.

AND BE NOT WOMAN,
CHILD, NOR MAN!

.

Manhattan, 1995,

September 28,

11.58 p.m.

"Urrrg, almost midnight! I can't believe they kept us waiting all day just to let us know you had the flu. Great American health system, best country in the world - yeah right. In Agadir, it would have been our turn straight away."

"Mhm."

"What kind of country is it where little kids and their moms come LAST? If our last name had been Brown or Smith or something that didn't sound Arabic - I swear it would have been different."

"Yeah."

"Even in the small community clinic in Tafraoute, we could have left after an hour with enough children's painkillers and antipyretics. But no, here the kuffar let us sit around all day among all these dodgy, shady people and wait until you have a proper fever."

"Mhm."

He yelped and was startled out of his half-sleep when his mother roughly tugged him back by the arm before he could fall down the stairs that led to the train station.

"Can't you be careful! A fever of 38.5 isn't enough for you? Now you want to break your neck too?"

"I'm sorry, Ommi," mewled the boy, barely older than six, dead tired and a little dizzy. He hadn't realized that they were already at the train station, his mother had been ranting under her breath the whole time and he was struggling to insert his short approving noises in the right moments rather than paying much attention to the route.

"What are you sorry for?" his mother asked snappishly and he let her pull him down the steps to the platform where their train would arrive, stumbling more than walking. At lunchtime they had visited Aunt Bumi, who had an apartment in Manhattan and although the apartment was small, she bragged about it because Manhattan was the big city where people lived who had "made it". And even though the boy didn't know what "it" was that the adults sometimes talked about, he knew that his mom (his Omm) was jealous of Aunt Bumi because of the apartment that didn't even have a garden and that his parents wanted to make "it" too. IT wasn't that important to him. What was wrong with Brooklyn? Would they get an apartment like that if his parents (or rather his Baba, because he earned the money at his job in the big towers) had managed "IT". Then he wouldn't even have his own room!

His lower lip began to tremble again at the thought. The grip of his mother's hand on his wrist hurt and he didn't feel well and his Omm was angry because he had thrown up on Aunt Bumi's carpet because he hadn't been well and she was even more angry because Bumi had insisted that his mom should take him to the hospital. But it wasn't his fault that he was ill. Or was it?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the living darkness that always appeared when others told him how bad or weird or stupid he was seeping out of the cracks between the tiles in the train station. That's how it always started - as a dark mass. If he didn't distract himself, it would gather and grow into a figure almost as tall as he was like a "he" with no body, just billowing shadows and smoke. Without a face. Sometimes the thing tried to touch him, sometimes - although it didn't speak - he had the impression that the thing wanted to convince him even more that the others were right, that he was a spoiled, whimsical, naughty child and that everyone around him would be better off without him. It whispered directly into his head - very quietly and subliminally. Was it coming because he felt bad and small or did he feel bad and small because it was around? Either way, he didn't like it and ducked his head, kept his eyes on the ground and sniffled.

His Omm pulled him further towards the platform but he could feel it lurking nearby, whether behind one of the pillars, the snack machine back there or in the shadows of the other people who were out this late. And there were a lot of them - didn't any of them have to go to bed? He should have been in bed a long time ago. He wished he was already at home in bed where his mom wouldn't nag at him and he could hide from the creature under the blankets.

"What? Why are you tearing up again? Oh, the day was a disaster. When I call your father later, I won't even know where to start. And don't you go weeping again. Why did he have to go to Jersey for coaching this week and leave me alone with a kid like that?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

Suddenly the whole train station was filled with a bright green light that took away all his vision and forced him to squeeze his eyes shut. It hurt his already aching head SO much that everything inside him stiffened. He groaned and all around him he heard grunting and moaning, even screaming, growling and rumbling like wild animals on TV and for a second his mommy's grip on his arm became even more painful. But only for a second. And then - even before the light dimmed - his mother continued to speak as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, I can't hear it anymore. You don't even know why you're supposed to be sorry, you're just babbling on to provoke pity. What have I done to deserve this? I love you, I HAVE to love you and you're my first-hatched, but sometimes I think fate does-."

The monster's torrent of words in the voice of his mother broke off as the boy shrieked loudly and tore himself away from her. The monster looked at him with wide eyes, the white of which looked all the brighter in her almost midnight blue face. Its mouth was slightly open, showing fangs, and its long hair did nothing to hide the two horns that swung over its head.

"Nathaniel?" it - SHE! - asked, looking confused, still using his mother's voice, and large gruesome bat wings rose from her back where they had just been around her shoulders like Count Chocula's cape. Forgotten was the dark shadow that wanted to whisper things to him but had no body to hurt him. This monster, however, had claws on its hands and even bigger ones on its huge hind paws! And a swinging tail! And it had swapped places with its real mommy while he had been holding her hand!

It tried to imitate his Ommi, spoke like her, had even stolen her clothes except for her shoes, which of course would never have fitted the monster. Even the look on her face, which was now becoming annoyed, was like that of his mom. He stumbled back a step, bumped into someone, whirled around to let that person protect him, but a green monster with fangs, claws and wings looked down on him.

"Well, little one? You look like you've seen a human," he said with amusement.

"I'm a-," Nathaniel called out, but immediately broke off. At that moment, he saw that the whole platform was full of monsters. Where there had just been humans, there were now demons dressed like the same humans and waiting for their trains, even though they all had wings. With growing panic, he whirled around, looking for a human, any human. But everyone was a monster.

"Nathaniel Sharif, get back here now, you're embarrassing me!" the monster Omm hissed, reaching her clawed hand out at him demandingly.

He raised his hands to fend her off and saw that they were BLUE - and also had claws instead of his short, thin fingernails.

"That's not right!" he shouted shrilly but too scared to be really loud because he didn't want all the monsters to pounce on him and eat him. But he was one of those monsters himself and - at that moment - he saw more of them moving across the platform. But unlike all the others, who were behaving as humans would have done and acting so normal in this crazy situation that it was even more abnormal, these looked around in bewilderment.

The three younger ones stared after three monster girls in short skirts and looked absolutely terrified, even if they were smiling insecurely (certainly so as not to attract too much attention to themselves). They weren't wearing normal clothes but only undies with fabric on their bums and in front of their boy parts. At that moment Nathaniel knew that they were NOT monsters like the others here. They were like him. They knew there shouldn't be monsters here, they had been humans like him. Everyone who could remember that everything was wrong here had to be like him - they were big boys and they would help him!

He ducked away from his not-mommy and started to run. It was only natural that he got down on all fours, his wings raised above his head. Pure instinct made him leap without a second thought - six yards over the live rail tracks to the other platform where these others stood. Air catched his raised wings and - He was flying! Something that felt alien and yet intrinsic to him fluttered deep inside his chest with excitement. Happiness and an unprecedented exhilaration almost replaced the fear of his jump and that these things on his back were functional. His wings caught more wind coming from the black tunnel of the track and he glided awkwardly higher, just before a train pulled in and the rush of air the vehicle pushed ahead of it knocked him off his already unstable trajectory. Then he was on the other side after all. Behind him, he heard frantic screeches, one of them in the deceptive voice of his mom, shrieking his name. Some of the acting creatures ducked, one of the younger monsters-but-not-really-monsters in the funny underpants turned his face towards him where his buddies were already hurrying away. Nathaniel didn't mean to, but he slammed the poor guy - the smallest one, visibly the youngest despite his bald head, the one with the funny wings between his arms and legs - right in the face, knocking him to the ground. The kid was sorry, but he was too upset to apologize.

"Help me!" he pleaded and shook the guy whose strange eyes got even bigger. "My mom is not my mom and everyone here is- urg!"

Clawed hands yanked him back by his wings so that he hissed a cat-like sound he had never made before and the touch on such foreign parts of his body made him squirm so much he couldn't even fight back properly.

"Nathaniel! Have you gone mad! Let go of the young fellow!" his mother monster snarled, turning to the big-eyed non-monster monster. Like his human mom, the creature was good at apologizing for him, her tone sounded like she meant it. " I am terribly sorry, he has a fever and is fantasizing, I can't wait for the sun to rise. I'll send him to his perch at home."

The green-skinned guy rose to his feet, frowned puzzledly at Nathaniel for a moment as he hung in his supposed mother's arms, nodded and turned to follow the others.

"No, stay there!" Nathaniel called out. "Don't leave me alone. They're all monsters. Don't leave me alone, I have to find my real mom!"

He began to cry and the grip of the arms around his torso - as if the monster didn't know its own real strength - almost crushed him. He shrieked in agony and as soon as the arms loosened he fell out of the grip and ran away.

"Nathaniel!" he heard his mother howl and was aware it wasn't his mother. But he knew if he found the other non-monster monsters they would help him. He just had to explain himself properly.

Nathaniel dashed the length of the platform, no longer panicked, no longer quite so fear-driven because not only did he suspect that the monsters wouldn't attack him as he looked like a monster for some reason too, but also because he was small and fast - even more so because he was on four legs. He could easily dodge the other creatures, their big clawed feet, their tails and dangling wingtips. If he wasn't still sick- the sweat on his skin sticky, the headache a constant throbbing presence in his skull, he could have enjoyed being so different right now. But he had to become normal again. And he had to find his normal mom. Only one of those two things wasn't possible. He couldn't bring home a monster omm - when his baa came home from his work trip, he wouldn't want to kiss a monster mommy and might even be angry with Nathaniel for being the man of the house and letting a fake mom stay. Or worse - his human mommy would take him home as a monster and then his daddy would be unhappy because Nathaniel didn't look like he should look. In the end, he wouldn't let him into the house at all and he would have to sleep in the shed. Flying was cool but he wanted to be human, he wanted to belong. He was already weird and naughty as a human - how bad would it be as a monster?

Nathaniel made it out of the train station. It was natural - instinct, new instinct to seek higher ground. And it was easy to clamber up a street lamp to find the monsters, who were actually people like him. Up there, he pressed his little claws into the metal, wrapped his tail around the pole of the street lamp for a better grip and scanned the street with a much better sight than he had had as a human - he was sure of it. Although it was night, his vision was fantastic.

But ... he didn't see the olive-green little bald demon. Nor any of the others in the group - neither the fat turquoise friend (friend? - where had that word come from in his head?) nor the white-haired one with the beak or the really big purple one.

Nathaniel, a questioning, searching hatchling whine in his throat that sounded absolutely not human, looked around for two more minutes- no idea what to do if he didn't find this group- the olive green one in particular. Everyone was a monster! Everyone in the street, how could he- he sucked in air in preparation for a helpless sob, and almost lost his footing because the air brought new sensations to his nose. Smells that almost overwhelmed him - and among these ... scents of hundreds of monsters but also the smell of pizza, the smell of pretzels from the stand 200 yards down the street, still summer night air with rubber abrasion from tires, warm asphalt, dog excrement and the electricity in the air from rain clouds that kept rising and receding without bringing rain ... he smelled the olive-green guy. He had been the only one to get this close to him earlier, his nose two or three moments full into his face, his neck, his chest. He hadn't noticed it then. But he had taken in the very typical essence of the other guy with his new, much too good monster nose and yes - NOW he smelled it again - but further away. Nathaniel yelped as someone tapped the bottom of the streetlight he was still perching on with claws. Wary but careful not to lose this ... scent of olive green, Nathaniel looked down. There stood a policeman in uniform. A monster policemale with dark brown skin, cream-colored wings that were just like the olive green one's, though bigger and sturdier because the monster man was much taller. The thick moustache on the upper part of his short beak looked almost ridiculous but also quirky.

"Young one, it is forbidden to perch on city property. Come down."

Nathaniel opened his mouth- didn't know what to say. There were strange new rules in this world that the monsters had taken over. But the man (the male fellow - as his brain suggested) - even though he was a cop and the other kids at the mosque had said cops always wanted to "screw" them over - didn't look mean or angry - even though he had fangs and claws like everyone else here. He looked worried.

Worried was good- if he worried he wouldn't eat him.

"Sorry," he said meekly, and slid down the pole of the lantern with a dozen shrill grinding noises his claws made, which resulted all the nearby monsters grumble and grimace. Then he crouched in front of the police demon, who really did crouch as well, and smiled.

"You've been looking for someone. Looking for your rookery mother or daddy? Are you lost?" he asked gently.

Nathaniel smiled. He didn't know exactly what a rookery was, and basically he was scared of what could have been his rookery momma, but a twist in his brain that hadn't been there 15 minutes ago said it wasn't wrong either. And immediately put a pleasing answer on his tongue.

"Yes, big brother. My rookery daddy is olive green and bald, has web-wings like you. I need to find him. Will you help me?- I am sorry for the streetlight."

Submissively, triggering the adult male's protective instincts, Nathaniel chirped and moved under one of his wings, ears drooping. For some reason, the large talons, their rounded side brushing across his forehead, were immensely comforting.

"It's okay, hatchling. Your friend and Guardian will help you. My name is Guardian Morgan. Which clan or clan cell do you belong to?"

Nathaniel looked up as Guardian Morgan stood up and had no idea what his clan was called - but he had to have a clan.

Morgan nodded - probably realizing that as a hatchling he might not have known or had forgotten in the stress.

"Okay. If you tell me the name of your-" the monster man stopped in mid-sentence and frowned. Put a hand to his head. Nathaniel sneaked away as Guardian Morgen turned to another monster cop and asked, "How do we find out what clan he's from if we don't have names - damn why do I have a name and you have a name?"

Nathaniel sprinted again, but with his head up and his mouth open because he knew that would prevent him from losing the smell that had wormed its way into his monster brain so quickly. He stopped at a corner, tottering on all fours because the traffic light with the strange five-limbed monster hand was still red (why didn't the light show a four-limbed hand?). The other Gargoyles around him grumbled and rumbled but Nathaniel paid them no mind. Only distantly did he wonder what a gargoyle was and if that was the name of the kind of monster he had become. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dark, previously dread-inducing smoke figure wrestling with a greenish energy in one of the shop windows - and knew they were fighting over him. Although he didn't want to think about who he wanted to win.

He thought about the movie Hook that he'd seen last month and whether, like the lost boys, he'd soon forget what he'd really been if he stayed changed for too long. He shook off the thought as he ran on, now the same and yet slightly different scent that was less stone and eternity and more ... human. But it was still the smell of his olive-green friend. And finally! There! In a large square framed by tall buildings that was below street level but overlooked by an impressive golden statue of a flying monster (no! Human - that was a human like he had been!) other humans were now fighting a blue-skinned gargoyle female. But Nathaniel just knew that this was the group he had seen earlier as Gargoyles, the smallest of them his olive green one. They had found a solution to their problem! So they could make everything good and normal again.

Nathaniel climbed onto the balustrade to sail down there as one of the other monsters on the upper level also saw a Gargoyle woman rolling around with three humans.

"Hey those monsters are attacking that woman!" he shouted, indignant and so loud that Nathaniel's headache almost made him dizzy again.

"She needs help!" shouted another because they were all gargoyles and gargoyles were protectors. But Nathaniel was also the only one who had at least an ever-decreasing inkling that nothing here was as it seemed. He jumped after the first three males, but was aware of the others coming after them. On all fours, he was faster than them and immediately got a head start. He wouldn't have wanted to run on two legs anyway because of his fever and dizziness. He was sick but he had to help - somehow. Because if the current Gargoyles hurt the boys down there, they wouldn't be able to help him.

He couldn't stop the first three males, but as soon as he and the ones behind him were on the indoor stairs down to the plaza, he saw a glass double door. For some reason, an impressive battle axe with a long wooden handle slithered through the open passageway from the plaza straight in front of his claws. He grabbed the thing and wedged it between the two handrails of the two doors at the last second. Which locked them and sent the ones behind him crashing against them. Nathaniel laughed shrilly because they fell to the ground and the glass remained in place.

The guy in front hit the armored glass so hard that it rattled but didn't break again.

"Hey, hey, you hatchling! Open the door! We have to help the female!"

"You don't have to!" he chirped, full of glee that he had slowed down the other gargoyles so that his olive green one and his clan didn't have to deal with them as well. He was too small to fight and he was sick, but he was a warrior! The olive one would be so proud of him that he would thank him and gladly help him - and maybe they would become friends when they were all monsters (no, humans) again. He had no idea why the other Gargoyles didn't use their claws and strength, but it was good for him that they didn't and didn't think to run back up to the open upper level to glide down somewhere. Nathaniel turned around laughing the second a loud blast blew the concrete next to him and he was thrown to the side. He hit his head and everything went black.

.


.

He woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by the sounds of the ER. His mother, half hidden behind one of the curtains separating the compartments, was discussing with someone in English.

"Why hasn't he woken up yet? He was found at Rockefeller Center near a staircase. He suddenly fantasized on the way home and ran almost two miles with a fever? To that place? You have to- I don't know- what's it called in English- brain scan- do a brain scan."

"Ma'am, he's fine. We've already run tests. He has a little bump on his head but only because he fell to the ground. And he will only have fainted because of his fever. We've already given him a higher dose of antipyretics. He'll wake up soon and-"

Nathaniel focused his gaze- still with a headache and so tired but feeling better. He raised his hand to his head- and his hand was human! His gaze flew to the hidden figure of his mom. He only saw her butt- but that butt had no tail- and there were no wings to be seen.

"Ohm?"

Hila Sharif pulled open the curtain and looked at him wide-eyed, as did the doctor - their conversation instantly interrupted. And she was human - and the doctor was human and all the people scurrying around behind them in the large ER room were human too.

Nathaniel sank onto his uncomfortable, too-thin hospital pillow - so relieved, the tension of the last few hours flowing out of him as if someone had poked a hole in him.

"You're back to normal," he breathed, smiling.

His mother was glued to the floor for a second, then she was with him and hugged him so tightly that she lifted him out of bed. He let her cuddle and hug and kiss him.

"Thank Allah. Inshallah, Inshallah, you're killing me. Gosh, Nathaniel, don't ever do that to me again."

"I'm sorry. I really am. But ... They were all monsters. Even you. And I got scared. But no one knew they were different except me and a few others I tried to find. At first I thought they had replaced the humans, but I think they were all tra-tranfirm-transformed - like HexHex, Abracadabra. And I was a monster too. But now we're human again - that's good."

Hila Sharif detached herself from the exhausted child, who still had his face in her black hair, but kept him clutched tightly on her hip while she gave the doctor a stern look. The latter smiled.

"These are after-effects of the fever. In a few days, he will be better able to distinguish between reality and delusion if those around him keep correcting him. He has already been given fever reducers and antibiotics. The doctor also recommends mild painkillers and staying at home for a week with little stress and lots of sleep. And maybe no shows with magic."

Hila Sharif stared venomously at her for a moment, then she nodded and the doctor turned around and said as she wrote something on a clipboard;

"Right, I'll get the papers ready. He doesn't have to stay here, this night was completely crazy anyway - definitely the top three of my last ten years on the night shift."

Hila sat the child on the edge of the bed, keeping her hands on his shoulders.

"Can I leave you here while I get your discharge papers? Without you running away or falling over?"

Nathaniel nodded with a smile, just happy that everything was normal. He knew that what he had experienced was not due to the fever. But he didn't want to stay in hospital any longer. He wanted to go home to his bed.

Just to make her feel better, Nathaniel lay down on the sheets while she would sort things out with the hospital. His gaze drifted from his feet to hers. He was barefoot - so was his mom - but she was wearing light blue plastic shoe covers like the ones they'd had to put on in Aunt Bumi's apartment because her light-colored carpet (which he'd later puked all over) wasn't even allowed to be walked on with dark socks.

"Where are our shoes?" he asked.

His mother gave him another annoyed but embarrassingly flustered look.

"Just be quiet and sleep," she grumbled and walked away with plasticky crunching.

Nathaniel watched the goings-on in the emergency room for a few moments. Everyone - even the doctors and nurses - wore those plastic covers. No one had shoes. The child smirked knowingly, turning his head to the side where he could glimpse his human self in the blurry reflection of the chrome handle of his bedside table. And snuggled around him - small, disembodied, currently not a menace and probably too exhausted from the tussle with the green other energy to take on human form - lay the black mass. Nathaniel himself was too tired to let terror seep into him.

"Hey," he whispered, and the mass twitched - which he only saw, not felt.

"Jeah, I guess. You`re as relieved as I am that things are back to normal."

The dark figure trembled and where deep relief had previously prevailed in Nathaniel, a melancholy longing now spread.

"That's the way it is," the child whispered as he fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of a clan that would one day be his. And of the olive-green gargoyle with the extraordinary wings who, thanks to the fever, magic and persuasion of the people around him, would soon be nothing more than the shadow of a foggy memory.

.


My little Nathaniel in an adventure from the series ^^. I keep my Promises.

Info about the one shot:

1) I tried to make Nathaniel's experiences as close to this piece from "The Mirror" as possible. It's not shown how the gargoyles disappear from the subway station so I could let Nate act with Lex. But of course Lexington can't take a second to take care of an irrational hatchling - but - Lex remembers that little blue hatchling again later in Souls of the Night Vol.3 when they wander around in Nate's memories. He then looks perlex at his friend for a moment.

The battle axe, of course, was the one Goliath grabbed from a store and that Lexington threw away (great store display around Rockefeller Center- so reasonable). The blast that knocked Nathaniel out was from Demona's gun. It was intriguing to write how Nate reacted to the change in his environment- who of course didn't lose his memories due to the traces of magic in him even though more glitches were creeping into him by the minute. Of course the ancient magic of Fiery and Whisp is MUCH stronger than Puck's but let's remember- those bits of magic Nathaniel has aren't really functional at this point since neither entity really has him as a host yet. They're just foreshadowing echoes as well as the shadowy creature - like when someone gets hit by stray splashes of water before the wave hits them.

2) Isn't it cute that I included Officer Morgan? He's always been a pleasing guy. Sallow but useful and sweet.

3) Where along with the people, certain legalities in their thinking and actions have changed - like Morgan's remark that it's illegal to perch on public property - all the other things that the short-term Gargoyles didn't need to go about their normal business haven't changed. Puck wouldn't have had the power to do that (heck, the poor guy had to eat seven million shoes to turn them all!). So only Nathaniel wonders why human remnants like the traffic pedestrian light are no different. Or the Prometheus statue! Isn't it schizophrenic that none of the New York gargoyles think- Um- why is there a giant monster statue in front of Rockefeller Center? No, nobody questions it because they don't need these insights for their time as gargoyles. They were made blind and ignorant for this time unless someone triggers deeper thoughts like The Clan did with Elisa and later Elisa did with The Clan so they could find themselves again.

4) I would have loved to have Nathaniel interact with Demona and/or Puck. He could have listened to her talk to Puck in the alley, attacked her, maybe bitten her. But that's the thing with pantser writers like me - you don't plan much in advance - just a very rough outline - and then you have to work with what you've got. And I hardly think a vindictive bitch like Demona would have forgotten a little blue gargoyle that got in her way and not recognized it in Nathaniel years later. Even Puck/Owen doesn't recognize Nathaniel just his ancient energy signature and Uncle Murshid from Nathaniel's photo.

5)And the doll that little Nathaniel grabs in his memories in Souls of The Night Vol3? (For the ones of u that read along the saga)- He chose it, although he could have had anything from the gift table, because the green flutter sleeves reminded him of "his olive green one".

Thanks for reading, Q.T.