that was a good thing. Living on the bleeding edge of human (and Gaoian) capability was dangerous if a man didn’t have the right support systems in place.
The public wasn’t ready for that, not by a long shot. But, if there was a safer alternative available to everyone, then the temptation to try their luck might not be as strong. Or so went the hope.
In any case, twenty years wasn’t much in the long term. But it was eternity if one spouse got twenty years of not aging and the other aged normally. So long as Adam used the Crude, he’d stay a pretty perpetual physical nineteen-to-twenty-one years old, and by the time he stopped getting the benefit he’d be well into his forties…and Marty was a couple-few years older than him. Shit, if the aging just continued normally after it wore off then he’d wind up looking more like Diego’s older brother than his dad, but Marty would definitely be entering her middle age.
They hadn’t really foreseen that complication of the Crude when they first started using it. Now, at least, Cruezzir-derived medicine promised to fix that problem. And Adam knew Marty: She was unashamedly (and deservedly!) vain about her looks sometimes. Plus…Well. Who didn’t like being young?
She’d jump at the chance to take that medicine, when it came. And it was coming soon.
Anyway. All of that left a pretty big flaw in Firth’s reasoning, or maybe his lack of reasoning. Adam decided to point it out.
“Okay. So. Thirteen years left. Let’s do the math. That means, right now, you’re in the same position I was when I started, except you’ve got a much bigger head start. Your genetics mean you’re built way better for this kinda shit, too. You’re the only human I know of anywhere who’s a better natural talent than me or Julian, so…why ain’t you goin’ balls out?”
Firth was honestly pretty damn thoughtful when he needed to be. “…Yeah. I mean, it’s all good points. Can’t really argue it. I’ve just been focused on what I know, y’know? Bein’ strong always came natural, it’s the practice an’ the sparring I always had to work at.”
“So it hasn’t been first and foremost in your head.”
‘…Yeah, I s’pose. I’ve been relyin’ on ‘ya to keep kickin’ my ass forward, haven’t I?”
“…I’d say so, yeah.”
“Well.” A look of resolve crossed Firth’s face. “I’d better man the fuck up, then.”
That was what Adam wanted to hear. He bounced on his toes, suddenly happy again, and favored Firth what a playful slap on the shoulder. “Yeah, bro!”
“So where do we start?”
Adam grinned, and aimed a thumb toward the gym. “I’m gonna put you through Daar’s regime.”
Firth scoffed. “Daar? You kiddin’ me? I can handle any Gaoian’s schedule.”
Adam just chuckled. “Dude. Last time I checked he’s been kicking your ass on the regular. Real talk? Daar’s giving me a serious run for my money right now. Like…seriously. The last time we trained together it was for the entire fuckin’ day, and I was fuckin’ beat, dude.”
Firth gave Adam a look of genuine surprise. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah, dude.”
“…Damn.”
“Exactly. Big fucker’s a freak of nature and he’s still growing like a weed, too. And that attitude, right th ere? That’s why I’ve been pushing your shit in since I was still a teenager.”
Firth nodded grimly at that; the lesson was definitely sinking in. Good. Adam led the way through into the gym, which was thankfully empty at this time of day. He didn’t feel like embarrassing Firth in front of everyone.
“So…seriously.” Firth set to limbering up. “Daar? I mean, I’m havin’ trouble imagining that.”
“It’s true,” Adam confirmed, and set to stretching as well. “And that snuck up on me, too. First really started to notice it before the coronation. I’m super happy for him an’ all, and it’s given me serious motivation and I’ve been making progress again, but…”
Firth looked up from his position on the floor. He was doing the splits to open his hips up. “Like you said, you’re pretty much at your limits.”
Adam flumped to the mat and worked into splits as well. “Yup. Right now, my only competition is a talking space gorilla and the god-emperorbear of the universe. But Yan’s discovered weights and I have no idea what the fuck Daar is. I don’t think anyone does, least of all him.”
“And…what, you think they’re gonna top you? And that I can top them?”
“Yeah dude, you can if you really want it. I love ‘em both to death but they’re prob’ly gonna kick my ass, and I’m pretty sure that Daar’s gonna be straight ridiculous. And I’ll be fuckin’ damned if we humans get upstaged by either of them. I want us to keep that crown.”
Firth nodded gravely. “So it’s gotta be me, huh?”
“Right. This is important, bro. I mean…” Adam couldn’t really put why it was important into words, but some part of him knew that it was probably a good thing if the godzilla emperor spacebear guy in charge of a billion-strong army knew there were dudes out there who could humble him. Especially if those dudes happened to be human beings.
“I get it.” Firth looked around. “So where do we start?”
Adam grinned savagely and rolled his thick neck. “I’m gonna beat the shit outta you again.”
Firth gave him a look that carried a lot of unspoken complaint. “…Thought the point was I need to lift more?”
“The point is, you need to know just how far behind you really are. If a real fight was always about skill, I’d never once have won against you. So…I think you need to really get just how much ability you’re leaving off the table.” Adam took up position in the middle of the mat, spread his hands, and grinned.
“C’mon,” he said. “Time to learn.”
Date Point: 16y3m6d
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Gyotin, Champion of Clan Starmind
Preed Chadesekan had become a regular sight around the Multi-Faith center. There weren’t many Buddhists who used the center—mostly it catered to the bewildering variety of Christian and Muslim worshippers—which might have been odd until one considered that the Starmind monastery was only a few yards away across the park.
Preed had politely declined Gyotin’s personal invitation to meditate at the monastery, however. He needed time among other Humans, and the Gaoian interpretation of Sōtō Zen was decidedly more…austere in its aesthetic compared to the Theravada tradition he practiced. Not to mention that Gaoians lived much more in the flesh than in the abstract spiritual communion with infinity that seemed to be the goal of Human spirituality.
That was why the multi-faith center had nondenominational spaces, though. A place where worshippers of any tradition, from Folctha’s sturdy pagan minority to rare specimens like a Thai expatriate could find a little peace in whatever form most suited them.
Still. Gyotin made a point of checking up on the elderly Human just as carefully as he kept an eye on Leemu. Even if the Great Father wasn’t so obviously invested in their case, it was a matter of personal fascination for Gyotin himself.
He’d tried to keep an eye on Gorku too. The big brownfur seemed deeply and politely confused by the entire attempt, and so he left him to his own devices. Some people, apparently, found their center in the vigorously material.
Besides. Gyotin wasn’t about to interfere with anyone’s success in courting a female.
As for Preed…well, Gyotin had to profess to some irritation there. The Thai approach to tea largely seemed to involved doctoring it up with all sorts of spices, sugar, coconut milk…
To each their own of course. But the whole allure of tea for Gyotin was the balance between its simplicity and its delicacy.
On the other hand, there was always cocoa…
Preed sipped it, then tipped his head back with a sigh. “…Thank you.”
Gyotin sat opposite him, chittering good-naturedly. “Not tired of Gaoians yet, then?”
The elderly Human laughed softly. “Not quite.”
“Oh?”
“I had not appreciated how…intensely your kind socialize. Those two never stop.”
“Young males are always affectionate. And unreserved in their affection,” Gyotin agreed, then thought about that statement some more. “…Most old males too, actually.” His ribs were still a touch sore from the last Great Father Hug. That was almost two weeks ago.
Preed laughed again. “Yes. I’m very fond of Gorku and Leemu, but an old man needs some peace and quiet now and then. And clean spaces. Now that Leemu has discovered paint, I don’t think the house will ever be neat and tidy ever again.”
“I had been meaning to ask after him on that. How…he can see a whole new color, now?”
“More than that. He can see a whole new primary color. I’ve been reading on this in the library. Apparently we can see billions of colors…” He shrugged self-deprecatingly. “I look at green and I see green. Shades of green, maybe.”
“So your names for colors are more a category, rather than a specific appellation.”
“Truthfully, I never thought about it much before. But now here we are: Leemu can see red and orange and purple, and all their shades. So as he learns new things about colour, he tells me all about them even as he leaves little red pawprints through the living room.”
“Has he had his vision tested?”
“Yes, weekly. He’s reached the point where he is officially not colour-impaired by human standards. The doctor—Nofl. You know him?”
“I know him.”
“He said things have ‘settled down’ now, whatever that means. Which means all the rest of what’s changing in him has started to come to the fore. And that makes him…restless. The only thing he seems to focus on is painting, so he watches tutorial videos. A man called Bob Ross.”
Gyotin had to chitter at that, and especially at the absurd mental image that popped into his head of Leemu sporting a voluminous afro, a large pallet and a pocket full of squirrels.
He’d never met a squirrel. Or rather, he’d never met one up close. Annoyingly, something in his instincts made him want to chase them, and too many cubs had given in to that impulse, so the ones imported to Cimbrean had grown up hyper-wary of being chased by Gaoians and dogs alike and were thus considerably more, well…squirrely.
Daar had said they were a fun challenge to catch, but they had sharp little claws and therefore were not much worth the effort.
Or for a brute like the Great Father, Gyotin suspected, the calories.
He took a sip of his cocoa to cover the momentary tangential train of thought and returned to the here-and-now. “So Leemu’s making a mess.”
Preed made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t really mind the mess. We have this funny little robot carpet cleaner. But he sings while he paints.”
“…On behalf of all Gao, I apologize.” Gyotin said, with deadpan solemnity. He knew full well that even quite a good Gaoian singing voice was excruciating to Human ears.
“I don’t really mind. It’s good that he has found something that energizes him! But it is rather…piercing.” Preed gave a sorry, embarrassed look. “So sometimes, I need some quiet.”
“We’re all watching his case with interest,” Gyotin acknowledged. “This…transformation he is going through intrigues our scientists. And as for me…”
“It makes you uneasy?” Preed guessed.
“Yes.”
“I can understand. I admit, it makes me uneasy too.” The old man pondered his cocoa for a second. “…I know that what he is gaining is what I take for granted every day. But to see him be…rewritten like this? I don’t know how to feel.”
“I find it helps to focus not on how you should feel, but on what you do feel,” Gyotin advised. “How can you know where to go if you don’t know where you are?”
“I’m…happy to have my friend back,” Preed said, slowly. “But he’s different now. I miss the Leemu that was. This new Leemu is…sometimes his old personality shines through, and I smile, but then it vanishes again. He can quickly become very depressed and anxious, and only the colours and the paints pull him out…but those drive him manic! It is rare that he is just…himself.”
“I am given to understand that is the way of depression among humans. It is…a novel experience for my kind. I’m told his situation will likely improve with time…”
“I wouldn’t know,” Preed said. “This is new for me, too.”
“Hmm.” Gyotin scritched at his cheek in thought. “It has been a while since I’ve visited anyone. Perhaps I should pay Leemu a visit?”
“You’d be very welcome.”
“I’ll come around this evening then.”
“Good idea. He likes to watch the sunset. It puts him in a good mood.”
Plans didn’t come much simpler. So, once Preed had gone home, Gyotin spent the rest of the day busy attending to Clan matters, quietly chatting with the various beings who used the Center as a place to balm whatever was troubling their souls, and generally did what he did best.
Sadly, the day’s sunset turned out to be underwhelming. The nightly rains were always preceded by cloud cover, and it arrived a little earlier than usual, casting a dull and grey sky rather than a vibrant one full of new colours for Leemu to enjoy.
Still, Gyotin kept his promise and arrived around about when sunset should have been. He found Gorku loudly clanging about in what had originally a garage but was now full of mats, heavy objects and the smell of physical exertion. It couldn’t be called anything so grandiose as a “gym” but it filled the same function.
He waited patiently for the big Stoneback Associate to complete the round of whatever it was he was doing—something involving repeatedly picking up a very heavy-looking bar and putting it down. Eventually, the bar was dropped with a tremendous, ground-shaking crash and Gorku celebrated with a kind of happy dance, huge tongue lolling out the side of his muzzle and an otherwise delighted expression on his face that grew even bigger and more delighted when he turned and saw who had come to visit. Clearly his sense of smell still needed time to improve.
“Oh, hey! How’ya doin’ champ?!”
As with most brownies, it was hard not to like Gorku. He tended toward the same cheerfully irrepressible irreverence that defined Daar. Gyotin should probably have reminded him once again that it was Champion, but…
No. No point, really. He meant well.
“Oh, I am doing quite fine, thank you. Would you like some tea?”
“Yeah!!”
Well, Gorku was easy to please. And eager to please! He crashed into the living room and swirled around it, tidying it up and trying to put straight a riot of nick-nacks and oddities that looked like a mad inventor had collided at full speed with a tortured artist. The commotion summoned Preed from the small office he’d claimed at the other end of the house, and he gave Gyotin a knowing smile.
“Sorry ‘fer the mess! We’ve got Leemu doin’ some pretty advanced stuff now! Little guy’s strong as balls, likes tusslin’ more an’ more err’day! And he likes ‘ta tinker, too!”
“He’s been playing around with copper,” Preed expanded, finding a clean spot on the couch. He moved a sculpture of some kind out of the way, a tree wound inexpertly out of thin wire.
“Copper?” Gyotin asked, as he ducked through into the kitchen to make the tea.
“To Human eyes, copper has rather a rich orange-red hue. I understand to Gaoian eyes it’s mostly just another metal.”
Gorku whined very slightly in jealousy. “It’s been super weird watchin’ him discover it all. But! I’ve been smellin’ stuff now that Nofl’s been fixin’ my brain up. It’s weird, yijao?”
“I suppose it’s difficult to imagine what a thing one has never experienced is like…” Gyotin mused. “I can see why you’re so delighted by it.”
“Yeah! It’s been helpful too. I can smell, uh…this sorta sharp scent on Leemu a bit before he has a bad mood, now. I just give Preed an ear-flick an’ he knows too.”
“Ah! Yes, that one comes the easiest. If you can smell that you’ll be able to smell the other emotions eventually. And in Humans, too!”
“Really?!”
“Yes! Is Leemu available?”
“Uh…yeah. He went out to the garden to rest after we tussled a bit. I won,” Gorku added with a smug flick of his ears, “but not instantly! He’s getting pretty good!”
“I’ll visit him, if you don’t mind.” Gyotin delivered two steaming cups of tea, got a nod from Preed which was enthusiastically echoed by Gorku, and took the other two cups with him out into the garden.
Clearly, the green space at the back of the house was being lovingly tended. There were ceramic pots everywhere, each overflowing with life and scents. Many of the plants smelled culinary or medicinal to Gyotin’s nose. Though the fetid stench coming off the pile of decomposing vegetable waste and grass clippings at the far end of the garden persuaded him not to go that way. Humans used some truly fearsome microbes in their gardening.
He found Leemu curled up in the middle of the wooden deck, with his nose resting on his rump and staring forlornly at the western sky in a slump of deep disappointment. It wasn’t a happy posture, but Gyotin had seen more miserable too. And at least the young male raised his head and pricked up his ears on his approach.
“…Champion. What brings you here?”
“Tea,” Gyotin chittered softly and handed the drink over. Leemu smelled a little dehydrated. “And I hear you’ve been experimenting with paint and copper. It sounded fascinating.”
“It is!” Leemu’s mood instantly brightened, and focused into the slightly manic personality that Preed had warned him about. “I don’t even know how to describe it! It’s like…the whole world is more alive than we ever knew! Even little things, everywhere…and I’m the only Gaoian who gets to see it.”
His ears drooped as he said that. “I was trying to…catch it. But Gorku can’t see it, and Preed doesn’t…he can see red, but he’s always seen red, so it isn’t special to him. So he doesn’t really get what I’m trying to…”
He trailed off helplessly.
“You’re trying to show what nobody else can see,” Gyotin summarized for him, and sat down. He was gratified to note that Leemu was at least well-groomed and clean. Gorku’s doing, probably, but still good.
“Yeah. And other Gao don’t see it ‘cuz they can’t and Humans don’t see it ‘cuz they’ve never not been able to. I mean…” Leemu flexed his claws animatedly. “It’s like trying to really explain air to somebody who’s been doing it every day their whole life. How do you really appreciate something that’s just…part of life to you? You can’t!”
He let out a frustrated keen and then curled back up on the ground. “…I want to share,” he lamented.
“But you cannot share with a mind something that is beyond its comprehension.”
“Right. Yeah.” Leemu huffed sadly and buried his nose in his fur.
“You do not wish to be alone.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, it’d be nice to have somebody who can see what I see the way I see it, but…”
“Have you visited the Multi-Faith Center? One of the Humans there is colour-impaired. He wears special glasses to help him see as he’s meant to.”
“It’s not the same. He’s not…He’s not Gaoian. He doesn’t know what red smells like.”
“It has a smell?” Gyotin asked, curiously.
“More like…it has what it should smell like? And sounds! A Human would say that red feels warm and they associate it with spicy and romantic and all these other things, and I get those. But I also get…” he paused, then sprang to his feet and dashed to the door. “Preed? I’m gonna light the fire again, ‘kay?”
He bounced happily upon receiving an “okay” from inside the house, and pounced on a rough circle of cinderblocks in the middle of the paved area, in which he set about constructing a kind of cone of wood.
Gorku came meandering out to join them as he worked, a wet towel draped around his neck. “Ah, gonna watch the fire again ‘fer a while, Leemu?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Kay, I’mma jus’ do my isometrics. ‘Ya gotta do ‘yers too! Don’t forget or I’ll make it worser!”
Leemu waved his paw distractedly in acknowledgement and finished his work. Gyotin watched with interest as he lit the assemblage with a short-nosed windproof lighter. The wood was well-dried stuff imported from Earth—Gyotin could see a mesh bag in the corner labelled “Firewood” in English—and it didn’t need long to spring into vigorous life.
Gorku huffed amusedly, and stretched himself out athletically near the fire. It had been amusing to discover that Humans had something quite similar to pose-work they called ‘Yoga.’ Gorku was evidently quite good at it; Gyotin thought he’d maybe engage his services later on.
“Gotta say, s’weird how cheap wood is here. Ever think you’d be able to just burn it like this?”
“It smells very nice,” Gyotin nodded. He might start doing bonfires himself, he decided.
“It’s called ‘birch,’” Leemu declared. “I looked up a bunch of firewoods, and the website said this one produces a lively flame and a nice smell. I’ve tried a lot of different firewoods.”
“Tangy smoke,” Gorku decided. “I can smell it better err’time he lights it, thanks ‘ta that little grey fella. Never thought I’d get a regular look at my own brain…”
“That must be an…interesting…experience,” Gyotin commented, flicking an ear at him.
“Yeah.” Gorku switched to a different, more challenging position. “Like, he’s got me all rigged up in this thing so I don’t dash my brains against anything ‘cuz I got an itch or somethin’, and he chats me up while he works, ‘sposedly so’s he knows what bits he’s tinkering with. The really weird part is when he lifts bits out and sorta…spreads things apart to get where he wants. He’s done now though.”
Gyotin wasn’t sure he could ever possibly be so matter-of-fact about an experience like that. He was sure he would have preferred if Gorku had kept the details to himself; he felt a little queasy.
Leemu flicked an ear amusedly, and said the most heartening thing Gyotin had so far heard from him. “Well, it wasn’t like you were using it too much anyway, big guy…”
“Ha!”
Gyotin relaxed happily, glad to witness that little show of friendship, and they sat and watched the fire for a while. To Gyotin’s eyes, it was…just a fire. The flames were certainly lively, and a healthy bright yellow hue to his eyes but aside from the wood and the scent it wasn’t anything special as far as he could tell.
Leemu, though, put his chin down on his paws and watched it with an expression of lazy contentment, as though he’d happily lie there for the rest of the night if nothing else came along to move him.
After a while, Gorku finished his pose-work, sat down atop Leemu and wrapped himself tightly around his friend. “…I wish I could see it like you could.”
“I wish you could, too.”
The big Stoneback Associate snuggled his friend tightly and stared into the fire. A little while later, prompted by some internal thought, he looked back at Gyotin, and something about the moment told the Champion exactly what was about to be discussed. There was a heavily pregnant pause.
“Gorku…”
“Well,” he said, building up his courage. “I’m already a big science experiment anyway. An’ he don’t have an example o’ how all this works with a brownfur, don’t he?”
Leemu looked up with the most hopeful expression Gyotin had ever seen on anyone, but thankfully he didn’t say anything.
“…You understand, my very large friend, I am in a complicated ethical position on this one. I cannot offer you advice.”
“Why?”
“What’s good for you, and what’s good for the Gao, and what the Great Father wants, and what I might be concerned about, all of that pulls me in different directions.”
“Well,” Gorku looked fondly down at the not-so-small silverfur and nipped his ear. “What do you want?”
Balls.
Leemu’s reply, however, was truly and deeply encouraging.
When Gyotin left, an hour or so later, he sent his progress report to Daar with the conviction in his soul that things were going to be okay.