The
world is a place of mysteries and contrasts. If one kept going either
sun-left or sun right, then after trekking an uncountable amount of
spans of plains, mountains, rivers and seas, one would find
themselves right where they started. If one went sun-ward, the world
brightened as the sun rose higher. But the temperature also rose
higher, too high for any te’visk to bear. If instead one trekked
dark-ward, the world darkened as the sun fell closer to the horizon.
But the temperature likewise fell, too low for any te’visk to bear.
However, if one was bold enough, and hardy enough to venture far
enough dark-ward, facing away from the sun, they would see small
specs of light just above the cold, dark horizon.
The
Dark-Lights.
For
as long as people have looked looked upwards, they have wondered
about the dark-lights. But it was always too cold, too dark, too far
to go. Until now. Now, the te’visk had finally developed the
technology to overcome the elements.
And
now, with
a little help from the human,
Scholar Tski was getting a second chance at her
project: ‘Discerning
the Nature of the Dark-Lights’.
Now dubbed, for simplicity’s sake:
‘Project
Dark-Light.’
It
was, from a certain perch, a relatively simple project. Just deploy
an observational module somewhere far enough dark-ward to pick up
some dark-lights. Skai, Tski and Chief Nalor worked together on the
design of the module. They decided that the equipment would be housed
in a glass and steel geodesic dome; such a structure would be easy to
build on site, resist storms, conserve energy, and provide an
excellent view of the entire sky for the telescopes. Tski originally
wanted a wide range of sensors for the experiment, but Adwin
argued that optical telescopes would be sufficient, at least for now.
Combined with more practical arguments from the projects’
accountants and engineers, Tski eventually agreed.
Designing
the module itself, now dubbed the Dark-Dome-Array, was indeed quite
feasible. Deploying it would be another matter entirely. Whatever
vehicles they commissioned would have to be extremely well insulated,
capable of producing intense light for navigation and photography,
and have incredible carrying capacities. Also, any workers would need
to wear extremely cumbersome, hermetically sealed and heated suits,
and be specially trained to assemble the facility in extremely cold
temperatures. Adwin seemed very interested in their designs
for the heat-suits, and cryptically suggested that they were on the
right path for future possible experiments.
Tski
had originally envisioned a remote, unmanned outpost, but logistical
realities made that impracticable; power and data transmission
infrastructure could not be built to support the site. That meant a
power reactor, and all data would be stored on local tapes, to be
collected regularly and analysed off-site. The complexity of the
equipment also meant that a small crew would have to be present at
the outpost, perpetually. Naturally, both Scholar Tski and Adwin
requested to be on the first crew. Naturally, both were rejected.
In
the end, it was decided that Project Dark-Light would be mainly based
at Fort Greywood. the most dark-ward military outpost on Phuratan
territory. Royal Minister Capield was able to get some military
poly-rotor fliers modified for the project; no land vehicles could be
used, as any terrain this far dark-ward was understandably
undeveloped and impassible. Their first mission; scout out a suitable
site for deployment. As per Adwin’s suggestions, the flier
crews photographed and marked several relatively high, flat and clear
zones within range of the fort. They also tried to take photos of the
dark sky, but there was too much glare and vibrations from the fliers
to make a take any good pictures.
It
was a welcome surprise how quickly Fort Greywood was able to provide
both a supply of built and tested heat-suits, and a crew of soldiers
remarkably adept at using them. It was at that moment that Tski
noticed that the fort was also relatively close to the Pitang border.
If she had questions about why this particular base already had these
convenient resources, they went unasked.
At
any rate, a suitable location was eventually selected from the
surveyed options, and they were finally ready to begin. As the
construction of the simple facility was simulated several times, the
actual process was completed in just over twenty-two bels. Again,
this crew tried to take photographs of the dark sky during the
construction. Regular photos didn’t show much of anything, but long
exposure shots revealed several specks of light in the heavens above.
Just as Tski predicted. It bode well for the continuation of the
project.
And
now, finally, the Dark-Dome-Array was ready to start operating.
According to Adwin, a complete scan of the dark sky would take
about four seasons. So the crews at the dome started working,
alternating in thirty-two bel shifts.
The
images and data that Scholar Tski received were… Staggering. Most
of the time cloud cover obscured the skies, but sometimes, the
heavens would stay clear for bels at a time, allowing for a truly
remarkable amount of images to be recorded. And even more affecting
were the testimonies of the technicians and soldiers that were
stationed at the dome. Just sitting under the warmed dome. Staring up
into the impossibly populated void… They all came back different.
Mystified. Humbled.
And
all it did was serve to frustrate the scholar and the human.
Those other lucky men and women came soaring back with dark-lights in
their eyes, while they were stuck in an office using image editing
computer programs to stitch together comprehensive images of the
dark-ward sky.
“I
mean it’s just not fair,” fretted Tski. “We’re the whole
reason this project started in the first place!” she whined with a
ripple running across her feathers as she tried and failed to
properly align two images. Again. “It should have been us, not
them!”
“Can
not be helped…” shrugged Adwin. not even lifting his eyes
from his monitor. “We too important, they say. No safe for us.”
He used his paw to scratch the thick dark fleece atop his head for a
moment. “Shame that. Was hoping growing out hair would be
useful for cold. Wasted now.”
“Huh?”
hummed Tski. “What do you mean?”
Adwin
pointed at the thickly coiled fur on his head. “When I know I go to
cold place, I like to keep hair long. Keep me warm. But not
going cold place no more. Should cut now. Hard to groom. Itchy.” He
punctuated his statement by pawing his fur again.
That
response didn’t address the scholar’s actual confusion. “No, I
mean… Why would you be worried about the cold?”
Now
it was Adwin’sWhat? Why I
not be worried?”
“Well,
didn’t you come from the cold side of the world?”
The
human gave
an
especially
sharp and
guttural scoff.
“What?
No! I’m fr?m
W?st
?Indiz!”
“What?”
She could only understand part of that sentence. Apparently the
question was so shocking to him that he reverted fully to his native
human
“Sorry,
I…
It hard to explain…”
He
went
quiet for a cleg.
“When
you know
stars--
dark-lights, I can say more, say better. But for now, I
just
say I
prefer warmth.”
“Oh,
okay…” She supposed she would have to talk about it some other
time.
Honestly,
it was always more and more mysteries with him. Here was a creature
with impossibly dense bones, insanely strong muscles, and incredible
endurance. And if that wasn’t fascinating enough, he had an
endothermic metabolic system perfectly suited for life in the
dark-ward parts of the world. Yet, here he was, implying that he came
from elsewhere. Where else could he possibly have come from?
Underground?! Worse yet, he seemed to be absolutely flabbergasted
when someone would dare assume that he would enjoy the frigid
temperatures of regions he seemed purpose built to thrive in!
Look
at him, contentedly clicking and clacking away at a program built for
artists. Rolling his trackball to move images round a screen like an
expert graphic designer, while she struggled with the application.
Was this yet another manifestation of his hyper-competence? Was this
level of proficiency in image editing common to human
scientists like him or--
Stolen novel; please report.
Wait.
She had never confirmed that he was a scientist…
“Adwin,”
she asked hesitatingly, “What job did you have back home?”
“Job?”
he paused from his work for a bit and scratched his head as he
considered how to answer. “No real job yet. Some… Side work,
sometimes. Was mostly in school, I studied.”
Ah,
so he was a learner like T’veo, or perhaps a scholar like Tski
herself. “Oh really? What were you studying?”
Another
pause as he mentally translated his thoughts into phuratan. “I
studied ?θ??t?...
Performance?
Yeah,
performance
production.
Err…
Set
up sounds and lights for stage.”
A
few stunned silent clegs washed over the scholar. “You mean, like,
for events and plays?”
“Yes!
Plays!” he said with a wide smile
Inconceivable.
Unacceptable.
Absurd.
Adwin,
the endlessly impressive and fascinating human, the herald of
entirely new fields of scientific study, was an
Nothing
made sense anymore. The sun had forsaken her world. No not the world…
The sun had forsaken her, specifically.
“Tski,
you alright? Your feathers
“I’m
fine.” she lied with a hiss.
The
human clearly didn’t believe her, from the way he kept staring at
her with the clumps of hair above his eyes pulled together.
Eventually, after she forcibly subdued her agitated vibrations, he
looked away. And then, for the umpteenth time, he scratched the hair
on his head again.
“Oh,
Sun and Rain! Would you stop that?”
“Wha--?”
the damnable artist dumbly replied.
“Your
incessant itching! It’s really annoying!”
“W?l
?k?skjuuuuu?z
mi
pr?n?s?s!”
Came
his sarcastic reply that many in Project Frost-Fae had heard a few
times before. “I feel
itch! What
you want me do?!”
She
grunted out a muted squawk.
He
sucked his teeth.
A
few silent, angry clegs crept past. The scholar kept a focus on him
from the corner of her eyes as they both worked. So, she immediately
noticed when he lifted his arm up for a moment, and abruptly stopped
and clenched his paw instead. Then he looked directly at her. Tski
looked on in utter disbelief as a smirk curled across his
mouth, and he scratched the fur under his chin instead.
What
an utter scamp.
“Storms!”
She practically screeched as she rose up and strode purposefully
towards him.
“What--?!”
The human chortled. “I didn’t even--!
Tski
reached for the annoying clump of fur on Adwin’s head and started
running her talons through it, vigorously rubbing his aggravatingly
warm and soft plumage. “Is that what you want, huh?”
Unintelligible,
mirthful babbles dripped from the art student’s mouth in response.
Then, the scholar received a gentle but clear reminder of the human’s
excessive strength with Adwin effortlessly lifting the
offending te’visk appendage off of himself. “Oh gosh gyal, ah
sorry nah~” he tried to assuage her with the melodic lilt he
used when he was especially impassioned.
Tski
just stood looming over him for a few clegs, her treacherous body
feathers frazzled out beyond her control. “You’re a real
innavigable tempest, you know that?! You show up here with all this
knowledge, all this technology, but everything you say, everything
you do, everything you just makes more questions, you
ice-burned frost-fae! And now you’re making fun of me! Just like—”
She
noticed the way Adwin was looking at her, his mischievous grin
mostly withdrawn, and in its place he wore a confused, almost
frightened countenance.
“Uh… So-- Sorry.”
came his awkward reply.
“No…
No I’m sorry…” She said as she started pacing back and forth.
“I’m not mad at you, not really… I just really wanted to see
them myself…”
“The
stars?” the human asked tenderly as he stood and placed a
warm paw on her arm.
“The
stars.” she replied through her trembling form. She looked
down at her sleeves, noticing how the fabric seemed to be bursting
from the array of puffed out feathers beneath them. “Cold-Snaps,
look at me.” She chirped as she tried in vain to pat down her
plumage through her clothes. “Looks like I’m due for a grooming.”
She mused, also relishing an excuse to take a break from her
frustrating work. She then turned to Adwin, focusing on the
warm fluff on his head again. “I guess you need some grooming too.
Want to come with me?”
The
human hummed for a moment as he considered her offer. “Okay.
I can come with.”
And
so, the inter-species pair walked off together to Tski’s domicile.
Despite Fort Greywood being a military facility, her new room was far
less spartan than her tent and dorm back at the Project Frost-Fae
compound. Between a large window and a fairly bright light fixture,
the space was well illuminated. The main room was spacious enough to
accommodate a modest, curtained resting nook, a work desk, and a few
benches. She even had a good sized wardrobe, in which she kept her
clothes and grooming materials.
“Oh,”
she started as the rummaged in a drawer for a pair of shears. “Do
you usually wash your hair before cutting?”
“Uh,
we use ??m?pu?,
special soap for fur. Don’t know
how make here.”
he
said with yet another scratch. “But bath recent. Fur should be soft
still, easy for
groom.”
A
special soap for fur? Sounds like fur-detergent. She had a pet opocou
back home, and the furry little rascal needed regular baths with the
cleaning compound. Perhaps she could talk to the chemists about
modifying the compound for human
“Oh,
alright then. Well, please have a seat.” said the scholar,
gesturing to a bench with the shears in her hand.
The
human eyed her and the clippers. “Waithair,
you want to cut?” he asked, miming a snipping movement with two of
his digits.
“Well,
yeah.” she said with a human-like shrug. “It’s
uncomfortable right?”
He
stood there for a few clegs, then shuddered a bit. “Right…” he
finally said before nervously sitting down.
Tski
leaned over Adwin and got to work. She started carefully
snipping away clumps of dark, curly fur, her scaled talons gliding
over his warm scalp. A few clegs later the top of his head was almost
furless. After she was finished, Adwin promptly got up and
found a mirror on her wardrobe. He looked himself over from several
angles.
“It
okay. Thank you.” Adwin said with what Tski hoped was closer
to satisfaction than resignation.
“Oh,
you’re welcome…” she said, then let an awkward awkward cleg
pass. “Right then! My turn now.” she says as she reached for her
grooming pat. She handed it over to the human and sat down, unclasped
her sleeves and removed her top, revealing the fluffed out feathers
on her upper body and arms.
Then
she noticed Adwin staring at her., mouth slightly agape. How
odd, what could possibly cause him to react like--
“Ah…”
she said softly, crossing her arms over herself to cover her shame.
“So, yeah… You’re probably surprised to see all this now... But
yeah…” She slowly turned towards him “I… I have a genetic
condition. Most of my body feathers are yellow.”
“No…
No, that not… Women do not usually, Err… human women do
not--” Adwin tried to reply, before being cut off by the
increasingly disquieted woman.
“I’m
sure you could see them on my head, and over my wings, but seeing all
this…” her feathers rippled out even more as she went on. “But
to see this much of it now… You must find it so unsightly…” she
finished, her voice wavering along with her plumage in distress.
“No,
no. Not that.” Adwin said, walking closer to her. “Your
yellow, not… ‘unsightly’. In fact I think it appealing, I--”
“You
don’t have to patronise me, you know…” she all but scoffed.
“Everyone knows that a person’s plumage should be brown, red,
maybe even orange… But never yellow...”
“Tski.”
Adwin’s eternally warm paw alighted gently on on her
shoulder. “Your feathers not ‘unsightly.’ Your colour,
pleasant to look at. Very beautiful.
“O--
Oh…” she stuttered, absolutely not expecting a positive reaction
to her aberrant colouration. Then again, she supposed that as a
non-te’visk, his aesthetic preferences would be different to just
about everyone else’s. Now that she thought about about it, this
human was also, despite his non-te’visk features… Somewhat
aesthetically pleasant to look at himself…
“Oh! Ah…
T-Thank you.” she said, dismissing those thoughts with a shake of
her head. “Well, uh… Do you know how to use one of those?” she
said, pointing to the grooming pat.
Adwin
rotated it in his hand, feeling the slightly blunted nubs on one side
of the short, paddle-like object. “No, never used.”
“Oh,
right, I guess you never would have. Well, you just pass these little
nibs over my feathers with a little bit of pressure. You just want to
press the feathers back down, making them nice and smooth.” she
explained, miming a light raking motion with her talons.
“I
see. Simple.” he said with a nod. And then he started. Tski felt
the radiant warmth of one of his paws bracing himself against her as
his other paw brushed the pat across her body. Despite his weight and
strength, his movements were controlled and soft. When was the last
time she had a friend to groom her, she wondered. Rainbows, she’s
lost count of the seasons. After a few short driks she found herself
contentedly closing her eyes as his grooming fell into a gentle
rhythm that Tski found quite comfortable, even pleasant. It almost
felt like a rude awakening when he suddenly stopped.
“Okay.
That look good.” he stated.
She
got up and looked at the mirror. “Oh, very good.” she commented
honestly as she looked herself over. Her feathers were so perfectly
aligned that she noticed a slight sheen on her body, and they hadn’t
even used any plume-polish! “You should consider being a
professional groomer!” she praised.
The
human chuckled. “Maybe after star
Ah,
right. Work. She supposed they had a long enough recess. It turned
out Adwin’s impish prodding had developed into a deeply
needed emotional refreshment, and the scholar now found herself
mentally energised tor the wearisome work that awaited her. “Well
then, shall we get back to it now?”
And
returned they did. After an uncountable amount of their combined
sleeping and waking cycles, they progressed through all the different
phases of the project. And, true to Adwin’s word, the new
scientific discoveries were indeed cloud-piercing. The four long
seasons seemed to pass in a blur. Finally, they were ready to present
their findings to the Ministry of Knowledge.
