Becoming
It was Spring. Capital S. The warmth of nature's renaissance had spread through the gardens below the Embassy, the earliest flowers pierced snow, filling the yellowish, dead grass with vivid spots of color. Liam had taken the risk to take off the thick shirt he was wearing, leaving his arms bare, freed by his t-shirt. The sun's heat was relieving to feel after months of a dark, white, so cold winter, but the air was fresh on his skin still.
This was being alive, this was to be Human. This was to be Human, he mentally repeated. To be able to feel the heat of the sun on your skin, when a Taelon would never have understand what Humans found so pleasant in this as the quantity of warmth displayed by the star was approximatively the same than in winter – or how Taelons would never understand why Humans came to be relieved when Spring finally came, after winter. Taelons, or aliens, would not ever understand what it was to be Human. He felt it inside, he felt Human. He associated himself with them, not only because he looked like them, not only because he lived amongst them, not only because he fought for them. Also because he felt himself becoming like them, changing, morphing toward another form of life, one that was matter-based.
The transformation was slow and not at all painful. Some morning he would awake with a faint ticklish sensation running all over his skin. It would fade away mere minutes after. He was changing inside, he felt it. It was not frightening, oh no, it was not. He knew how to live as a Human, he knew how to be Human. No. No. He longed to be Human. To know what it was, not to find comfort in spirituality, not to find comfort in words, but in actions – to go out, to get drunk, to have sex, to have a girlfriend, being able to have kids, to have a life, to have fun ! In a way that Taelon or Kimeras, or whoever else would not be able to understand. Not ever.
Not that he did not like Taelons. Not that he suddenly found his destiny to be… unimportant, not that he wanted Taelons off Earth, or off the existence- plane. His memories would stay with him, memories of places, of archives, of actions, of diplomacy, of councils, of experiments, memories of another kind of people. Memories that he would know how to deal with when time would come. His memories would remain untouched. He felt that. Felt that they were his property. His mind would not change, his mind would evolve, as all mind-sets did, but his memories would not fade away, he felt them being carved into his brain, almost biologically so.
His shakaravas would fade away. Already his control capacities were disminishing. Da'an had told him that, the very first time they had out- spokenly talked about his ancestry, had warned him about that. That if it would come to be painful, that he would have to come to see him, for Taelon energy might cool the process down to a reasonable level of suffering. Liam had feared that it would be painful, that he would feel his genes changing inside, as the human ones would try to destroy the kimera ones, when they would become perceived as a virus, as Da'an had predicted.
"Why is the meaning of your amusement Major ?" He realized that he had been smiling only when Da'an spoke out.
The slender Taelon was standing some meters away from him, close to the fountain : the water was flowing down again, for the first time since the winter had ended with the official date of March 20th, but the air was still somewhat cold and from the near-freezing water came a mist that elevated itself in the air in strangely twisted columns of unsubstantial smoke. "It's Spring Da'an." The young man rose from the bench he had been sitting on and approached his Companion.
Da'an's fingertips touched the surface of the waters, causing ripples to come to it and fishes to come toward the new contact, thinking of food. Liam had brought them back in their original living environment this very morning. He had taken them to his apartment and had put them into an aquarium for winter. Augur had found that detail funny : already that he was a Resistance fighter – their leader nonetheless – and at the same time friendly with the North American Companion, it was almost comical that he would bring the fishes of the gardens' fountain at his apartment to ensure they would not die during winter… Da'an would not understand that one. His former master's and ancient friend's soft voice came, comforting, wise. "And does Spring's arrival bring you such joy Liam ?" asked the Taelon, the tone of his voice genuine, sincere, the voice he had when he simply wanted to be with Humans and to learn more about them. The old Da'an that had almost vanished under the glassy shell of the ever so-official Companion. The Da'an that had taught him about life and death, universal notions, that would not need to be taught by Humans. The Da'an that would invite him to sit by his chair sometimes and slowly, his voice taking in a more magical aspect, would start telling stories, of his people, of Liam's, stories that he had heard, or himself lived with Humans. The Da'an that had taught him about morals, about diplomacy. The Da'an that had been the father, the teacher and the friend : the mentor that he had never had. Lili and Augur had taught him about being Human, about fighting the Taelons, about army techniques, what he did not know already… They had taught him how to be Human and how to live in a human society.
But Da'an had done all the rest. Practically teaching him to read, to speak, to write his mother-tongue and eunoia, teaching him about Taelons… The Taelon used to be his confident… Before.
At Da'an's answers, and along with the thoughts, the better and worse of the souvenirs, he could not help but smile. "I assume it's got to be quite abstract for energy being like Taelons but I love to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. After the cold, it makes me feel so much alive, like if my senses had been dormant all winter and they exploded right now."
The alien did not look at him, his clear blue eyes stillf fixed down on the rippling waters below, but he smiled at Liam's words. His fingers were still brushing the surface of the water, as if caressing it, relishing its contact, or trying to orientate it in a determinated way. Liam looked down at where the whitish hands were stroking the surface of the water, now risking all of his fingers to touch it, his palm almost flat down on the surface. The young protector frowned as he watched the Taelon's quiet movements.
Finally, he could not hold himself back and advanced his own hands, softly catching hold of Da'an's smaller fingers. His Companion flashed him a puzzled look, slightly frightened, the innocent way only Da'an could look. "The water is cold. You might harm yourself by dipping your hands in it."
"My body does not react to warmth or coldness. It matters little whether or not the water is cold. It will not harm me," Da'an gently explained, before pulling his hand delicately from his protector's grip.
As it decended again toward water, Liam stopped its motion again. "For my personnal comfort then : just to see your hands playing in that cold water make mines feel cold."
A slight smile picturing his amused-mood delightfully, Da'an retired his hand from the liquid Liam affirmed was cold. His lips always bearing that malicious smile, he made his way toward the bench, picking up Liam's discarded shirt. "Though the warmth provided by your sun might fool you Major, the temperature remains cool. You should put this clothe back on before being infected by a common illness." The young hybrid smiled as Da'an indicated him to slip his shirt back on if he did not want to catch a cold.
He realized then, how long it had been since he had seen a smile on Da'an's lips. A smile that was genuine, sincere. How long had it been since he had seen Da'an caring about him. He took the pale green coton shirt from the Taelon's hands and passed it over his head, slipping his arms in the sleeves, rolling them up then, and facing a now satisfied Da'an. "I'm feeling so… so human Da'an. You cannot know how wonderful it feels," he finally said, leaning over the edge of the fountain.
"You are changing Liam. Biologically so," his mentor stated. Though he did not lift his head to meet Da'an's eyes, he could feel very well the intense pressure of the gaze Da'an touched his face with.
"I know. I feel it, inside my bones, the way they're moving, the way my logic functions, the way I think, the way I feel, the way I look at things. I don't feel as objective as I did before : I feel engaged to humanity now, they feel familiar to me."
Da'an waited almost for a whole minute of silence to come down on them before answering. "You are becoming Human young one." Only to hear the name that Da'an had given him once or twice, a year earlier or so – it seemed to be centuries ago, for all that had happened between yesterday and today could easily have filled twenty-fve lives – at the last time, only this made him look up and straight into the Companion's blue eyes as he spoke. "The Kimera genes are going to be dormant for some time, unless you move to a more welcoming environment." Liam frowned at that, he had suspected it of course, but it seemed that Taelons knew slightly more about it that he had thought they would. "Earth's atmosphere is toxic to us. In fact, the mix of nytrogen and oxygen as since long been a praised form of… poison amongst my people, many millenias ago, prior to my birth, when we fought for power. The Kimeras were very alike us in physiology. This factor seems to apply to both of our species."
Liam knew the major part of that, or at least he did know that Earth was not as welcoming as it seemed to be for Taelons. "How do you survive then ? You can't constantly breath poison. Logically, it'd kill you."
Lowering his eyes, which Liam had recognized as the attitude Da'an displayed when it was to discuss either something his species had done that he was not too proud of, either a confidence, a thought of some private degree, the Taelon explained. "We were prothesis. They filter oxygen, allow us to use nytrogen as nourishment and they… mould our physical forms, for it to look more human to your kind, to speak your language, to have features that you can associates yourself to…"
As well as most of the rest, the protector knew about this. He knew… He knew but it was very relative. He was not aware that he possessed the knowledge, but when Da'an or others would talk about the topic, he would recognize it as familiar, he could identify the knowledge that was related to it and most of the time memories would come to the surface in flashbacks.
One returned to the quiet observation of the fishes' swimming paterns in the water, the other sat back on the bench and bent his head downward, offering his face to the sun, feeling comforted, both by Da'an's basics and assured explanations, and by the manifestation of care he had seen there, flickering in these bottomless blue eyes, perhaps the one last time he would ever catch sight of it at all.
End
It was Spring. Capital S. The warmth of nature's renaissance had spread through the gardens below the Embassy, the earliest flowers pierced snow, filling the yellowish, dead grass with vivid spots of color. Liam had taken the risk to take off the thick shirt he was wearing, leaving his arms bare, freed by his t-shirt. The sun's heat was relieving to feel after months of a dark, white, so cold winter, but the air was fresh on his skin still.
This was being alive, this was to be Human. This was to be Human, he mentally repeated. To be able to feel the heat of the sun on your skin, when a Taelon would never have understand what Humans found so pleasant in this as the quantity of warmth displayed by the star was approximatively the same than in winter – or how Taelons would never understand why Humans came to be relieved when Spring finally came, after winter. Taelons, or aliens, would not ever understand what it was to be Human. He felt it inside, he felt Human. He associated himself with them, not only because he looked like them, not only because he lived amongst them, not only because he fought for them. Also because he felt himself becoming like them, changing, morphing toward another form of life, one that was matter-based.
The transformation was slow and not at all painful. Some morning he would awake with a faint ticklish sensation running all over his skin. It would fade away mere minutes after. He was changing inside, he felt it. It was not frightening, oh no, it was not. He knew how to live as a Human, he knew how to be Human. No. No. He longed to be Human. To know what it was, not to find comfort in spirituality, not to find comfort in words, but in actions – to go out, to get drunk, to have sex, to have a girlfriend, being able to have kids, to have a life, to have fun ! In a way that Taelon or Kimeras, or whoever else would not be able to understand. Not ever.
Not that he did not like Taelons. Not that he suddenly found his destiny to be… unimportant, not that he wanted Taelons off Earth, or off the existence- plane. His memories would stay with him, memories of places, of archives, of actions, of diplomacy, of councils, of experiments, memories of another kind of people. Memories that he would know how to deal with when time would come. His memories would remain untouched. He felt that. Felt that they were his property. His mind would not change, his mind would evolve, as all mind-sets did, but his memories would not fade away, he felt them being carved into his brain, almost biologically so.
His shakaravas would fade away. Already his control capacities were disminishing. Da'an had told him that, the very first time they had out- spokenly talked about his ancestry, had warned him about that. That if it would come to be painful, that he would have to come to see him, for Taelon energy might cool the process down to a reasonable level of suffering. Liam had feared that it would be painful, that he would feel his genes changing inside, as the human ones would try to destroy the kimera ones, when they would become perceived as a virus, as Da'an had predicted.
"Why is the meaning of your amusement Major ?" He realized that he had been smiling only when Da'an spoke out.
The slender Taelon was standing some meters away from him, close to the fountain : the water was flowing down again, for the first time since the winter had ended with the official date of March 20th, but the air was still somewhat cold and from the near-freezing water came a mist that elevated itself in the air in strangely twisted columns of unsubstantial smoke. "It's Spring Da'an." The young man rose from the bench he had been sitting on and approached his Companion.
Da'an's fingertips touched the surface of the waters, causing ripples to come to it and fishes to come toward the new contact, thinking of food. Liam had brought them back in their original living environment this very morning. He had taken them to his apartment and had put them into an aquarium for winter. Augur had found that detail funny : already that he was a Resistance fighter – their leader nonetheless – and at the same time friendly with the North American Companion, it was almost comical that he would bring the fishes of the gardens' fountain at his apartment to ensure they would not die during winter… Da'an would not understand that one. His former master's and ancient friend's soft voice came, comforting, wise. "And does Spring's arrival bring you such joy Liam ?" asked the Taelon, the tone of his voice genuine, sincere, the voice he had when he simply wanted to be with Humans and to learn more about them. The old Da'an that had almost vanished under the glassy shell of the ever so-official Companion. The Da'an that had taught him about life and death, universal notions, that would not need to be taught by Humans. The Da'an that would invite him to sit by his chair sometimes and slowly, his voice taking in a more magical aspect, would start telling stories, of his people, of Liam's, stories that he had heard, or himself lived with Humans. The Da'an that had taught him about morals, about diplomacy. The Da'an that had been the father, the teacher and the friend : the mentor that he had never had. Lili and Augur had taught him about being Human, about fighting the Taelons, about army techniques, what he did not know already… They had taught him how to be Human and how to live in a human society.
But Da'an had done all the rest. Practically teaching him to read, to speak, to write his mother-tongue and eunoia, teaching him about Taelons… The Taelon used to be his confident… Before.
At Da'an's answers, and along with the thoughts, the better and worse of the souvenirs, he could not help but smile. "I assume it's got to be quite abstract for energy being like Taelons but I love to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. After the cold, it makes me feel so much alive, like if my senses had been dormant all winter and they exploded right now."
The alien did not look at him, his clear blue eyes stillf fixed down on the rippling waters below, but he smiled at Liam's words. His fingers were still brushing the surface of the water, as if caressing it, relishing its contact, or trying to orientate it in a determinated way. Liam looked down at where the whitish hands were stroking the surface of the water, now risking all of his fingers to touch it, his palm almost flat down on the surface. The young protector frowned as he watched the Taelon's quiet movements.
Finally, he could not hold himself back and advanced his own hands, softly catching hold of Da'an's smaller fingers. His Companion flashed him a puzzled look, slightly frightened, the innocent way only Da'an could look. "The water is cold. You might harm yourself by dipping your hands in it."
"My body does not react to warmth or coldness. It matters little whether or not the water is cold. It will not harm me," Da'an gently explained, before pulling his hand delicately from his protector's grip.
As it decended again toward water, Liam stopped its motion again. "For my personnal comfort then : just to see your hands playing in that cold water make mines feel cold."
A slight smile picturing his amused-mood delightfully, Da'an retired his hand from the liquid Liam affirmed was cold. His lips always bearing that malicious smile, he made his way toward the bench, picking up Liam's discarded shirt. "Though the warmth provided by your sun might fool you Major, the temperature remains cool. You should put this clothe back on before being infected by a common illness." The young hybrid smiled as Da'an indicated him to slip his shirt back on if he did not want to catch a cold.
He realized then, how long it had been since he had seen a smile on Da'an's lips. A smile that was genuine, sincere. How long had it been since he had seen Da'an caring about him. He took the pale green coton shirt from the Taelon's hands and passed it over his head, slipping his arms in the sleeves, rolling them up then, and facing a now satisfied Da'an. "I'm feeling so… so human Da'an. You cannot know how wonderful it feels," he finally said, leaning over the edge of the fountain.
"You are changing Liam. Biologically so," his mentor stated. Though he did not lift his head to meet Da'an's eyes, he could feel very well the intense pressure of the gaze Da'an touched his face with.
"I know. I feel it, inside my bones, the way they're moving, the way my logic functions, the way I think, the way I feel, the way I look at things. I don't feel as objective as I did before : I feel engaged to humanity now, they feel familiar to me."
Da'an waited almost for a whole minute of silence to come down on them before answering. "You are becoming Human young one." Only to hear the name that Da'an had given him once or twice, a year earlier or so – it seemed to be centuries ago, for all that had happened between yesterday and today could easily have filled twenty-fve lives – at the last time, only this made him look up and straight into the Companion's blue eyes as he spoke. "The Kimera genes are going to be dormant for some time, unless you move to a more welcoming environment." Liam frowned at that, he had suspected it of course, but it seemed that Taelons knew slightly more about it that he had thought they would. "Earth's atmosphere is toxic to us. In fact, the mix of nytrogen and oxygen as since long been a praised form of… poison amongst my people, many millenias ago, prior to my birth, when we fought for power. The Kimeras were very alike us in physiology. This factor seems to apply to both of our species."
Liam knew the major part of that, or at least he did know that Earth was not as welcoming as it seemed to be for Taelons. "How do you survive then ? You can't constantly breath poison. Logically, it'd kill you."
Lowering his eyes, which Liam had recognized as the attitude Da'an displayed when it was to discuss either something his species had done that he was not too proud of, either a confidence, a thought of some private degree, the Taelon explained. "We were prothesis. They filter oxygen, allow us to use nytrogen as nourishment and they… mould our physical forms, for it to look more human to your kind, to speak your language, to have features that you can associates yourself to…"
As well as most of the rest, the protector knew about this. He knew… He knew but it was very relative. He was not aware that he possessed the knowledge, but when Da'an or others would talk about the topic, he would recognize it as familiar, he could identify the knowledge that was related to it and most of the time memories would come to the surface in flashbacks.
One returned to the quiet observation of the fishes' swimming paterns in the water, the other sat back on the bench and bent his head downward, offering his face to the sun, feeling comforted, both by Da'an's basics and assured explanations, and by the manifestation of care he had seen there, flickering in these bottomless blue eyes, perhaps the one last time he would ever catch sight of it at all.
End