Yup, another brain dribble! Don't know why people are being all angsty about the end of The Last Guardian - I finished it at 5am after four hours of midget-gem-powered reading... and I was high on life for about two days. The symbolism! The metaphor! He/all of them were obviously going to live 'happily ever after...'
As I was reading the Epilogue this situation instantly struck me as something I had to write, and now the next chappie of RA is up I've written it.
Hopefully you'll enjoy it :)
Warning: One use of the 's' word
Soundtrack: R.E.M. - Nightswimming (just a lovely song to write to)
Disclaimer: There would have been way more circular saws in book five. I'm telling ya.
Home Grown
Day 6
"What's that, Daddy?"
"Shhh! Equus, close that– Ow!"
"Foaly?"
The LEP consultant cursed under his breath before forcing a smile and turning around.
"Hello, dear!" he called. "Pleasant day at work?"
Caballine raised an eyebrow. Then Foaly's grip faltered around the object barely contained in his arms and he cried out, raising one of his forelegs to attempt to keep it up against the wall. His wife sighed and moved to help him.
"What is this?" she asked bluntly as she took one end of what looked like a titanium dog-carrier – but with more wires and an added smell of frogspawn.
"It's–" The box slipped again. "It's just something from work."
"Oh really?"
"It's a tank!" announced the three-year-old Equus, stretched up on his fore-hooves to peer into the box, his tail swishing eagerly.
"Yes…" said Caballine. "That is what it looks like…"
Foaly averted his eyes. He backed slowly into his home workroom, Equus dancing about his hind legs whilst Caballine struggled to support the other end of the box. They lowered the tank slowly onto a counter.
"Careful!" cried Foaly as one corner banged against a broken monitor. His eyes were wide, fearful.
Caballine's eyes narrowed. When the container was completely set down her husband set about securing it, fixing power plug and dials, wires and what looked like a miniature heart-monitor…
"Foaly, what is this?" she asked.
He glanced up. "Er… nothing. Nothing. Just… Just something I was tinkering with at work is all."
"Then why couldn't it stay at work?"
Sweat beads broke out along his hairline. "Er…"
"Is it another box of critters?" burst Equus, positively bouncing beside the tank now. "Is it Daddy? Is it?"
Foaly laughed nervously.
His 'critters' were now a fully licensed product of the LEP and used in frontline duty almost every day. They were a boon to the many officers working above ground and below, and were generally accepted by all as a work of anatomical genius. But their beginnings had not been exactly happy. Foaly (unsure whether the council would be fully behind his idea to breed an army of living micro-mechanics) had brought the first batch home in a small fish tank and introduced them to his family as 'pets'. It was only two months later, when Caballine had been giving the critters their night time feed, that they had swarmed up and out of the tank, muffling her scream with a thousand of their dust-mote-sized bodies, and proceeded to eat the oven. Foaly had come home to a very rightfully angry wife and no oven. Needless to say, the critters were executed and disposed of that very night.
"Foaly," growled Caballine. "Are these critters?"
The centaur swallowed. What was he to say? If he told her the truth then there was a chance that she might freak out – and possibly let the secret slip. And that couldn't happen. He couldn't risk anyone hearing about this, not even old Mrs Net-Twitcher from across the hedge who was always spying at him through a gap in the holo-verge. He loved his wife, so much, but… but it was a matter of life and death.
"Of a sort," said Foaly, hating himself with every syllable. "It's an advancement of species II. I've… I've brought him– it home to… to soak up the atmosphere."
Caballine stared at him as if he'd grown a fifth leg. "The atmosphere?"
The lie solidified in his mind. "Yes," he said, sounding surer. "I'm experimenting with giving them emotions. Empathy. To see whether I could use them as some sort of medical aid."
"And… why would they need emotion for that?"
There was a pause.
"All doctors need good bedside manners."
Equus was pushing himself up towards the edge of the tank. His nose brushed at the brim, his hind quarters practically quivering with excitement.
"Oh, please, Mummy!" he wailed, dropping his arms and staring at his mother. "Please, can we keep them? I'll feed them every day and I promise they won't attack you! I'll train them specially! Please let Daddy keep them. Please."
"Foaly…"
"It's not dangerous," said Foaly quickly. "I promise you, Caballine. It'll grow peacefully and without any resentment for centaurs this time – I promise."
She took in her son's wobbling lip and the imploring, nigh cow-like, eyes of husband… and sighed heavily.
"Alright–"
"YES!" screamed Equus.
"– but it'll live in the shed. I'm not having it in the house, Foaly. It will have to soak up the atmosphere from outside the family home."
Her husband nodded in acceptance. Equus had already jumped back up to the tank.
"You hear that?" he hissed to the small, gelatinous blob nestled at the centre of the trappings of wire, tubes and nutrient feed. "You're going to be allowed to stay!"
Day 11
Foaly could smell the sim-coffee before he saw it. He was sat in one of Haven's swankiest downtown coffee shops, one of the few that provided seats especially made for centaurs. His stomach was well cushioned by heated support-pads with a fleece-lined hollow below him to allow his legs and hooves to be tucked neatly away.
"Excellent," he murmured, as Holly Short passed the steaming mug about his head and then into his hands.
She nodded idly and settled herself in the gel-bag opposite him. "So Caballine bought it?" she asked, skipping any preamble. "You've got him into the house?"
Foaly winced. "She didn't… I wasn't selling heranything. I…"
"Is he in the house?"
"Yes."
"Alright then."
She looked away from him and sipped at her mug. Foaly sighed. She had been like this for weeks: blunt, impatient… Well, at least if anyone wanted to talk about stuff that was anything other than to do with Artemis Fowl.
Foaly had seen the photos of Artemis's body. And he had broken, there in his office, finally letting the flood barriers fall. Even as the chrysalis had hummed on the desk behind him, multiplying new cells, recreating life, recreating him, the centaur had wept. And it had been a long time until he had gathered the strength to stop.
"He's in the back house though," continued the centaur. "Caballine doesn't want anything that comes in a tank inside the home."
Holly gave a grim smile. "She still hasn't forgotten about the critters then?"
"No."
"I don't blame her. It's not easy to get over things swarming all over you. When the crickets took me and–"
She stopped suddenly. As if invisible fingers had pinched her wind-pipe shut; pale fingers, piano-players fingers unused to hard labour.
Foaly sighed again.
"I'm working on it, Holly," he said softly. "I'm working on it."
Day 45
"Just a little, Equus. Slowly… slowly…"
The young centaur bit his tongue between wide front teeth and squeezed the pipette. An over-large drop of neon plasma-syrup fell into the tank, sending ripples across the sludge-like surface. Beneath the slurry, curled and about the size of a chicken egg, the 'critter' wobbled and continued to grow.
"There you are," whispered Equus, retracting his hand. "Nice and fed now, Dame Delawney."
Foaly bit his lip. 'Dame Delawney' was the name his son had given to his adopted pet. It was based on an irritated, off-hand comment of Caballine's that the 'critter' was like the matriarch pixie of HBC's award-winning family drama series Downtown Abbey; they were both wrinkled, set off unpleasant gases and constantly demanded attention. Foaly could take this insult to his supposed 'experiment'; as long as Caballine disliked 'Dame Delawney' she would stay away from the shed and not notice that the small, bug-like creature she had clapped eyes on a month ago had now grown into a human foetus.
"Stand back, please," said Foaly. The little boy did as he was told and his father adjusted one of Dame Delawney's hydra-feeds.
"Can we get her out?" asked Equus, his mouth down-turned now his job was over.
His father shook his head. "Not yet, my Dobbin, I'm sorry. He– She needs a bit more time yet."
"How long?"
"About two months."
"Two months? A girl in my magic class has a gerbil and she could take it out after a few hours!"
Foaly frowned. As a centaur, and mostly concerned with physics and computers (to put it simply), he wasn't particularly familiar with human growth periods. But according to the pictures in the book he had got Mulch to smuggle him from the surface (What To Expect When You're Expecting) his ex-criminal friend looked a lot like illustration number four right now and was definitely still in the 'womb' stage and not the 'bounce and gargle' stage which seemed to allow later room for handling.
"Nope. Still needs a bit more cooking."
He shut the lid of the chrysalis.
Day 65
Caballine smiled as she caught sight of the elf. "Holly! Hi! Frond! It's been so long!"
Holly returned the smile, somewhat awkwardly, but accepted the traditional treble greeting kiss of the centaurs. "Yes," she replied. "I suppose it has been."
Foaly closed the front door and looped his scarf free from his thick neck. "Had a good day, dear?"
Caballine changed focus. "Yes, it was… productive I guess. But Holly, how have you been?"
I haven't.
Holly hit herself inwardly for thinking something so stupidly sappy and pathetic.
"Fine," she said instead. "Um, good. You?"
"Can't complain I suppose, though–"
But then her husband planted wide hands on the elf's bony shoulders and started driving Holly out of the room.
"Just going to see Delawney!" he called over his shoulder.
"Why does Holly have to see Delawney?" protested Caballine.
"She needs guest emotions!"
And with that he was out the back door. He released Holly and she followed his eager trotting all the way down the lawn, past the faux-marble statue of Pegasus (complete with Grecian tin-hat) and bits of abandoned wing-rig, until they reached the shed.
"After you!" he sing-songed, holding the holo-door 'open' for her.
She passed through hesitantly, warily. He clomped impatiently in behind her and headed straight for the only work bench in the room. Holly saw the tank, bright blue, and glowing faintly in the gloom.
It lit Foaly's face from beneath, both his hands positioned ready to wrench off the chrysalis's lid. "Are you ready to see?"
No.
"Yes."
He yanked off the lid.
It had hair. That was the first thing she processed. Then the puckered mouth, the tiny, balled fists, the scrunched toes…
"He has six toes on one foot."
Foaly winced. "Yeah… Equus over fed him last Tuesday, I've been meaning to–"
She rounded on him. "He has six toes, Foaly!"
"And Wesley Brownacre from Recon has three nipples!" whinnied the centaur in sudden anger. "Frond, Holly! I'm doing my best here! It's not as if Opal left a manual for this thing!"
Holly closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose.
Calm, calm…
She opened them again and hesitated, just slightly, before taking a step closer towards the tank. He was so still, so small, so…
"He's just a baby," she breathed.
"What were you expecting?" commented Foaly drily, still stinging from the 'six toes' comment, "a leopard?"
Holly ignored him. She reached a hand over the lip of the chrysalis then froze.
"Can I… Can I touch…?"
For one vicious second Foaly considered denying her... and then he caught himself.
"Here," he said, opening a sealed cabinet and pulling out a pair of long, fleshy gloves, "put these on first."
Holly did as she was told. The gloves were cool and slick to the touch, much too big for her elfin hands, but they would do. This time she didn't hesitate. She reached a hand over the lip and gently, oh so gently, sunk her hand through the gunk and placed the tip of her little finger against the side of the baby's minute fist. She let out a gasp, half laugh, half cry. She glanced at Foaly then looked quickly away. He walked closer to the tank.
"If you press a little," he murmured, sharp words and feelings forgotten, "he'll take your finger."
Both Holly's eyebrows rose. Then her gaze dropped back to the chrysalis. Her face drew in with concentration. She pushed, just with the edge of her nail.
"Artemis…" she whispered. "Arty…"
The baby's face didn't change – well, the bit she could see through the tubes and nutrient goop anyway. But the fingers. Holly couldn't be completely sure whether it was because of her pressure or the clone's own reactions… but the fist had closed about Holly's fingertip, simultaneously strong and yet oh so vulnerable.
Foaly looked at her face and smiled.
Day 122
"Can I help, Daddy? Can I help?"
Equus was bouncing around his father's legs, a ball of blonde, quadruped excitement. Foaly could only grit his teeth. He was lifting the young human in his gloved grip, the boy's infant head drooping back like a doll's over his thickly thatched forearms. Tubes ran from the child's nostrils and naval, feeding in nutrients and essential growth elements. The chrysalis was swiftly becoming far too small for him, but to make the adjustments the clone so desperately needed, Foaly would have to remove him temporarily from the tank.
"Not right now, Equus," Foaly managed to say, laying the clone down in an old paddling pool he'd filled with preservative plasma. "This bit needs special caution."
"I can be special caution!" declared the young centaur. "I can be really caution! Look!"
And in his rush to prove it to his father Equus ran straight into a wire, consequently yanking a newly-renovated life-support engine down from a sideboard and sending it crashing towards the floor. The case broke with a sharp, sickening crack and the room was pitched into darkness.
"What have you done?" roared Foaly, as a klaxon began to wail above his head.
"I– I don't know!" stuttered Equus, backing up in the flash of the red light, his blue eyes wide and fearful. "I– I was just–"
Foaly swore loudly. The clone in his arms opened its mouth, releasing a small, choked gasp.
"No!" bellowed the centaur. "No!"
"I'm sorry, Dad!" wailed Equus, half sobbing half shrieking, "I didn't– I didn't mean–"
But his protests fell on deaf ears. Foaly was rushing around the boy in the pool, attaching wires, electrode pads, pumping at a worn out generator he'd once used to power the lawn mower.
"No!" he was muttering, over and over. "Don't you dare, Mud Boy. Not again!"
Equus gave a last choked cry and bolted from the shed. He galloped across the garden, dodging the mismatched, familiar debris, and charged into the kitchen.
Caballine turned away from the lemons she was zesting. "Equus, what–?" And then her first-born slammed into her flank. "Hey," she said, as he buried his wet face into her chestnut coat. "Hey, what's happened? Are you hurt?"
"I– I didn't mean to!" he sobbed.
"Hey, hush now. What didn't you mean?"
"I– I was just t-trying to h-help! I knocked over this metal t-thing and Daddy shouted at me–"
"Daddy what?"
"W-we were w-with Delawney in the sh-shed! I was o-only trying t-to help!"
Caballine's eyes flashed.
When she reached the shed at the bottom of the lawn, Foaly was stood outside it. He was leant against one of the faux-wood struts, his head hidden by his arms.
"Foaly," snapped Caballine, "I've just seen our son."
Her husband raised his head wearily. His eyes were bloodshot, stained.
"Equus?"
"Yes, Equus," she confirmed. "And he was in tears, Foaly! All because he said you'd shouted at him!"
"He… he had broken the life support. I nearly lost… It was all nearly lost…"
His mate's nostrils flared. "I've had enough," she said firmly. "All it's been, for months, is how important that thing in that shed is. And I know your work is important, Foaly, and how important it is to you, but this is our home, our family. Your work belongs at work."
Foaly closed his eyes again. "Caballine–"
"You're obsessed with it. You spend every spare moment of your time with it! And I've put up with your projects before! Remember the critters?"
Foaly's expression was grim. "This is not a critter."
"Well that's what you told me it was!"
"You don't… you don't understand… He's…" He broke off, looked away again.
Then Caballine finally noticed his shaking hands, the drying tear tracks on her husband's long cheeks. He was upset, more than upset. She looked at his eyes. She hadn't seen him like this since the day…
Her eyes widened. She trotted sharply forward, passing her husband.
"Caballine!" called Foaly. "Don't–!"
But it was too late.
She had barged her way through the shed's door to stop, suddenly, in front of the small human laid in the paddling pool; his thin chest rising and falling, steady, stable. Even at this young age Caballine recognised him, through the long black hair, the pale face.
"Foaly," she whispered. "Please… Please tell me that isn't who I think it is…"
She heard her husband enter behind her. "Caballine, let me explain–"
"All this time?"
"Caballine–"
"I thought– I thought it was a bug. Not– Not–"
"Caballine–"
"No!" She threw off the hand that had briefly touched to her shoulder.
"I can explain!" yelled Foaly, following her out of the shed, down the grass. "Artemis didn't really die, Caballine! I've a theory–"
"Theory?" Caballine turned on him. "You have grown a human in our shed!"
"For good reason!"
She laughed. "Well I am still holding onto the faint hope that this wasn't just for shits and giggles."
Her husband ignored that. "The spell at the gate took fairy souls. Artemis was a human. There is a chance that he will have held onto his place in this realm and now only needs a body–"
"So you just decided to make one for him?"
"He left DNA on Holly's forehead. He left instructions forme to power up the chrysalis."
Caballine's face fell. "He died, my love." Her eyes pleaded with those of her husband's, willing him to come to his senses. "It was awful... He was so young... But he died. He's gone."
"No," whispered a voice from behind her.
Then Holly Short pulled the trigger of her neutrino, shooting a tranquilizer dart straight into a vein protruding from Caballine's neck.
Day 167
"D'arvit," muttered Foaly. He picked up the tipped box of 'clone-feed' from the edge of the tank, some of the loose flakes fluttering, limply away from the entry-hole.
I must have knocked it over before I shut up shop last Monday, he thought grimly.
He sighed and stroked at his own beard whilst staring down at the thick, black one of the human beneath him.
You never know though. This may still be him at fifteen. Artemis may have just started shaving early…
The centaur frowned and consulted a few of the printouts he'd fetched from the LEP 'human development' database.
"At fifteen, most Caucasian male humans will have begun to sprout what is commonly termed as 'bum fluff' from their chins and upper lips. Often only a growth of pathetic, Velcro-like hairs, the teenage human will still cultivate and display said hairs proudly and publicly in a false sense of manly pride." Foaly glanced down again at the thick bush obscuring half the clone's face. "Nope. That's definitely beyond that." He dropped the sheets to the desk. "D'arvit…"
It could take weeks to reverse what an accidental OD of clone-feed had achieved in four days. He'd have to shave the bones down, possibly drain the brain…
Foaly's head shot up. His eyes darted to the small, laser-powered circular-saw he had purchased last year after a short-lived bout of DIY enthusiasm.
This… this could be a good thing.
Twenty minutes later and the top of Artemis's shaggy skull was sat in Foaly's palm like a hairy, pulp-lined, coconut husk. His brain was sat in the other palm, dripping goop onto the laminate.
"Hmm," murmured Foaly, bouncing his right hand up and down a few times. "This thing's fairly heavy."
Well, what had you expected?
"Foaly!" called a voice from outside the shed. "Foaly, I've brought you coffee. You've been in there for ages, love, why don't you take–"
The door opened.
Foaly froze.
Caballine froze.
…And then she sank to the floor, the coffee mug smashing to the floor as she dropped.
Foaly swore again, sighed, and proceeded to mind-wipe his wife for what was the second time since the clone had entered the shed.
Day 182
"Whoa," whispered Holly. "It's him. It's really him."
She was bent over the clone's container, her eyes wide and spiked with adrenaline.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, please move."
She was buffeted out of the way by Foaly's wide behind. He pulled the top of the tank open and adjusted a few of the tubes circuiting down into the mask around the boy's face.
"You gave him a haircut," noted Holly, still smiling despite her friend's rebuff. "He looks like a Beatle."
Foaly scowled. "Yeah well, it was that or Tarzan so take your pick."
"I'm just imagining his reaction when he wakes up. You know what he's like about his hair."
His expression darkened. "Holly…"
"Yeah?"
Foaly looked at her. "You know this is a long shot don't you? This… this may not work. In fact, it's most likely not going to work."
Her smile vanished. "What? What are you talking about? It's him! You've done it! You've done everything he told you to do–"
"But still." Foaly's long face was anxious, grim. "He would have had to have held on for six months…"
Holly remembered the struggle from the time stream. The struggle not to simply meld with all the universe, melt back into nature. She had barely made the journey back from eight years ago, only managed it due to Artemis's spirit yelling at her to keep a grip, No.1 reeling her closer with his signature magic… She couldn't imagine six months alone in it. In the beauty of the grounds of Fowl Manor. Why wouldn't he have laid down amongst the Eden-like countryside, to his home, his people, become the light, the breeze, given himself back to the earth? His body had. Would the soul have followed it?
Holly clenched her fists. "No. He wouldn't have given us instructions if he hadn't fully intended to come back."
"He… He may not have had much of a choice, Holly."
The elf didn't want to look at her friend. A quiet moment passed, the clone fogging up the clear, plastic mask that was helping him breathe.
"You know…" said Foaly eventually. "I've been thinking."
"Anything nice?" asked Holly acerbically.
"Well… you know…" He gave a strange smile, "that we're… that we're sort of his parents now?"
This, Holly had not been expecting.
"What?"
"Here me out!" said Foaly, holding his hands up. "Here me out."
Holly was staring at him as if she wanted to shoot him. "In what possible way are we his parents?"
"Well…" Foaly scratched at the back of his neck. "You provided the DNA and I… I grew him for six months–"
"In a tank, not a womb," she spluttered. "And that DNA came from Artemis! Not from… from…"
"But still – in role duty anyway – I'm still sort-of the mum and you the dad…"
Holly's face dead-panned. "No. Just no. And when he wakes up, please do not start this discussion again. It's weird, and knowing him, he'll probably want to talk about it."
"He wasn't born from Angeline!" insisted Foaly. "That body was buried! I had to drill him a belly button so I could put the nutrient feed–"
"Stop!" The elf had actually clapped her hands over her ears. "Please, for the love of Frond, stop."
Foaly shut his mouth and Holly's hands slowly descended from her head.
"I mean it. Artemis's parents would hardly appreciate this and I really don't. Can you just get him sealed up and we'll get on with getting his soul back, please? We're wasting time."
The centaur was still for a second.
It had been a strange six months. The little embryo which he had hefted into his house 176 days ago had grown and changed so much. He had fed it, protected it, nurtured it, at times even sang to it. It had become a part of his family. Had gained a nick-name, become a playmate for his son. He had watched over it, sacrificed for it (he felt a twinge of guilt then for the lies he had told Caballine) and now…
"Foaly," said Holly quietly, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm alright," said the centaur, sniffing thickly. "I just… I just hope this works. I really hope this works."
She gave a tight, lop-sided smile and closed the lid of the chrysalis.
And there it is :) Again, a little weird... Hope that brain bit didn't freak you all out unduly...
Review?