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Brood of a New Age
7.
"How do I help?"
Everyone looked at him.
"What?"
"You stay here with Bronx and Fu and guard the castle."
"What? No! It's Thursday night. Thursday I get to go on patrol!"
"On a normal Thursday night. I'm sure they can move your patrol time to tomorrow," Angela tried to reassure him.
"But-."
"You just heard Elisa. Choi and Sanchez's boys have been at each other's throats since the hullabaloo over their heirs' kidnapping died down. At first we thought they were ganging up on the real culprits-"
"Which, thank heavens, were NOT the three of us," Lexington muttered, rolling his huge eyes. Those masks had really been amazingly realistic. But of course, everything else had given them away from the small human bodies to the motionless mouths. And those black pulp fiction suits... the outfits had been incredibly cool but the whole action was incredibly insulting.
"Preventing Dino Dracon's plot was good but it did nothing to pacify the situation and now the Dracons are all at large again." Broadway remarked grimly as usual on the Dracon subject.
"- Now it's worse than ever. We break into the armories of the opposing parties and destroy their means to kill each other. In and out. A five-minute operation at best."
"Why do we even have to?" asked Nash. Again horrified looks from all under which he would have liked to sink in the ground. Why did they keep making him feel stupid? Broadway made it even worse. And patted him on the head!
"It's our job to protect people, Gnash."
"They're mobsters. It does play into the hands of us and the police AND the general population if they're busy fighting each other-"
"ALL human casualties in conflicts are to be avoided. We don't judge who's good and who's bad," Brooklyn said coldly, folding his arms unyieldingly.
"Let me come with you! I can crush weapons like tinfoil just as well as you can."
"No! Katana and I - no one in the clan - can focus on the mission if we're afraid you're going to be in the line of fire."
"I'm not a damn egg anymore, Dad!"
"That's my last WORD!" roared Brooklyn, and Nashville fell backwards and to the ground in utter shock. Then his father stood over him with his fists clenched, eye blazing, wings unfurled, and fuming. It was rare for his father to play the "Goliath card" (who, when something was important to him, could also flare up like that - Nash had seen it before).
"I am your second. You're part of this clan now. And you will follow Goliath's and my orders,"snarled the red Gargoyle.
Nash looked wide eyed at Goliath, who gave him a pitying look (just a moment of pity, which hurt him more than if he had dragged his claws across his flesh) and then nodded in stoic agreement.
"Guarding the castle is an important and honorable task. The clan must be able to come back to a safe home after missions."
That might have been true in the tenth century and not in the twentieth where a billionaire had converted the castle into an almost automatic self-defense facility, he wanted to say. But he didn't dare. Instead, he remained squatting on the floor on which his father's roar had forced him. And since he was already squatting here: he knelt down, right in front of his father's toes, bent his upper body to the floor, pressed his hands to his sides and pressed his face to the ground. People with beaks could not perform the Dogeza perfectly at all. They had the choice of turning their head to the left or right and letting only half of their face touch the floor. Or to press their forehead on the ground and thus also the upper side of the beak, which required a little more bending and the skin over the beak was painfully bruised if not scratched. Nashville chose the second option. He picked Dogeza not as a form of Japanese etiquette, not even as a deep apology for an act for which one wanted forgiveness. For him it was only a sign of submission to a person of higher status. Because the red gargoyle in front of him probably didn't want anything else either. He didn't want a son, he wanted an obedient clan member. Then he got it, too.
"Forgive this unworthy clan member for his misplaced behavior. I hereby submit myself to the mercy and favor of clan leader and second in command for clan and community to prosper once again and evermore. With deepest humility, I request the restrictions and honorable tasks to restore the dignity I took from myself."
Even before his last sentence, he had heard the under-frequency growl in his father's (no, his second's)chest . Then it broke off, and Nashville knew either Katana or Goliath must have looked at or touched Brooklyn not to lash out or otherwise.
More likely it had been his mother. Katana knew that a Gargoyle-Dogeza oath was an honorable ritual as well as the physical movements, and Brooklyn would have completely dishonored and discredited himself by interrupting him. He knew what his father would have said, angrier than before and trying not to shout again (he was actually very quiet and introverted). He would have accused him of abusing these dignified rituals for his childish antics in order to arouse pity in everyone. But Nashville did not do that at all. A gargoyle did not want or need pity! And the fact that his father held him in such low esteem that he probably would have accused him of just that hurt, although it had not happened at all.
He had performed Dogeza and Oath perfectly as he had been taught. He no longer whined, he no longer complained. He was serious and restrained and just waited. And he would have spent the whole night in that position. The other gargoyles didn't know that but his parents did. Brooklyn could, if he would deny him his mercy and not forgive him by touch and word (as was actually the custom and proper thing to do after Dogeza), make him kneel here all night. At the same time, his beak, pressed on the stone slabs, was already hurting terribly. But after some more seconds he heard it puffing. He could have heard the surrendering, tired, snorting of his father out among a million gargoyles.
" Second and Elder accepts the gesture of the unworthy member of the clan. To restore dignity, the honorable guard over homestead and rookery is ordered, as well as the memorization of the seventeenth chapter of your Wendler history book." Brooklyn replied the officially required words and the individual demands. It was better than rookery grounding or tying his wings together. But only a little. Because the detailed Wendler Universal Atlas of World History was a book thicker than the Bible.
"Then the clan will leave now," Goliath muttered.
At last Nashville felt the touch of his father's claws on his wings, trembling with pain at the posture. He straightened up huffing as they all walked past him. His mother though as often with a serious face stroked one of his horns in a barely perceptible comforting manner. And then the looks of the others - Broadway, Angela, even Hudson. Coldfire und Coldfire and Coldstone unaffected as usual, even if Coldstone (still half-flesh) showed signs of the old familiar subliminal disagreement with certain decisions of his leaders. Lexington gave him a friendly pat on the back as he passed. They didn't understand Dogeza and they didn't understand him. They tried hard, and he liked them. But they just hadn't grown up like he had.
Elisa hadn't followed the others, still standing in front of him tugging uncertainly at her jacket sleeve. Nashville had already heard so many stories about his father's clan during the Timerdancer adventures that it hadn't seemed strange to him from the beginning that a human could not only be a familiar or friend of a clan, but even romantically involved with one of their own. Romantically involved-that's what Brooklyn had always politely called it. He wasn't a hatchling anymore after all, he knew what that meant. Elisa, after all, smelled unmistakably like Goliath, and vice versa. They were not yet officially and by ceremony mates - but that would only be a matter of time. And he liked the mate of his new/old/whatever clan leader. She was cool and tough even if she looked awfully guilty right now.
"Sorry Nash. It -is- really-"
"It's not your fault Elisa. It's no one's fault. This mission is important. Look out for each other on your mission."
"Okay." She held out a ghetto fist to him, and he smiled meekly at this late-20th-century quirky gesture. He bumped his fist against hers, then she too followed suit with the others.
"Take your task seriously, Gnash. Even more so after the threat the egg escaped last month," he heard a serious voice behind him.
"Of course, Brooklyn. Thank you," he murmured, and though he could still feel his second lingering for a moment in the doorway of the gargoyle's living area - perhaps struggling to say something - nothing more came. No one saw the bitter expression on Nashville's face and that there were tears in his eyes, which he forbade to flow down his cheeks. He was a gargoyle and a man. He was not weeping because his elders had slapped him on the fingers. But he would have liked to bang his head against one of the walls until his beak or one of his horns broke. Just to feel something other than uselessness and loneliness. Guarding the castle where there were half a dozen hidden laser cannons on the battlements and an automatic elevator interlock took place when the cameras registered unknown, unauthorized faces in the cabin. Guarding the rookery though Lexington had made it more secure than Fort Knox after last month's drama. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous.
Bronx and Fu-Dog pressed against him from both sides, grumbling and nudging him. For comfort and out of bonding over their shared task. He was nothing more than a watchbeast himself right now. He might as well have cut off his wings. But no- watchbeasts at least didn't have as much homework as he did now. He wrapped his arms first around Bronx, who licked his scratched beak. Then around Fu Dog and pressed his face into her mane.
.
.
Nine gargoyles - the largest of them with a human in his arms - glided silently in the direction between the two areas of operation. Shortly before they would split up to strike at both targets at the same time by clock synchronization and radio coordination. They sailed over a city they knew well, but whose inhabitants, now mainly asleep, might not be offensively hostile to them, but would never show gratitude for putting themselves in danger night after night to make their lives safer. And the few percent of the population who threatened their lives with pathological enthusiasm would always be there - whether hiding and waiting, or pushing forward, swinging hammers. They could live with that as long as there were signs of improvement, reassurance, hope. Most of the Gargoyles did not know how long they would face fear, contempt and hatred from ordinary citizens and what sacrifices it might cost to even set foot outside the castle. And the two clansmen who at least suspected it were aware that the future they had seen was only one branch of thousands. Every night could decide whether the branch with the least sacrifices for the manhattan clan would be taken or the one with the most. And that is why they had to be careful. Always. Especially for those in their midst who were most vulnerable.
"Brooklyn?"
"Yeah, Broadway?"
"That just now. That thing Gnash did there-"
"Dogeza. It's called a Dogeza."
"Yeah. That was really creepy. Was that- so that's-"
"If you're worried about either of you having to do that at some point, I can reassure you. I was just as uncomfortable watching that as you guys were."
"That was a very honorable ritual, wasn't it?" asked Lexington who also came gliding up beside him, looking at him curiously.
Brooklyn ran his claws through his hair in flight and sighed.
"I think the boy did it just to annoy me. I guess. To make me feel guilty toward him."
"Did it work, Lad?" asked Hudson, smiling at him in such a strange way that he was glad to have a red hue and it was hard for others to see him blush.
Of course it had worked. At first he had been annoyed that his son was pushing those buttons. But he had been glad that his mate had put a hand on his back, stifling his growl. Not because it dishonored him. But because he had thus eyes for the fact that Nash had automatically chosen the painful version of the Dogeza. And had recited the oath perfectly and in all seriousness, without a trace of sarcasm or irony. But he must have known, or at least guessed. How it would hurt him to see his own son grovel before him as if he himself were a feudal lord and his child only a peasant. He was not Japanese. He had lived in feudal Japan for some time but he did not want anyone to perform Dogeza in front of him. He actually hated this ritual, the words that went with it and the traditional response, which he gave as if mechanically.
He had struggled with himself before - only recently with the crises of the last month. He had felt like he was drowning - unable to resist Goliath's wishes to stay in prison to submit to human laws, unable to prevent the supposed drifting apart of his brothers from him, unable to overcome his distrust towards a recently seemingly purified Xanatos. And now that at least the Dracon crisis and Goliath's trial were over, he was confronted with another situation that worried him. Although he had influenced (not mastered but positively influenced) situations on his travels that seemed so much more important, it was not comparable to this life. He still felt he was struggling with himself and his environment. Drowning. Unable to come to the surface - small and ... powerless in a certain way. A tiny cog in the gears of the world and he feared that these very cogs would grind his own child beneath them. His son's growing unhappiness gnawed at him in a very different way. This pain went deeper.
Katana glided next to him, as close as only she could without them colliding. And softly she said:
"You did that right, otÅsan. He'll cool off."
"Yeah," he muttered sullenly and gave her a loving but sorrowful smile. "But when do I cool off?"
Thanks for reading, Q.T.