Just a voice in the wilderness, singing my songs to myself alone. I'm up-
dating often because this thing is not being written as it is posted. It
was basically complete several weeks ago and I am merely re-casting it back
into canonical form as fully as I can so that it will fit on this site.
PS. – revision because I was irritated with some of what I had written.
Chapter Two – Part Two
Mounfar had prophesied well or had excellent contacts among the hospital staff or perhaps both. After gaining some controlled movement in his left arm, Anjh had become more or less ambulatory, trading in the crutches for a single cane. Now he sat in the chair before the mirror, his spectacles sliding down his nose as usual. He loathed them as much as he hated the cane and the unyielding machina limbs. When more than a week ago, in a fit of despondent madness, he had tried to rip them from their moorings in his flesh he had found the attachments too strong for his weakened condition and had been punished with a prolonged course of tranquilizing drugs while the damage he had managed to do was healed. He shriveled at the memory of his vulnerability then and now and at the ease with which the aged Obermaester had bested him. But it was the daily small struggles that robbed him of his dignity and made him restively angry at his limitations. The Hypello servants had helped him dress which was always a tedious and lengthy process. But they were useless at completing his preparations for the day. Securing his hair in the elaborate style customary to his people was impossibly difficult with only one real arm and one marginally responsive mechanical limb at his service. He briefly considered having his head shaved then rejected that as an abject surrender to handicaps he declined to acknowledge. Not for the first time, he was grateful for the tradition among his kind of permanent depilation at puberty. Shaving or trimming a beard would be another infuriating task in his condition and the very contemplation of the combination of machina implants and body hair made him cringe.
He hurled the brush across the room; his temper was short these days since training was not physical but almost exclusively mental – exercises of the mind that left him with raging headaches instead of pleasantly tired muscles. For years, he had been accustomed to spending his days practicing with the long sword, competing with his fellow Warriors, pushing his body in ways that left him exhausted but satisfied. He missed all that more than he had ever expected now that he was subject to the small precise schoolings of his mental powers as he learned to manipulate the mechanical arm. And he had not yet begun on the leg. So far the best he could do was to swing it along while leaning heavily on the cane. It was a slow and cumbersome way of progressing which made him hunger for his former agility. What's more, he hurt – to his confused fury; he felt real pain in the limbs he no longer possessed. Had he not experienced that from the time he woke in the white room, he would have considered it just another consequence of his ill-advised attempt to rid himself of the replacements. Now he didn't know what to make of it. There were too many obstacles, too many questions and too few successes.
And too many betrayals. His trust in other humans, never strong, had been badly frayed by the torrent of events since his 'miraculous resurrection'. Without wanting to know, he had become aware of the multitude of forces impinging upon his liberty, all wanting something from him. As a boy, Nooj had been private, disliking the company of most of his peers, withdrawn and silent. Now, he had grown more so, retreating into himself and rejecting what he perceived as the pity of those around him. Finding no one who appeared totally trustworthy, he chose to trust no one. He slumped down and morosely brooded, glaring moodily at nothing.
A touch on his cheek made him lift his eyes. He saw LeBlanc standing behind him, reflected in the mirror. She affectionately lifted the heavy mass of dark hair to her face, inhaled deeply, and let it fall back to his shoulders.
"You smell good. ...Indulging in a bit of bathos, love? Can't say I blame you but things will get better. Let me do that." She swooped down gracefully and retrieved the brush.
He frowned watching her laugh with tender derision, her hands swiftly pulling his waist-length hair up and twisting it into the formal mode he affected. When she had patted the braids into their proper pattern, he caught her wrist awkwardly in his left hand, the one with the black glove covering the mechanism. He had observed that she liked to be touched with that hand; it made her breathing come faster and her face flush. Now I know what she meant about more to my body he thought cynically as he watched her expression in the mirror before pulling her around to his knees and embracing her with more contempt than affection.
She hungrily returned his kiss, wrapping her arms about his neck and pulling him close as his tongue invaded her mouth. He stroked her back from nape to hip with the black glove and felt her body tremble against him like a captive bird. At last, he released his hold and pushed her away, not looking in her direction.
"Why won't you let me love you?" she asked.
"I decline to let you waste your time, lady. I'm not and never was a proper object for the sort of love you're looking for. In my culture, we don't give and accept love the way the rest of you do ... now – for god's sake – look at me LeBlanc! Even if I weren't what I am, how can you expect someone locked in this carapace to even think about physical love? I refuse to take advantage of your momentary lapse and repay your kindness by encouraging your ill-advised fancy for novelty." He began to struggle to his feet using the chair as support to lever the machina leg under him.
"Your people have been known to love – even you. ...I know you've had other lovers; I know their names and I hate them. I've had lovers too but when I'm with you or even when I think about you – they don't matter, they just aren't there. We aren't so different, you and I, so why won't you at least pretend to love me? I know I can make you forget those women you've known ...I can make you happy." She caught at his sleeve as he brushed past.
"I've already forgotten any women in my past; that part is over," Nooj took a firm grip on his cane and began his painful progress to the door. "Go find another pet, lady - I bite. ...You must pardon me – my therapist awaits. He's promised that I shall learn to bend my new and improved elbow today. That's what I consider happiness these days." His mockery was like a slap to her face – as he had intended.
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Beclem the best trainer in the Crusaders, was waiting in the therapy room checking the passive exercise equipment. The Al Bhed therapist, Droga, an expert in the field of prostheses, joined him at the task.
"Be careful today, the captain's temper is not the best right now. He doesn't even have as much patience as he used to have in the Squad. Don't cross him." Beclem warned.
"Right you are, guv. Can't blame the poor git; 'es 'ad a bad time. Can't be easy to die and think it's all done with and then wake up and find you 'ave to start it up again." Droga was accustomed to the evil tempers of damaged Warriors. "What're we goin' to do to 'im today?"
"I think we'd better keep on with these exercise machines; he won't be able to do anything else if his muscles atrophy. Those new ones they brought in last night look pretty good."
"Right. Now let me get this straight – we're supposed to be teaching 'im to use the machina– anything else?"
"Yes, he's going to insist on getting ready to go back to the battlefield again. I know – that's pretty far-fetched but it's the way he is. I don't think anybody has had the guts yet to tell him he can't do that any more." Beclem straightened when he heard the uneven steps approaching. "Shut up – here he is."
Nooj paused in the door, pushed the spectacles back up on his nose and demanded, "When do I get to the target range? I need to know if my aim is still good enough."
"No target range here, guv. Have to wait 'til you get to that big place on the outskirts. Plentya room there. Now, let's get to work on the elbow."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Several hours later, Nooj sat trembling with fatigue but more optimistic than he had been since he woke in the white room. He could flex the elbow of his machina arm without effort. The arm was moving easily; the fingers worked and he could grasp a gun and aim it steadily. Using a sword was still beyond him but he was certain that would come as well. Recovery was beginning to seem a real possibility. Of course, the delicate control of the complex hand still required careful attention. He could hold an egg without breaking it and crush a skull without difficulty but to choose the exact amount of pressure was problematic since he had no feedback to regulate his touch. He was learning how to watch and judge his movements with great precision - a tiring but exhilarating exercise. To his chagrined amusement, he found himself thinking that he must take pains not to close his left hand too tightly when he caressed LeBlanc.
Earlier Gaing had paid a visit and told him that, with his lungs and the implanted heart both aerating the blood, he might find that he had more energy and better stamina than ever. Nooj, ignoring the conditional, held to that idea like a believer to a holy icon. Not just to be as good as but to be better. He would take to the battlefield and fight once again - standing astride defeated foes.... Standing! Right! He grimaced as he struggled to his feet, the machina leg heavy and unresponsive. That was his next obstacle; he could not leave the hospital for more advanced rehabilitation until he had some measure of control over the leg. At the moment, it was as likely to collapse under him as provide support. Only the cane enabled him to walk at all and canes were not battlefield equipment.
He stripped off his clothing and looked into the mirror outside the shower door. What he saw was both familiar and strange. In his homeland, the youth were accustomed to practice their martial skills before mirrors to refine their techniques. So he was not unfamiliar with what his naked body had looked like before his injuries. His critical eye observed that his shoulders were still wide – even though the left one was partly machina – and his hips still narrow. His muscle definition was somewhat blurred but that was to be expected after so long a period of idleness and could be easily remedied with a few weeks of exercise. If he looked only at the right side, he recognized himself but when he forced his unwilling gaze to the left, he was appalled.
He had forgotten that the Al Bhed were accustomed to splashing on areas of paint to accent their machina creations and it seemed that they had chosen red as the primary color for his arm and leg either to match his Crusader uniform or because they had more red than any other color. For whatever reason the overall effect was garish beyond belief – the combination of semi-matte metal and scarlet enamel contrasting with his hospital pale skin, made him look like a toy carelessly assembled from disparate parts. The attempt at modeling the new chest to match the old was more successful; the clavicle under the synthetic skin could hardly be distinguished from the one on the right and the technicians had even created a nipple to keep his chest from being visually asymmetrical. It was the arm and leg that failed aesthetically. Both the colors and the shape were far from realistic since practicality had won out over aesthetics. He wondered vaguely why the same sort of simulated covering had not been used there as on his chest and shoulder. He would probably be told the reason eventually or maybe they were waiting to see if further adjustments had to be made. This was the alien part of him – the part he could not feel and was only just beginning to learn to use - the part that still plagued him with its phantom agonies. He ran his right hand along his rib cage and felt the change from hard flesh to harder metal. Suddenly repulsed by the knowledge of what lay under his fingers, he could no longer bear to touch or see the non-human parts of himself and, shuddering, turned away toward the shower
The Hypello had helped him dress again. Whatever would he do without them? He recoiled at being seen naked by any other than himself. Even trainers and healers, to whose gaze he had been accustomed since childhood, offended him now. This unfamiliar sense of shame was jarring to his intelligence, which insisted that the body was only a tool to be kept clean and tended - nothing unique. He had been taught that long ago on the island where he had run, like his crèche mates, naked and free in the sun. He was not sure whether it was a new-found modesty or the awareness of his strangeness that made him so reluctant to uncover his body but, for whatever reason, he could not longer tolerate the eyes of other people on his nakedness.
PS. – revision because I was irritated with some of what I had written.
Chapter Two – Part Two
Mounfar had prophesied well or had excellent contacts among the hospital staff or perhaps both. After gaining some controlled movement in his left arm, Anjh had become more or less ambulatory, trading in the crutches for a single cane. Now he sat in the chair before the mirror, his spectacles sliding down his nose as usual. He loathed them as much as he hated the cane and the unyielding machina limbs. When more than a week ago, in a fit of despondent madness, he had tried to rip them from their moorings in his flesh he had found the attachments too strong for his weakened condition and had been punished with a prolonged course of tranquilizing drugs while the damage he had managed to do was healed. He shriveled at the memory of his vulnerability then and now and at the ease with which the aged Obermaester had bested him. But it was the daily small struggles that robbed him of his dignity and made him restively angry at his limitations. The Hypello servants had helped him dress which was always a tedious and lengthy process. But they were useless at completing his preparations for the day. Securing his hair in the elaborate style customary to his people was impossibly difficult with only one real arm and one marginally responsive mechanical limb at his service. He briefly considered having his head shaved then rejected that as an abject surrender to handicaps he declined to acknowledge. Not for the first time, he was grateful for the tradition among his kind of permanent depilation at puberty. Shaving or trimming a beard would be another infuriating task in his condition and the very contemplation of the combination of machina implants and body hair made him cringe.
He hurled the brush across the room; his temper was short these days since training was not physical but almost exclusively mental – exercises of the mind that left him with raging headaches instead of pleasantly tired muscles. For years, he had been accustomed to spending his days practicing with the long sword, competing with his fellow Warriors, pushing his body in ways that left him exhausted but satisfied. He missed all that more than he had ever expected now that he was subject to the small precise schoolings of his mental powers as he learned to manipulate the mechanical arm. And he had not yet begun on the leg. So far the best he could do was to swing it along while leaning heavily on the cane. It was a slow and cumbersome way of progressing which made him hunger for his former agility. What's more, he hurt – to his confused fury; he felt real pain in the limbs he no longer possessed. Had he not experienced that from the time he woke in the white room, he would have considered it just another consequence of his ill-advised attempt to rid himself of the replacements. Now he didn't know what to make of it. There were too many obstacles, too many questions and too few successes.
And too many betrayals. His trust in other humans, never strong, had been badly frayed by the torrent of events since his 'miraculous resurrection'. Without wanting to know, he had become aware of the multitude of forces impinging upon his liberty, all wanting something from him. As a boy, Nooj had been private, disliking the company of most of his peers, withdrawn and silent. Now, he had grown more so, retreating into himself and rejecting what he perceived as the pity of those around him. Finding no one who appeared totally trustworthy, he chose to trust no one. He slumped down and morosely brooded, glaring moodily at nothing.
A touch on his cheek made him lift his eyes. He saw LeBlanc standing behind him, reflected in the mirror. She affectionately lifted the heavy mass of dark hair to her face, inhaled deeply, and let it fall back to his shoulders.
"You smell good. ...Indulging in a bit of bathos, love? Can't say I blame you but things will get better. Let me do that." She swooped down gracefully and retrieved the brush.
He frowned watching her laugh with tender derision, her hands swiftly pulling his waist-length hair up and twisting it into the formal mode he affected. When she had patted the braids into their proper pattern, he caught her wrist awkwardly in his left hand, the one with the black glove covering the mechanism. He had observed that she liked to be touched with that hand; it made her breathing come faster and her face flush. Now I know what she meant about more to my body he thought cynically as he watched her expression in the mirror before pulling her around to his knees and embracing her with more contempt than affection.
She hungrily returned his kiss, wrapping her arms about his neck and pulling him close as his tongue invaded her mouth. He stroked her back from nape to hip with the black glove and felt her body tremble against him like a captive bird. At last, he released his hold and pushed her away, not looking in her direction.
"Why won't you let me love you?" she asked.
"I decline to let you waste your time, lady. I'm not and never was a proper object for the sort of love you're looking for. In my culture, we don't give and accept love the way the rest of you do ... now – for god's sake – look at me LeBlanc! Even if I weren't what I am, how can you expect someone locked in this carapace to even think about physical love? I refuse to take advantage of your momentary lapse and repay your kindness by encouraging your ill-advised fancy for novelty." He began to struggle to his feet using the chair as support to lever the machina leg under him.
"Your people have been known to love – even you. ...I know you've had other lovers; I know their names and I hate them. I've had lovers too but when I'm with you or even when I think about you – they don't matter, they just aren't there. We aren't so different, you and I, so why won't you at least pretend to love me? I know I can make you forget those women you've known ...I can make you happy." She caught at his sleeve as he brushed past.
"I've already forgotten any women in my past; that part is over," Nooj took a firm grip on his cane and began his painful progress to the door. "Go find another pet, lady - I bite. ...You must pardon me – my therapist awaits. He's promised that I shall learn to bend my new and improved elbow today. That's what I consider happiness these days." His mockery was like a slap to her face – as he had intended.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Beclem the best trainer in the Crusaders, was waiting in the therapy room checking the passive exercise equipment. The Al Bhed therapist, Droga, an expert in the field of prostheses, joined him at the task.
"Be careful today, the captain's temper is not the best right now. He doesn't even have as much patience as he used to have in the Squad. Don't cross him." Beclem warned.
"Right you are, guv. Can't blame the poor git; 'es 'ad a bad time. Can't be easy to die and think it's all done with and then wake up and find you 'ave to start it up again." Droga was accustomed to the evil tempers of damaged Warriors. "What're we goin' to do to 'im today?"
"I think we'd better keep on with these exercise machines; he won't be able to do anything else if his muscles atrophy. Those new ones they brought in last night look pretty good."
"Right. Now let me get this straight – we're supposed to be teaching 'im to use the machina– anything else?"
"Yes, he's going to insist on getting ready to go back to the battlefield again. I know – that's pretty far-fetched but it's the way he is. I don't think anybody has had the guts yet to tell him he can't do that any more." Beclem straightened when he heard the uneven steps approaching. "Shut up – here he is."
Nooj paused in the door, pushed the spectacles back up on his nose and demanded, "When do I get to the target range? I need to know if my aim is still good enough."
"No target range here, guv. Have to wait 'til you get to that big place on the outskirts. Plentya room there. Now, let's get to work on the elbow."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Several hours later, Nooj sat trembling with fatigue but more optimistic than he had been since he woke in the white room. He could flex the elbow of his machina arm without effort. The arm was moving easily; the fingers worked and he could grasp a gun and aim it steadily. Using a sword was still beyond him but he was certain that would come as well. Recovery was beginning to seem a real possibility. Of course, the delicate control of the complex hand still required careful attention. He could hold an egg without breaking it and crush a skull without difficulty but to choose the exact amount of pressure was problematic since he had no feedback to regulate his touch. He was learning how to watch and judge his movements with great precision - a tiring but exhilarating exercise. To his chagrined amusement, he found himself thinking that he must take pains not to close his left hand too tightly when he caressed LeBlanc.
Earlier Gaing had paid a visit and told him that, with his lungs and the implanted heart both aerating the blood, he might find that he had more energy and better stamina than ever. Nooj, ignoring the conditional, held to that idea like a believer to a holy icon. Not just to be as good as but to be better. He would take to the battlefield and fight once again - standing astride defeated foes.... Standing! Right! He grimaced as he struggled to his feet, the machina leg heavy and unresponsive. That was his next obstacle; he could not leave the hospital for more advanced rehabilitation until he had some measure of control over the leg. At the moment, it was as likely to collapse under him as provide support. Only the cane enabled him to walk at all and canes were not battlefield equipment.
He stripped off his clothing and looked into the mirror outside the shower door. What he saw was both familiar and strange. In his homeland, the youth were accustomed to practice their martial skills before mirrors to refine their techniques. So he was not unfamiliar with what his naked body had looked like before his injuries. His critical eye observed that his shoulders were still wide – even though the left one was partly machina – and his hips still narrow. His muscle definition was somewhat blurred but that was to be expected after so long a period of idleness and could be easily remedied with a few weeks of exercise. If he looked only at the right side, he recognized himself but when he forced his unwilling gaze to the left, he was appalled.
He had forgotten that the Al Bhed were accustomed to splashing on areas of paint to accent their machina creations and it seemed that they had chosen red as the primary color for his arm and leg either to match his Crusader uniform or because they had more red than any other color. For whatever reason the overall effect was garish beyond belief – the combination of semi-matte metal and scarlet enamel contrasting with his hospital pale skin, made him look like a toy carelessly assembled from disparate parts. The attempt at modeling the new chest to match the old was more successful; the clavicle under the synthetic skin could hardly be distinguished from the one on the right and the technicians had even created a nipple to keep his chest from being visually asymmetrical. It was the arm and leg that failed aesthetically. Both the colors and the shape were far from realistic since practicality had won out over aesthetics. He wondered vaguely why the same sort of simulated covering had not been used there as on his chest and shoulder. He would probably be told the reason eventually or maybe they were waiting to see if further adjustments had to be made. This was the alien part of him – the part he could not feel and was only just beginning to learn to use - the part that still plagued him with its phantom agonies. He ran his right hand along his rib cage and felt the change from hard flesh to harder metal. Suddenly repulsed by the knowledge of what lay under his fingers, he could no longer bear to touch or see the non-human parts of himself and, shuddering, turned away toward the shower
The Hypello had helped him dress again. Whatever would he do without them? He recoiled at being seen naked by any other than himself. Even trainers and healers, to whose gaze he had been accustomed since childhood, offended him now. This unfamiliar sense of shame was jarring to his intelligence, which insisted that the body was only a tool to be kept clean and tended - nothing unique. He had been taught that long ago on the island where he had run, like his crèche mates, naked and free in the sun. He was not sure whether it was a new-found modesty or the awareness of his strangeness that made him so reluctant to uncover his body but, for whatever reason, he could not longer tolerate the eyes of other people on his nakedness.