Author's Notes
FFN has got themselves blacklisted again, if you're wondering where email alerts have gone; this isn't a matter of whitelisting them, it's their problem. I typically respond to reviews within 24hrs, or this might be a good time to mention I crosspost to Archive Of Our Own. Seriously, this site is falling apart; the traffic graph is also dead, which is a shame.
The wind danced through leaves and gently rattled branches, bringing with it a faint chill that promised cold nights to come. It was a routine she was familiar with, the air warming and cooling in a great cycle, influencing prey and the environment itself. The warm times were nice, but she didn't mind the cold because it came with long nights and peaceful skies, and when she was in the mood to find it, white powder that was fun to frolic in.
What she was less familiar with, but very grateful for as she roused from a deep and peaceful sleep, was the warm body pressed up against her and the wing stretched over her back. "Good," she warbled, using the arbitrary tones she had decided meant that she approved of something, and nuzzled the arm of the wing draped over her.
"Good," the male echoed, presumably pleased with how his paws were tangled under her and thus benefitting from the warmth of her body, and she purred happily to herself. Convincing him to communicate like this was difficult and gradual, but it would be very, very helpful to have additional information on how he felt. Hearing that progress made her feel warm in its own way.
Despite the comfort of the little hollow they were snuggled into, there was an opposing discomfort that had woken her, one that she couldn't ignore for long. "Hungry," she growled, and tried not to be too disappointed when he pulled himself free of her with a grunt. The cool air rushed over her back as his wing lifted, and she decided she needed some way of describing this particular annoyance. Where warmth was pleasant and uplifting, perhaps deserving of a smooth and mellow sound, she felt that cold should be short and a bit sharp, something that matched how it felt against her scales as she spread her wings to take off after the male who had already taken flight.
The land below passed by as they picked up speed, the trees becoming spindly and bare as they dropped their leaves. She didn't bother looking for prey, knowing it would be harder to find with the chill in the air, so she thought about what sounds she could use to express this discomfort while they flew. The thick river she could see in the distance would probably have something they could eat, and there was no point paying attention until they reached it.
Where did the prey go, when it was less abundant with the cold? Her first thought, that she gradually ate them until their numbers grew again with the warm air, didn't seem right. She didn't eat that many of them, and she had noticed it even before meeting the male she flew with, so he wasn't the cause either. It also didn't matter how far she flew, or in what direction, there was always less prey with the cold…
She snapped back to her senses as the male peeled away, angling down towards the ground. A flare of frustration and anger surged through her, but she forced it down, knowing there was probably a reason he was delaying their hunt… if only she could figure out what it was. She pulled along beside him and warbled questioningly, but he only snorted at her as they descended, which wasn't much to work with.
She landed a short distance behind him, by the very abrupt edge of a dense forest, and watched as he nosed around the thick grass. Had he seen something? Smelled it? He didn't seem to be finding whatever he was looking for, but he didn't really seem concerned, so probably not a threat…
Bored of guessing, she trotted up to him and tried to catch his eye with a low croon, but he only tossed his head, otherwise ignoring her. She dropped heavily to her haunches and let him trot ahead, glaring after him and trying to ignore the urge to bite him. She liked him – he was warm and affectionate, and the nights passed swiftly and happily while she was with him. But sometimes, such as now, he did something unfathomable and seemed to forget all the progress she had made with him in establishing a more sensible means of understanding each other. Her stomach loudly reminded her of her hunger, a surge of discomfort that brought with it a temptation to fire at him. Knowing she'd regret that later, she instead mentally lashed out at him, as if she could throw her very frustration at him and force him to understand-
She hadn't intended for it to do anything, but he flinched and stiffly hopped backwards, looking very much as if she had actually struck him. She stared for a long moment, fitting that result into her understanding of everything, while he looked around, gradually lowering his tense wings. That was unexpected…
Tentatively, more calmly, she reached out with her thoughts again as he resumed looking around, testing if she could feel the mind of this male who confused her so much. If she could affect him just by willing it… could she also… understand him, somehow?
He wandered along the forest at a moderate pace, forcing her to trot to keep up with him, making it difficult to focus. Did she feel anything? It was extremely difficult to tell. Hungry, yes, but that could just as easily be her own hunger, and she would have guessed he was hungry anyway as they ate at the same time…
Another urge promoted itself to her attention, one very foreign and definitely not her own – a warm heat, a desire to impress and provide, to show and prove. As incomprehensible as always, but she bounded forwards to catch up again before trying to puzzle together what it all meant. He was hungry, but she already knew that. He wanted to show something, wanted… her to be impressed with something. But what? Why? The only thing she would be remotely impressed with right now was if he stopped whatever he was doing and resumed flying to find something to eat. Either that, or got miraculously lucky and managed to find one of the few prey still roaming the cold…
He… couldn't seriously be trying to hunt. True, they would find something eventually, but it would take time, and she was no warmer for trudging through the soggy grass. She'd rather put up with the chill river for a short time, then flame herself dry and snuggle back up together in a hole, somewhere she could doze and just enjoy his scent. Surely he would rather that too, and maybe just didn't understand where they were going? She focused again and tried to push that understanding to him, but he didn't change his behaviour, still striding along with his nose to the ground.
She growled in frustration and gave up, resigned to this long and stupid hunt. Did he just not want fish? Did he want to prove something by hunting as they had already done many times already? None of it made sense. But she followed along anyway, at a short distance in case she happened across a trail he would otherwise miss so that they might be out here for less time. Then he was going to warm her up again if she had to dig out the den and drag him there herself.
Not for the first time, she contemplated just spreading her wings and leaving all this confusion and nonsense behind. Flying those lonely winds again, only herself to curl up on with nothing to keep her warm while she slept, but simple and straightforward, everything once again within the realm of understanding.
She ground her head against the coarse bark of a tree, focusing on that pressure and not how aggravated she felt about a particular male who was currently pouting with his tailfins covering his face. It made her head ache, but accomplished little else, so she gave up on that and clawed at the tree instead, wings twitching violently with every sharp thought crossing her mind while chips of bark rained over her forelegs. It wasn't any more effective in distracting her, but she needed to claw up something.
He was frustrated and confused. She could relate. Both in the feeling, and in not knowing why he felt that way. How could he not know why he was frustrated!? And seemingly just to infuriate her, that wasn't even what he was confused about – he didn't know what that was about either!
Discovering that she could read what he was feeling was somehow both an updraft that lifted her wings, and also a storm that spun her around and pelted her with ice. She understood a lot more about him now, that he was somewhat simple and always took the most obvious approach even if it was not necessarily the easiest or most fun, but also that he enjoyed being with her and wanted to make her happy. However, the more she knew, the less she understood. If he would only put a little effort into helping her understand, ideally using the sounds and motions she had gradually been inventing to explain and describe whatever she wanted, she could help him and he wouldn't need to feel like this. But no, he was just going to sulk and be miserable.
She panted and stared at the tree, its bark torn away, some of the fibrous strands of its pale core now exposed, parted, and frayed. A cold breeze picked at her wings and swirled around her, and she took a deep breath as the last of her frustration finally ebbed. That was good, frustration wasn't productive and only hindered her thoughts, while now she was free to sit on her haunches and figure out a solution to this problem.
To solve a problem, she needed to know what the problem actually was. The end result was him happy again, when he would tenderly and spontaneously lick the back of her neck while they climbed and explored a rocky mountain… She let herself drift in the peace and pleasantry of that memory for a little while before focusing her thoughts again. That was the objective, not the problem. His unhappiness, his discomfort, was not the problem either, only caused by it. But she didn't know what had him feeling this way.
What was frustration, or confusion? She felt frustrated when she tried lots of things and none of them resulted in the specific thing she wanted. She felt confused when she didn't understand something. Although they often came together, she recognised them as two distinct feelings, as alleviating one would often not resolve the other. She didn't like feeling either of them, and by the way he was acting, her male didn't either.
When she felt this way, she knew it was time to try something different, because what she was doing wasn't working. When she had started hunting and her prey always eluded her, she learned how to sneak up on it. When sneaking hadn't worked on some prey, she made herself stronger and faster so that she could catch it. When the winds buffeted her and slowed her flight, she learned to feel them and use them to her advantage, changing direction or the way she flew. For each problem, she had kept trying solutions until something worked a bit better, then improved on it until it was solved.
How was he trying to overcome his problem, then? Perhaps she could figure it out herself by working backwards from there. Right now, he was lying in the shallow recess they had dug out of a low rise in the ground, with his tail fins over his face. Not sleeping; other than his downcast ears and frills, he wasn't relaxed enough for that. In fact… He wasn't doing anything at all, not since they had woken as the light dimmed in the sky.
Why did he feel frustrated and confused about something he wasn't trying to resolve? She took to pacing, walking among the trees but keeping him in her sight in case he did something. She would be trying something different, or if she couldn't think of anything else then getting more information, observing the thing that had her perplexed…
She needed to understand as much as she could. It led to some things in her life being easier or more interesting, but often she just liked knowing, because… she was curious.
That came with a strong revelation, and she took a deep breath. He was not curious, that was something she had never felt or seen from him. How could someone live and not be curious? Not stare in wonder as they delicately parted strands of grass in their claws, or fly into the wind just to find where it came from? Stick their paw into a little river of water and watch the current adapt its course? His frustration and confusion made a lot of sense, now. Not that she was any closer to figuring out his problem…
But… Maybe, just maybe, she could help him overcome it. She turned and walked back to him, standing over his dark form curled up against the rough dirt of the little hollow. She knew what curiosity felt like – she could feel it now, driving her to try something different and new, mostly just to see what would happen. She let her eyes drift over him, her faint shadow from the dim light cast across him, forming her understanding of him in her mind and lining it up with his form below her. Knowing that despite how small he seemed now, he had broad shoulders and strong muscles, bright green eyes, a sleek tail that elegantly but firmly guided his flight…
She firmly placed a paw on his shoulder and added her curiosity to her understanding of him, pushing it down onto him as she did so. He twisted a little under her paw, but when she thought she felt the two join together, and stepped back to observe, he didn't seem any different…
His fins suddenly lifted, revealing a green eye that looked around and quickly settled on her. Abruptly, he stood up and walked up to her, and as tired as she suddenly felt, she managed to brush off the intimidation of him doing something new and unexpected. He brought his face right up to hers, eyes wide and alert as he stared into her own, snout practically touching to hers… She stood as he drifted down her side, his snout brushing against where her wing met her back and nosing at the fins running down her spine – he stuck his snout under her tail, and she startled forwards with a yelp at the intense sensation before spinning to face him with a growl.
He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time, though his gaze quickly rose to look at something behind her. She watched as he walked around her to closely inspect the tree she had mauled, leaning up against it to gently run his claws through the dense fibres of the trunk that she had torn apart in her frustration.
"Good!" she chirruped, shaking off the uncomfortable surprise and prancing over to him to nuzzle his neck with a deep, thrumming purr.
"Good!" he barked enthusiastically, putting his paw over her in a soft tackle and dragging her to the ground. "Good," he repeated as he sat on his haunches and put a paw on her chest, and she purred up at him. He lifted his head and looked around, sniffed the air, looked up at the sky, then looked back to her with a low rumble… "Hungry?" he warbled.
Her mouth fell open, and then her ears rose to stand on end. She needed a way to agree with him, and quickly settled on an excited shake of her head. "Hungry," she echoed, scrambling upright and lifting her wings with a glance to confirm he was coming before flapping up through the thin canopy and into the air.
She wasn't actually very hungry, as they had eaten enough the previous night, but she didn't care; this had worked much better than expected. "Hungry," she repeated to him, getting his attention and frantically gesturing with her snout before he could get distracted, and she reached a new height of elation when he actually followed her towards a thick river in the distance instead of flying off to chance a hunt. Once they had eaten, she was going to show him as many curiosities as she could think of before light once again dawned in the sky.
The last two nights had been sheer bliss, the happiest of her life. Not only did she still enjoy everything about her male that she had before – affectionate, warm, pleasing to the nose and eyes – he was now excited to learn things with her, and share in what she had already discovered. With brief intermissions of investigating whatever caught their eyes, they had stared and laughed and chased each other through grass and clouds and generally just enjoyed each other's company.
She stretched out on her back, flexing her legs into the air and spreading her wings against the ground with a contented groan. He had run his tongue over every scale on her body, with meticulous care and slow gentleness, seeming to enjoy the variety of squeaks and groans he had elicited from her. He had lingered on her sensitive areas, particularly her throat and around her forelegs and hindlegs, his touch still intense but no longer unwelcome. She still felt overwhelmed, far too much to sleep, but somehow in a good way, a height that was very nice to glide down from in the light that was finally just starting to warm again.
The male himself was lying nearby, also spread out and enjoying the gentle warmth. She was looking forward to the truly cold nights, snuggling up to him while they slept and frolicking with him in the strange white powder that would fall from the sky. She was going to enjoy it all for as long as she could, and when they woke, she would make him feel like she did now… And she was looking forward to it, to feeling the firm curves of his legs, finding out what sounds he would make, using that to guide her… Mrrr…
A familiar and unwelcome presence interrupted her fantasy, and she rolled to lie on her paws to watch out of the corner of her eye. Not that there was anything to see with this unfathomable thing that floated down to them, that intangible entity that she had all but forgotten about. What was it doing here? Not that she had ever known, but it made her uneasy…
It drifted around to examine her male, who had also rolled to his paws and was watching her, looking concerned, though he didn't acknowledge the strange presence in any way. She wanted to bark at him to fly, to flee, she wanted to race away from this thing that had shown up at such a bad time before… but she knew they wouldn't be fast enough.
And it was already too late. She watched, unbreathing, as the presence ensnared him, and the light dulled from his eyes; she felt the spark leave him, the curiosity that she had loved so much. Now devoid of what had made him so wonderful, he flatly lifted his wings and took flight to glide to a nearby tree where he curled up against the trunk. The presence watched him go, as far as she could tell… before turning on her.
Everything she knew about it flashed through her mind in an instant. She didn't know whether it had taken her parents from her, but had shown up both times she had been unable to find them. She now knew it could do things, she'd just seen it take away the curiosity she had given her male. It might do something to her as well.
She ceased any and all thought, mimicking the vague simplicity her male was once again reduced to. She was in the light because it was warmer, and she wasn't quite ready to sleep yet. She would go to that warm, inviting embrace soon-
The presence advanced on her, and she mentally walled herself off, sealing her thoughts and just staring after the male while it inspected her, feeling it touch her, read her, invading her mind and listening for whatever it was that might betray her…
It withdrew, lifting a short distance into the sky where it abruptly dissipated, and she heavily exhaled with a tremble from head to tail. It didn't seem to have done anything to her. Numbly, still unable to even begin thinking about what had happened, heart heavy with relief but also disappointment, she slowly trudged after her male, knowing that at the very least she would still be able to curl up in his embrace.
An obnoxious, repetitive alarm pierced Helen's ears, its volume muted somewhat by the water she was submerged in. She was already struggling, claws scratching the tough glass, tail lamely slapping around the enclosure – the small mask stuck to her nose slipped loose and her nostrils reflexively closed to protect her airways, but that wasn't the source of the violent heaving that wracked her body.
She suddenly dropped, the water rapidly draining from the tank, and the sharp sensation of the metal beneath her cut through the convulsions to force a strangled shriek. The glass lifted a moment later, and she dragged herself to the floor – the very touch of it to her paws made her retch even more violently, and she had no doubt that if there was anything in her stomach it would have been ejected several times over. Arthur's tense voice hurt her ears, but she couldn't respond, couldn't even understand him, focusing on just not dying to whatever was-
Something caught in her chest and she felt fluid fill her throat, ejecting itself from her body as she heaved. She immediately felt a bit better, so went along with it, forcefully expelling whatever was doing this to her. She had little sense of how long it went on for, but by the time it abated, she ached with relief, letting out a weary groan while she panted…
"Don't move," Arthur said tensely, and she blinked her eyes open to look for him – the warmth she could feel around her legs and under her head suddenly made a lot of sense, bathed in gentle blue flame as they were. A pool of molnir, liquid energy, almost surrounded her, its blue glow lighting up Arthur's wide eyes as he stared at her. "I don't know if your weight would trigger it," he said slowly, "but I'd rather not find out by disintegrating a hole in the floor and drowning."
She froze, that realisation enough to overcome the rising panic of how she was sitting in a fire. The flames were warm to her new skin, not painful or uncomfortable at all, even perhaps quite pleasant. The lab, on the other hand, was built of molecular mesh, an incredibly strong material that was almost impossible to break or even damage… with the exception of molnir, which if triggered, would cause a chain reaction in the bonds and break a hole through it if not destabilise the entire structure.
"You could have done that in the reactor," Arthur said sharply at her, "we could use the power. I've done what I can, but the draw is higher than we expected. Plus it wouldn't, you know, kill us." Helen glared at him, but took a moment to remind herself that he wasn't really accusing her, however much he sounded like it; he often said things like this when something was out of his control. "You didn't have to spend another three days in there" he added, "you should be more adjusted from last time. This vessel isn't much different."
That, he probably did blame her for, as it was something she had control over; as if she'd known it would result in this. She just snorted and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. True, she could have emerged a long time ago, but the tank was very comfortable. Strangely, she felt more alive and free inside it than she did out here. Now that she was out and moving around, she felt all the wrong shape, the floor was stressful in a way she still didn't understand, the air was cold in her throat, and her stomach gripped her with hunger.
The pool of fire gradually burned away, until she could carefully hop over it. They both sighed in relief as the last of it winked out with a final wisp of flame, leaving behind only a speckling of char. "At least we know it works?" Arthur offered flatly with a shrug. "Bit more volume than I expected though, even for an adult. Well, we'll get you using it in this round of testing, so this shouldn't happen next time." She huffed and started walking to her new favourite room where the floor didn't feel as if it was made out of needles; she could get food there, and then she might as well exercise and continue learning how to use this strange vessel.
To her surprise, Arthur awkwardly jogged up beside her to follow. "Had a bit of a breakthrough while you were out," he said hesitantly. "Nightlancers can't make enough vocal patterns to feasibly communicate, the distinct permutations of pitch and modularity are few enough that many necessary words would be impractically long." She didn't slow her impatient stride, but she did growl under her breath; they covered a lot of skills and knowledge between them, but inevitably some things were falling through the gaps. "It's fine, though. We'll just need to incorporate body language more directly."
She scoffed. Would waving her wing like a lunatic mean 'hello'? Then she realised that gesture already existed and did indeed mean exactly that.
"We really need to fix this whole one-sided communication thing," Arthur said dryly, "so you can explain to me what's so funny." She laughed at him before awkwardly sprinting through the door and across the room to her haven of rock and saltwater pools. "It's why I've been working on this, you know," he called after her, but she didn't care, happily prancing around and enjoying the sheer strength of her vessel, even stiff with disuse and awkward as it was – right up until Arthur abruptly spun on his heel and stalked off.
She paused in her frivolity to watch him go, trying to figure out if she'd done something to make him angry, beyond his irritation with her enjoying the novelty of sensory deprivation. He certainly seemed angry, or at least annoyed and agitated… Which was odd, actually. Normally she found it very difficult to read him, know what he was truly thinking or feeling, but she was now very certain he was somewhere in that emotional region.
A growl vibrated in her throat as she leaned over a nearby puddle to look at herself in the reflection. She might be certain that he was aggravated by something, but she had no idea what she'd done, if anything. Once, he'd been inexplicably annoyed that she'd cooked a big fancy dinner for him, despite the toll it had taken on her body, and he hadn't been able to explain why.
She huffed to herself and began slowly loping around the room, putting it all from her mind to gradually gain confidence traversing the rough ground.
The world was divided – no, rather humanity was divided upon it. It was old history for most, but Arthur found his thoughts locked to those events as his personal craft hurtled over the land, the humming windscreen and walls almost drowning out the whine of the engine; it at least distracted him from wondering if Helen was enjoying her own stifling silence for the day or so he would be away. There was little risk of detection by any automated defences, thanks to disruptive particles in the air designed to interfere with most scanners, and his craft implemented some experimental refraction technology that practically made it invisible; a bonus effect was that it took the edge off the scorching sun shining down over the wasteland below.
Although his little craft was the only one of its kind, made possible by a battery of molnir, the technology it used – and much of what he'd incorporated into the Nightlancer vessel and many of its prototypes – was all devised and constructed by the Notitians. Genetic modification and augments allowed for more direct machine interfaces, and as a result nearly all Notitians were highly specialised in research, engineering, development, or whatever took their fancy when they came of age. Despite being in his forties, Arthur himself was unusual in that he had no such augments, had never decided on and locked himself into what he'd wanted to do, much to the chagrin of his father.
Ironically, gene manipulation and modification had first been developed by Corporealists, a name originally belonging to something of a small cult that had since grown into an entire society. Their core ideals were closer than the Notitians to Arthur's own, centred around the self, and such did they strive to modify themselves to be stronger and faster in body and mind.
To say the two societies did not see eye to eye was an understatement. Countries divided, or were taken over entirely by one or the other. For various reasons, mostly but not entirely because of the conflict, resources dwindled and land became uninhabitable, leading to more conflict.
Arthur laughed to himself, a quiet sound beneath the roar of the wind. He didn't understand it. Naturally, tampering with their genetic code did not come without consequence – nobody could tweak even a small aspect of such a delicate system without some form of repercussion. They'd tried their best anyway, and both Corporealists and Notitians had seemingly succeeded. Until they'd found out what happened when the two artificial genes mixed.
His teeth clenched and his fingers dug into the armrest of the narrow chair, sharply despising humanity's narrow-mindedness. The opposing ideals, one of purity and the other of augmentation, had certainly caused friction over the years, but the cinching factor, the reason they fought, was that they couldn't have children together!? What inane logic. With all the progress over the last thousand years, overcoming differences in race, gender, language, religion, field of expertise, modifications, and so on, they had fallen right back into the same trap yet again. As if they'd learned nothing from their own history.
And then there were the poor victims in the middle, like Helen, those children born of both. Damaged and in constant pain as their own bodies tore themselves apart, surviving a mere sixty years if they were lucky. Of course, they received support and education for some semblance of a normal life – not even humanity would stoop so low as to deny people something so basic – but they weren't exactly welcomed either.
He just had to remember that he didn't blame humanity, and his tense shoulders relaxed a little, anger subsiding. The fault lay elsewhere, with something deeper and more fundamental. He had spent most of his adult life working to correct it, once he had figured it out, and knew better than to get angry with the symptom; just, sometimes it was a very frustrating symptom.
A display lit up across the windscreen, the countdown to landing a little difficult to see against the off-white haze that covered the land below, and the craft began to slow. In the remaining minutes before arrival, he triple-checked all his equipment, tested his kinetic shielding twice, and fought off multiple anxiety attacks. But with his final vessel nearly complete, the first Nightlancer already walking the earth, he needed to do this. For the sake of the world.
The craft gently touched down, engines whirring down to idle, and the door divided into segments to slide down and form a staircase to the ground. He was greeted by a dozen armed soldiers, each eight feet tall and lean with dense muscle, armed with rifles that would probably break Arthur's shoulder if he attempted to use them without heavy dampeners. They stood in ranks behind a slightly bulkier man with keen eyes, angular features, and a long, tidy beard, who stood with all the dignity of supreme arrogance. "Arthur," the man greeted curtly, deep voice laden with more than a little suspicion.
Arthur descended, forcing his gaze up from the dust-swept ground to the man before him and doing his best to appear calm and collected. Showing weakness would probably help more than hinder, but he wanted to do his best anyway, and took a deep breath before tipping his head and offering a small bow of respect to the leader of the Corporealists. "Fenn Rerr," he replied.