Posts Tagged tigers

[wip] Scott.

May 30

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It was only just beginning to be evening when I got to City Promenade, and every step made my body wobble in a quite distracting fashion as I endeavored to show my new self.

Of course in my current state it was hard to recognize me for me—though anyone that knew me must see the resemblances or the signature of my art.

Nobody knew me that well, really.

Actually, being that this was the city promenade, many didn’t realize I was a real person at all—I was just a walking balloon, which was only mildly unusual.

Of course, once we got to Carnival Square it’d be different.

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[partim] Mori.

Apr 22

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The true panacea.

After finding I could walk again easily, I committed that page of the book to memory.  If the unknown alchemist had made any other impossible discoveries, we could figure them out later, when I had translator access—for now, the allcure would be enough.

“I suppose there’s an easy way out from here?” I asked Munk. “Possibly some kind of giant-sized exit?”

Munk started walking along the shelf.  I followed.

By one wall there was, in fact, a spiral staircase leading down—had the giant had normal-sized assistants?—leading down to another door like the one I’d come through, and then the golem was leading me through those infernal endless passages again.

This time, of course, there was no pain and no fatigue; I felt I could walk a good long time.  So it probably seemed a good deal less time than it should have before Munk led me out of the halls of illuminated stone and into a dark room in what turned out to be a basement of the university library.

And then there was Internet.

I forwarded the formula to the professor first, of course.

And then I posted it on the alchemy metanetwork.  I didn’t bother explaining—not yet—I needed to get this out as fast as possible.

People were dying, after all, and they didn’t have to be.

There were already confirmations being posted before I left the library.

“I think it’s gonna be a good day, Munk,” I said.

The triage started almost immediately—as fast as the doctors could be convinced. The alchemical principles, of course, were rock-solid, but without an understanding of them the panacea might as well be snake oil to them at best, or possibly harmful or fatal at worst.

But it happened, and we changed the world.

All worlds.

Since that day, though, I never saw another kelvin, not even in those undertunnels when we went back for the rest of the giant alchemist’s discoveries.

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[partim] Mori.

Apr 10

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I held on to the kelvin tightly, even though its heat burned my paw.  I had the allcure, after all, and the poor gryphon, now in tears, seemed to need help.

I wouldn’t let him go.  “Here,” I said, offering him the panacea with my free paw.  “You’ll be all right.”

The gryphon looked up at me, still lost, still miserable.  Of course.

“The translation doesn’t work down here, does it…? You don’t understand me at all.”

Kelvins didn’t talk, but surely they listened… what did they understand? “Weĉjo ijen?” No reaction. “Samskrtam?” No reaction.

My paw was surely blistering from the kelvin’s heat, but on the bright side it didn’t have much feeling left.

“Munk,” I said, addressing the golem, “Is there anything nearby I can use to communicate with him?”

Munk came near and put on big clay hand on my head and another on the kelvin’s.

And there was a thought in my head—it wasn’t spoken, just the memory of words I understood, though not in any language I knew: “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

You’ve seen the city of jasper, I thought.

The kelvin did not appear to have heard the thought.

“But this was promised to us,” I said, and this time the kelvin noticed.  “Weren’t we told… ‘Never again will there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years—he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth—he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed?’”

It pays to keep a local copy of some things.

“It’s not the promise of the city, where there’ll be no death, but it is a promise that we can fight it a good long time, barring the sudden accident…”

I was rambling. I was fairly sure the kelvin’s heat was travelling up my arm; I was getting sweaty.

“Please, let me help you.” I offered the panacea again.

The kelvin disappeared.

All right.

I took the bowl—awkwardly, as my burned paw wouldn’t cooperate with holding it—and drank the liquid light till I felt the pain fully dissolve.

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[partim] The day of the singularity.

Apr 10

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Ralph, of course, was absolutely fascinated by this, and probably for the same reason I was less so—it seemed like one of his formulaic TV series, Quantum Leap all over again, striving to bring to life what once passed on.  There was really no way a squadron of post-singularitarians couldn’t march on the past and repossess the dead in force? The eternal fate of every person that ever lived depended on a pig from Longview?

And then it started to hit me, and I started to feel miserable—of course it would be Ralph, we knew it was Ralph already.

But it wouldn’t be me.

There was no way I could follow him so long, into so much unknown—and if I didn’t follow—how far apart we’d grow—my porker exploring everything and meeting everyone and me sitting at home.

Over a hundred fifty years, my future self had said, and he wasn’t even thinking of Ralph anymore.

“What—” Ralph said.  “What’s wrong, sweet tiger?”  His voice was gentle in my ear.

“Nothing,” I said, on reflex.

Ralph grabbed me in his big arms and held me tightly against him. “Don’t,” he said, “don’t lie to me.” He pressed his snout to my nose and lifted my headfur from my eyes.  “See this,” he said, “there is fluid leaking from your organs of sight. Before I call in the mechanic I need to know what is causing the breakdown.  Maybe I can fix it myself.”

I shut my eyes.  “Ralph…”

His hold on me did not abate.  “It’s my duty to take care of you,” he said.  “All my heart.”

“But I’m going to lose you, Ralph… how can I do anything but lose you, with all this?”

His hold on me did not abate. “You will always be with me.”

“Through this? But I…”

“You will always be with me.  I’d rather carry you across hot coals than leave you behind.  We belong to each other.”

When I was typing “how can I do anything but lose you”, MS Word put a little blue underline under “lose”, suggesting “love” instead.

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[partim] Shine.

Apr 10

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The contest was declared a draw by forfeit, and they haven’t asked me to repeat my performance. But I think I did well enough; I’ve always been welcome there and they’ve never asked me for a dime.

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[partim] The day of the singularity.

Apr 9

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And just like that, we had a job.  Of course by “job”, I mean “colossal undertaking”. But of course there was no way Ralph would turn it down.

So we started training.

The scenario was pretty straightforward—we would get a name and a datetime from a master database, which was constantly being added to from historical and eyewitness records and archaeological finds.

We would arrive at the scene of the death a little beforehand and freeze time in a way that made sense, so that only the moriturus could see us—if he were in any position to do so—and so that we could interact with him.

Ralph would transfer their minds into an empty vessel.

We would bring the mind back to the Halkiadakis Institute, for the impressive part.  They had a chamber where the upgrades for immortality and such could be applied directly to the rescued mind.

At this point the rescued mind would start to regenerate its body, restoring itself back to its normal form, which was usually, but not always, something like the form they had in adulthood—but might also be of a different gender or phenotype—and of course free from any disease or disfigurement.

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[partim] Shine.

Apr 9

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Of course at this point returning to the eating contest was out of the question. The authorities were arriving and the patrons were leaving when they could, and none of the staff seemed keen on returning to the kitchen.

This was a shame, as my overstuffed gut had been burning through its intake and was rumbling hungrily again.

Well, it was Chinese food, after all.

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[partim] Scott the Alchemist 4.

Apr 5

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The confused thoughts of the human getting used to his new situation bounced around in my head as I went around the room, trying not to stumble as I got used to walking on four feet.

Once I thought I had it down, I went back to my workbench, looking through the other potions I kept handy.

What, this isn’t enough for you? Toby thought.

What point is there in ever stopping? I grabbed a viscous pink potion from the shelf, unstoppered it, and drank it down.

Gah, that tastes like rubber! came Toby’s thought, after a few moments.

So will we.

The change started working from the inside out, the only initial signs being a feeling of extreme lightness—an effect of the dissolution of the fat and internal organs—then a feeling of flexibility as the same happened to the bones, and a feeling of weakness as the muscles, too, evaporate into thin air, leaving the body a hollow shell, though perhaps still a bit solid to the touch, due to being filled with air.

Once all that prep work is out of the way, the visible changes begin—the potion starts working through the vacated hide and changing its substance, from ordinary flesh and fur into a specific rubberlatex designed for resilient springiness, sturdy unbreakability, and an appealing fresh scent, which took quite a lot of time to get just right.

Ars est celare artem, though, and I could feel Toby’s thoughts, taking the workmanship for granted and entirely focusing on the sensation of being turned into the hindquarters of a balloonish tigertaur.

I’ll have to teach that boy some appreciation for the art.

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[partim] Scott the Alchemist 4.

Mar 12

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NSFW (M/M, merging) below cut…»

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[WIP] Kaido no Yume.

Mar 1

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Maro’s family didn’t normally get much in the way of visitors, so today was a special day, one of the kits having caught sight of the long, low canoe approaching the island.

Sometimes, they said, there would be many who arrived, to offer their trade and services, but today it was only a rather short alligator.

Though he wore a sort of beige robe that went down to his knees, he didn’t seem to be perturbed by my hosts’ nakedness as we greeted him on the shore.

“This is our man of justice,” Maro said.  The alligator raised a hand in greeting.  “And this is K’haiso, a traveler who has come to us.”

The alligator lowered his hand.  “A traveler from far off, it seems.  You are not of any of the people of our islands.  How did you come to Narya unregistered?”

That I was an alien on this world, I had guessed; that I might be an illegal one, I had not considered.  And of course the ‘man of justice’ would be concerned with this.  “I didn’t—I came here unknowing, and I didn’t see how I came.  Is it wrong for me to be here?”

The gator registered surprise as I started speaking.  He grabbed my arm even before I’d done speaking and pulled me away from the others, waving Maro back.

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