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Brood of a New Age

11.

Nashville shrieked loudly as Goliath put him in a headlock. For a few moments more ruled by instinct and panic, he struggled in the grip of the rock-hard arms. Then he was able to scrape together enough wits to stop. Body tension, control, purposeful movements - rule six of his father. He wrapped his tail around one of Goliath's ankles and tugged as hard as he could. It wasn't enough to bring Goliath down. It would never be enough for that. But he momentarily lost his stability and loosened his grip enough for Nash to push off his belly with his feet and do a somersault over the larger gargoyle's head while still in his grip. Goliath let go of him even though he certainly would have had the strength to prevent the move. Nashville landed on all fours on the uncomfortably soft mat of the training hall, which Xanatos made available to them (as he made available to them all the comforts of the castle except those of his private quarters). The young ice-blue gargoyle rumbled and felt his eyes glowing. Goliath moved slowly around him with his arms raised and Nashville kept his distance.

"You must not let your anger against a stronger opponent get the upper hand," Goliath advised, smiling determinately. He doesn't understand me either, Nashville thought. It was not the superiority of his combat partner that made him angry. But that Goliath so bluntly and obviously restrained himself. Because he did not want to tackle a CHILD roughly. Was it because he was a kid or Brooklyn's son? It didn't matter. Nashville felt humiliated by this restraint. He knew that Goliath could seriously hurt him and he didn't WANT to be seriously hurt. After all, he was already mopping the floor with Nash on the gentle cycle. But he also didn't want to be spared like a hatchling. The criminals would never go easy on him either. If he ever got out of the castle to fight real criminals.

"Attack me, lad. Your opponents will never wait for you," Goliath said, and Nashville rumbled. "What opponents?"

Nashville ran on all fours toward his mentor. Goliath had already lowered his arms to adjust to his crouched position and intercept him, but Nashville jumped up just before he got to his opponent and shifted into a human kicking position.

Nashville jerked his leg up and kicked Goliath in flight. He just managed to block the boy's leg with his forearm before it hit him in the face. He stumbled back a step again, but only to widen his stance. When Nashville briefly showed his side because of his great momentum, the purple clan leader grabbed his wings and threw him off him by them. Nashville landed on his stomach at the opposite end of the hall. All air was forced from his lungs and he remained lying there gasping in pain.

"'You all right, Gnash?" said Goliath after a few seconds and he heard him coming closer.

"Everything's wonderful, never felt better," he muttered. Without looking up, he raised an arm and gave a thumbs up.

"That roundhouse kick was very good, Nashville. Any human being would have been knocked off their feet by that."

"Thanks Goliath."

"But in the back, you always let your guard down."

"I guess that's why you always need backing," he muttered his face still on the mat. The soft floor squeaked as Goliath stepped past him to give him some quality-time with his pain.

"See you at dinner" he said almost cheerfully by his standards and Nash grunted in affirmation.

Training with Goliath was like fighting a tank - even if he didn't even pretend to be serious. Nashville liked never having to hold back - but he also never landed a serious hit. It was good for learning frustration tolerance, but it didn't give him a sense of accomplishment.

The training lessons with his mother in sword fighting - both of course only with bokken - were a piece of cake in comparison, even if he also got bruises. And even the excruciatingly pedantic shooting training with Brooklyn was more pleasant. But his father avoided him for days. Even the quizzing from the seventeenth chapter of the history book had been done by Angela. On the one hand, he was glad of that. But on the other ...

Nashville rolled onto his side with a groan and crawled four-footed to the side of the hall. Lexington perched there on a bench, smiled broadly, and handed him a towel, which he accepted, rubbing the sweat from his face and neck. He rose back up onto two legs as he did so, grudgingly tolerating the renewed waves of pain the new posture sent into his muscles.

"That was a good fight, Gnash," he said kindly, and Nashville turned away so Lex wouldn't see his rolling eyes.

"You've seen the same fight I have, haven't you? "

"Goliath wipes the floor with all of us," Lexington said with a shrug. "But you take something from every training session."

"Bruises I take every time," Nash growled.

"It'll serve you well someday."

Nashville whirled around that Lex stopped. The olive gargoyle - not even twenty years his senior - had moved on all fours again, looking like an animal, but the quadrupedal gait and crouching position just came more naturally to him than to others, and Nashville's annoyance faded when he saw the puzzled look from the wide eyes. Nash always found it particularly distressing to face Lexington, even though he knew this stuff about time travel and especially the future. His father and mother had raised him with these lessons (among the dozens of other lessons, of course).

Don't tell anyone about the future. Pretend you have never seen it. Forget what you have learned about people you knew, know and will know. Especially in the case of bad things, never try to prevent them - otherwise they will happen even more. But it was hard. So hard. Because now, after less than a year, Lex was already closer to him than anyone else. Not just because they were close in age or because Lex had that rookery keeper attitude sometimes. Broadway was deep into his relationship with Angela and that was wonderful. And Brooklyn had Katana and was now much older than the others.

It was so difficult because Nashville was eager to spare his opposite the suffering that may lay ahead. Good things would happen - but also bad things - as it was in every life. The presence of Hudson also stung his heart - but Hudson was already old now. That was somehow something different. But with Lexington ... Brooklyn had talked to Nashville about it for a long time. That the future wasn't set in stone, but as soon as you talked about it, the bad things would come true, like self-fulfilling prophecies. And that's why the best way to change the course of events was to say or do NOTHING and leave it up to fate whether that would happen or something else entirely. But it was agonizing (especially as a gargoyle) to simply do nothing and say nothing.

It wasn't right for him to speak down to an older fellow so Nash crouched down as well and spoke then- more quietly than had actually been his first impulse.

"Sorry Lex. I know you all mean well and try to keep me as busy as you can. I realize that my training hours have been increased. But I also notice that my dad is avoiding me and-"

"He's not!" said Lexington almost indignantly. But Nashville's eyes narrowed and Lexington's gaze became empathetic.

"He- Brooklyn just has a lot on his mind. He's got ... a lot of things to nibble on."

"When Lex?"

"What when?"

"You said all this training will benefit me eventually. When?"

He shook his head with his ears down.

"I know you're having a hard time. We all realize that."

"You taking turns keeping me busy doesn't make me feel better. And I know you and Broadway spending the most time with me is part of your 'punishment' for going against Brooklyn's orders back then to Slaughter Films."

"It is NOT a punishment to spend time with you, Nashville! We're a clan!" hissed Lexington, making an unadulteratedly pissed-off face this time. "Broadway's giving Antoinette Dracon that benefit of the doubt despite her background was ill-advised. And that I followed him without telling others was careless. But I don't regret the action even if it almost killed us. I took care of my brother. Clan looks out for each other. Even against better knowledge. It was right that Brooklyn and then Goliath reprimanded us. But time with you is not part of the reprimand."

Nashville smiled at these fervent assurances - but he didn't believe them. "I feel like a baby or a nursing case. I appreciate the combat training, the cooking lessons with Broadway, the sewing lessons with Angela, and the games with you. But it's just a pain in the tail for everyone. Or do you think I get SOOO much pleasure from playing computer games with you, which are honestly one big pixel salad to me?

"Yeah? Will the graphics resolution get that much better in the future?"

"You have no idea, Lex. You'd be the only one I could give a clue to but-."

"- I know. Brooklyn's rules. The senior's right about that, too."

"Senior!" Nashville laughed out loud and Lexington laughed as well. "Never tell him I called him that." asked the green web-wing that was barely bigger than Nash.

Even though Nashville knew that teasing the other person was a form of affection and it was clearly a good sign that Lex was doing it, he quickly became serious again. This time his pitying look was directed at his clan elder.

"Even for you, it's gross that Brooklyn was spat out by the Phoenix Gate so changed."

Lexington looked at him and that smile slowly melted off his face. He rubbed his blank head.

"He's not changed, so - to us he is. But that's OUR problem. He's spent forty years trying to straighten things out in the stream of time. He had a mission beyond our understanding. And that is bigger than us- bigger than him and bigger than everything. His youth ... was a price he had to pay. It's just... cruel- in a way. But it was also a gift."

"A gift? Did the radiation from the old cell phones singe you up there?"

Lexington grinned broadly, Nashville had already realized he could tease Lex when his tone wasn't biting.

"It was a gift because he met Katana. Because he brought her and Fu and Eggwardo. And you, you sourpuss!" he shoved Nashville so that he plopped backwards on the seat of his pants.

"Hey!"

"He made the clan bigger and stronger. He ... has gained experience that will make him a fantastic leader. For you as a family, he was, or you wouldn't have been able to stay together through the time and space jumps. He just needs a little more practice leading a larger clan."

"And to consider everyone."

"Yes. And to consider everyone. We have to give him time. Just like we give Katana and you time. This world ... It's changing rapidly right now. Goliath's court case showed that - even if it didn't hurt that Jugde Roebling was in the chair. And P.I.T. has shown that. Even former enemies like Mac Beth and Xanatos are our advocates. Yeah, there's still Castaway and the Quarrymen and other organizations. But I have hope."

"Which hope?"

"For the future. I know that's more your resort. I'm never going to interrogate you- but I know that the future- even the snippets you've seen are not set in stone yet. Brooklyn wouldn't have been sent into the past AND future if it was. Things can always change. Only it is up to us if the future changes a little bit for the better or for the worse."

"Wow, how did we come up with the pep talk?"

"I'm also very wise apart from computer skills okay?"

"Yes! Yes, absolutely, Brainiac."

"Regarding hope; I'm actually pretty sure I'll be running my own company in just a few years," Lexington said casually, proud at the notion alone, and it was a good thing they had started moving again and were now standing side by side in the elevator. Otherwise Lex would have seen how briefly the amazement at the last statement flitted across Nashville's face. He had no idea how quickly the future he dreamed of would come. And Nashville hoped, he prayed even if he didn't believe in any God, that Lexington would be spared the most unpleasant parts of the fate they had seen and learned in the future version they had been thrown into. Maybe (just maybe) this conversation was already the butterfly wing flap that would be able to avert the most violent part of the storm. Nobody knew.

"I'll just let it come to me," he continued. "No matter how curious I am, we all are - the rules are there for a reason."

"Yes, rules. My whole world is made up of them."

"That's how communities work."

"I know. And I don't mind the rules. Just - that they're so much stricter for me than they are for everyone else."

"You're our youngest clan member. You're ..." Lex shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

"Let me guess. I'm the child of all of you."

"Yeah, kind of."

"Can I play outdoors today, Dad?"

Lex laughed and blushed meanwhile which looked so funny that Nashville laughed too.

"Don't reply to me, I know the answer," he then said, still smiling.

"All the young of the clan belong to the whole clan. You know who sired and delivered your egg. That's why it's okay if you think of the rest of us more as uncles and aunts - if we want to stick to human terms. Are you gonna come along with this old uncle and play a few rounds of one of those disgustingly primitive 20th century games?"

"Nah. I know you'd rather chat with your buddy in England."

Lexington scratched his temple, and Gnash saw right away how right he was in guessing. "Amp's not going to be upset with me if I've ever-."

"No. You're buddies, you're attached to each other. You need people like that even if it's a long distance friendship."

"Yes. Yes we... we are ... attached to each other," Lexington mumbled, and it was obvious he wanted to say something more about it. But then he shook his head, smiling. Nashville understood that Lexington needed the few hours with the deer gargoyle from the London clan. It might be just a phase but friends who ticked similarly and were comfortable with each other were important even if the distance between them was more than three thousand miles.

"Thank you for talking to me, Lex. I ... I'm going to sort out my bones now, and then I'm going to study."

"Studying is good."

"Yeah ... studying is good."

Thanks for reading, Q.T.