Eve of Discovery
By: DangerMouse, The Great Immortal
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own them, wish I did. Joss, WB, Mutant Enemy, Fox, and whomever else does. I'm just messing around with them for a while. I do, however, own the story line and characterizations depicted here. Try to copy me and I'lol hunt you down..... with a spoon. ^_^ Also, "Eve of Destruction" belongs to P.F. Sloan and "San Francisco" belongs to Scott McKenzie (the song not the city...)
Author's Notes: A big thank you to my Beta Reader Annie for all of her great suggestions, encouragment, and the nifty-neat title she thought up for me.
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Lorne held his head down in a well-practiced gesture of shame as he was bodily dragged through the marketplace by his mother. Her large hand gripped his small one so tightly his fingers were numb. He was having trouble keeping up with her quick, long strides and was forced to jog a little so that he didn't stumble and fall on his face. Having to keep his head down wasn't helping any, but his mother insisted he do so. A boy his age should be preparing for adulthood, or so he had been told over and over again, and it was extremely embarrassing and disgraceful to his mother that she was forced to bring him along on her weekly errand runs into town.
Young Lorne had finally adjusted to his mother's hurried gait when they stopped suddenly in front of a cloth dealer's stall. Lorne slammed into the back of his mother's legs, but she paid him no mind, as though he didn't exist. She relaxed her grip on his hand and fiercely hit the small, silver bell hanging near the top of the stall. The merchant came around to the front, giving his mother a wide grin as she started rummaging through his cloth samples.
"Tanjazar of the Deathwok Clan! How good to see you at last!" he gushed, his oily smile matching his oily wares. He raked Lorne over with a particularly distasteful gaze. "I see you brought your little parasite with you."
Tanjazar grunted impatiently, tapping Lorne hard in the chest with her foot. "This weak-willed monstrosity of a creature I call 'son' allowed himself to contract the fever three days ago. His brother Numfar and cousin Landokmar, the great Prides of the Deathwok clan, are preparing themselves for their rituals into adulthood. I wouldn't dare shackle them with the responsibility of tossing the body of this sorry excuse for a being onto the maggot pile if he were to relapse. It is therefore my humiliating duty to lug him around and only hope that he will drop dead so I do not have to lug him back home again."
The merchant patted his mother's shoulder in a gesture of understanding and sympathy as the conversation slowly turned to his wares. As his mother slipped into 'haggle-mode' Lorne felt his attention drift and he started to wander. His mother would be busy with the shopping for a number of hours, so Lorne took it as an opportunity to escape for a little while. There wasn't very much time to do so; he had to be back at the gate when his mother was ready to go or else she would simply take the horse and leave him behind to walk home alone. It was quite a long walk back to his clan and not particularly safe, but Lorne had been left behind more times than he could count. Deep in his gut, the small green Pylean wondered if she did so on purpose.
Lorne looked idly into the carts of other merchants and he strolled through the small community, most of the villagers completely ignoring him. They were used to his presence, for most everyone knew of Tanjazar and the Deathwok Clan's shame - the illness prone little weakling that heard voices in his head. He looked sadly over at his friend Blix's home. When they had been younger, Lorne and Blix were the best of friends. When his mother brought him shopping, he and Blix would run around together, exploring their surroundings, playing, and having fun. Blix, being the stronger and heartier of the two, would look out for Lorne and protect him from the frequent bullying of the older crowd, while Lorne, with his great imagination, would come up with great games to play and tricks to pull. Now, since they were on the cusp of adolescence, Blix wasn't around anymore - he and the rest of the boy's Lorne's age were out perfecting their hunting and jousting skills, preparing to become adults under the careful guidance of their mentors.
Lorne's mentor had given up.
The young Pylean was a "runt, hopeless in the hunt, feeble as an infant, prone to sickness, and afflicted with mental weakness," or so the mentor had said and refused to waste any more time on him. His mother had cried for three days after Lorne's mentor left and locked the young Pylean outside for a week, hoping a Drokken would come by and finish him off. But Lorne survived, just as he survived every fever he got and every fall he took. When it seemed that no amount of neglect would take the boy from her, his mother was resigned to keep after him, bemoaning her state to the Fates, hoping they'd solve her problems.
Needless to say, without even the respect of his family, Lorne expected none from anybody else. And that was exactly what he got.
Lorne ignored the sneers and occasionally rude remarks as he continued on his way, having long ago accepted them as unchangeable fact. After all, he couldn't argue with them - he was an illness-prone weakling that heard voices in his head. Lorne let out a deep sigh and stopped in the shade of the stables, scratching the top of his head. His horns were just starting to come in and it was driving him crazy.
Suddenly he stopped, tilting his head to the side, listening.
There was some kind of... sound coming from the stable. Not a horse sound and certainly not a Pylean sound. It sounded almost like talking, but... not. Walking into the stable, after looking over his shoulders and making sure nobody saw him (children weren't allowed inside the stables as the horses would on occasion make meals of them,) he listened closer, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Lorne peered around one of the partitions and saw... a cow! A cow was making those sounds! His eyes widened in alarm and he held very still, not wanting to scare off the animal. Instead, he listened. The cow "spoke" again as he swept up the horse droppings.
"The Eastern world, it is explodin',
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'.
You're old enough to kill, but not for votin',
You don't believe in war -- but what's that gun you're totin'?
An' even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'.
But you tell me, over and over and over again, my friend,
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction..."
Lorne gasped and fell to his knees as a thousand images swarmed into his head and tickled his brain. It was a strange feeling - almost painful, yet at the same time... comforting. The images mostly stopped when the cow stopped making that sound, though a few residual feelings and thoughts seemed to remain with him. Lorne felt a warm hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He looked up into the cow's odd-brown eyes, filled with... concern? Was that even possible? Cows didn't have feelings. Or did they? Lorne's mind drifted back to the images. So lost was he in his thoughts, it took him a few moments to realize the cow was speaking to him - normally this time.
"What?" he asked in his slightly high-pitched, juvenile voice, blinking rapidly at the cow.
"You all right, man?" the cow asked again, pushing his long hair back. "You were totally tripping on me."
"Yes..." he replied carefully, standing up on wobbly legs. "What were you doing?" The cow with the long hair looked confused.
"Cleaning up horse turds, that's what," the cow returned, gesturing to the stall behind him. Lorne scratched his horns and shook his head vigorously.
"No, no, I meant... that talking you were doing. That weird sound..." Lorne tried to explain, searching for a word he wasn't sure existed. The cow's eyes suddenly widened in understanding.
"Oh! You mean that good old dose of P. F. Sloan I was beltin' out. Good song, that," the cow said, leaning on his shovel, a small smile on his face. " People say it's a Dylan knock-off, but I think it's more than that. I mean, it's about the music... right, man? After five weeks of trippin' in this funked out world, I desperately needed some Sloan or some weed. I got Sloan, even if I don't got weed."
Lorne followed the conversation with some difficulty, wondering what a Sloan and a Dylan were and wondering also why the cow was so hung up on pest plants. On the other hand, the talk of "music" and "song" sent something of a shiver down his spine.
"I've never heard anything like it," Lorne said with awe. The cow looked at him with shock.
"What, you never heard a song before?" he asked, frowning. Lorne shook his head. "Music is life-blood, man," the cow explained. "It's a form of expression, gives us the power to stand against the oppressor, makes us feel good about ourselves. It's a way of baring your soul so that others can understand where you're coming from. It's like... life, man."
Lorne felt himself nodding in understanding. "I could... feel it. The conviction in your song." Lorne paused for a moment, sorting through the images still in his head. They were images of places and things he had never seen before, predominantly featuring cows and little else. There was a lot of anger and outrage, confusion and fear, smoke and candles, and a big whirly blue thing that seemed completely out of place. All in all, it was giving Lorne a bit of a headache.
But he liked it.
Lorne looked back at the cow, his red eyes wide with wonder and hope. "Can you teach me?" asked the small Pylean. The cow smiled.
* * * * * *
Lorne made it back to the gate of the village just as the larger sun had set and his mother was pulling away in their cart. He took a running leap and vaulted himself into the seat next to his mother's, although he could have sworn she had jerked the reigns slightly just before, maybe in hopes that he would miss and be crushed under the wheel. She was disappointed again, however, as the young Pylean settled himself down in his seat.
"I learned to do something amazing today, life-giver," he told his mother, his eyes glowing with excitement.
"I don't care," Tanjazar said gruffly. And she meant it.
"It's really amazing," Lorne persisted. He cleared his throat and began to sing.
"If you're going to San Francisco,
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
If you're going to San Francisco,
You're gonna meet some gentle people there..."
Lorne never got a chance to finish his song. A hand slapped him sharply across his face, knocking him out of the cart and onto the ground. He looked up at his mother in shock, cradling the side of his face. Her eyes were wild, angry, and horrified - she was sputtering in her fury.
"Don't you EVER do... THAT again," she screeched, rubbing the side of her head as if she were in pain. "You filthy waste! How DARE you make such atrocious sounds?"
Lorne was speechless. His mother had always talked down to him, called him names, and generally ignored him, but she had never before struck him. While it was considered honorable to take one's own life, hurting another Pylean, especially one in your clan, was unheard of and immoral except under extreme circumstances. His mother looked as though she was truly considering running him over with the cart in cold blood.
She sputtered and screeched for almost ten minutes before turning on the seat and spurring the horse into action back towards the Clan home, leaving him behind. Lorne remained on the ground, still in shock. Some time after the second sun had set, the shock of the situation seemed to just slide out of him. Lorne slumped onto the ground along with it, staring up into the three-mooned sky, brilliant stars sparkling down at him.
"You have a gift," the cow had said to him earlier that afternoon. The cow - who amiably introduced himself as Skye - had been impressed by how quickly and easily Lorne had learned the songs he had taught him. From the first, simple round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" they did together, Lorne knew he had found his passion and more importantly, his purpose. As a result of his mental trip through Skye's past and future, the cow was now safely freed from his masters and hiding in the woods somewhere. At some point, Lorne vaguely foresaw that Skye would draw together a herd of other cows to form some kind of fighting group, but for what purpose was unclear. Skye told him that other cows would know songs, too - songs they would probably be happy to teach him.
Lorne sat up and looked in the direction of his home. His mother must have arrived by now. He wondered if she would tell the rest of the Clan about his transgression, whatever it was. Dragging himself to a standing position, he trudged slowly back towards home. It made perfect sense, really - that the one thing he discovered he was good at would cause physical pain to his family. That pretty much summed up the value of his short life so far.
For the first time, that didn't bother him in the least. With a smile planted firmly on his face, young Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan walked home, a slight spring finding its way into his step and a cheerful tune finding a place in his soul.
--The End.