[sahara] I Wanna Be The Very Best (Lawr + ???)

[Baneful]

Lawrence did not find the Sahara inconvenient. Certainly there was a great deal of reduced food, and the heat in the midday was extremely physically uncomfortable. But the physical world only had scant bearing on the radar of awareness for the Death hunter. He rested carefully, ate sparsely and dedicated what time he had to teaching his new ward to behave like the individual it was copied from. It learned slowly, demonstrating many child-like traits which often rubbed him the wrong way. On one occasion it would have wandered off into the desert if he had not hurriedly retrieved it and given it a stern discussion on what escape would have meant. It had taken much mitigation of his natural inclinations to stop himself from dispatching it outright.

Instead he took to resting only with the creature tethered firmly to his hand much the way a child might be and unleashing it only when he was fully capable of keeping an eye on it. He had had to teach it many things and was now more aware of Taym's body than he might ever have chosen to be.

The general line was that if someone dropped supplies, Lawr was on guard duty and Taym was resting and he would handle whatever communications needed to be done.

Short of the acting lessons however, it was quiet, and he avoided the sun as much as possible. That day it was the early morning, the sun not quite to its blazing height, and he sat by the open tent, in the shade of the flap itself, neatly polishing his gauntlets with a cloth in his good hand. The false Taym creature was in his peripheral vision having a nap. The repetitive polishing, over and over and over the same spot soothed that part of him which leaned towards repetition and lowered the already quiet ebb of his thoughts to something approaching a flatline.

((Any of the famine horsemen around are welcome to stop by))

 

[prolixity]

Heat and sand and endless bare-blue sky. Qarah lingered in the doorway for a time, comparing the cool dimness and the bright sear of heat, finding a kind of thin satisfaction in the contrast. The company of its peers had grown wearisome after a time, and it had found the outside. The Sage, it recalled, had instructed that they were to study the other on the sands as well. This was an excellent excuse to be away, and Qarah wrapped a fold of shawl around its head to protect itself from the weight of the sun and drifted out into the desert to find this other.

When it found the little camp, it found itself mildly surprised. There was one of the stupid creatures, sleeping; nearby sat a human. It performed a repetitive and menial task, but it did not appear to be restricted in any way, and there were no other creatures of any type nearby. Perhaps, then, this was the worthless one the Sage had been referring to. Its scent was even more bare of Fear than the trapped human's.

Qarah made a wide circle around the camp, investigating its limits, and then found a flattish place on the perimeter, hunkered down, and watched the human. Study it, the sage had said, and, question it,, but first Qarah would watch and see what the human was doing. It was not particularly familiar with what humans did, as a rule. It would educate itself.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence was completely unaware of being observed and continued his polishing, time and time again repeating the hand gesture down to the millimeter. Normally he did not engage in repetitive gestures in the presence of others, he'd learned very young that it was perceived as unnatural and that it impacted the way people looked at him. But here in the desert he was alone except from Butch and the strange creature in his care, and it did not matter to either of them.

So he continued, every breath controlled and timed, every movement of his good hand and delicate slender fingers calculated exactly. It was as close to soothing as anything ever got for him and he was even more indifferent than usual to the rest of the universe.

 

[prolixity]

Nothing changed. The mimic slept, the human continued its task, precise and careful, over and over again. Qarah watched for a time, soothed and obscurely pleased by the tableau. It had been led to believe that humans were messy, loud, unpredictable, and disgusting, and the other human had partially reinforced that image. This one was much more agreeable.

The Sage had instructed them not to let the other human die. This prohibition surely must apply to this one as well, particularly if it was training one of the mimics. Qarah stood up eventually and drifted closer in, closer, until it was within the camp, and stood within the human's field of vision, waiting. How it reacted to the sudden presence would determine how Qarah itself would react to it.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence noticed the figure long before he stopped what he was doing, it was not an immediate threat nor did it display hostility towards him. He did however take his attention from his task, moving his head to look up and breaking the cycle. Eventually he stopped. The gauntlets were desummoned with a shift of fear and reappeared around his wrist as his watch, and then he froze, simply stopped moving other than to breathe, keen blue eyes fixed on Qarah, expressionless as always.

"Do you have a message for me?" he asked, "Or do you have some other reason to be here?" He broke his stillness to gesture with his hand. "Regardless, you are welcome."

 

[prolixity]

A very agreeable human, as humans went, even though it was still worthless and not very pleasing to look at. Qarah realized that it had not planned anything to say to a human that wasn't cowering in fear. This was a situation it had not prepared for. But it did have something to inquire about. "I come to see how the training progresses," it said, and inclined its head toward the sleeping mimic.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence was never keen on being monitored, so Qarah's comment made him restless and slightly irritable. "Any issues with the training derive exclusively from the limitations of the vessel." He said blankly, uncrossing his legs to stand. He gestured with his stump at the tent. "He is resting, but you can disturb him if you must. I would rather you did not. He is prone to wandering away."

 

[prolixity]

Qarah peered at the tent, decided that it did not want to make a close personal investigation into the training of the mimic. "They are stupid things," it said dismissively. "I will not agitate it."

It stared curiously at the stump of Lawr's wrist. "Where is your hand? Were you made incomplete?" it inquired.  

[Baneful]

Lawrence glanced at the stump where his hand had been. "I cut it off." he said. "You are a horseman, have you ever heard of the biblical phrase "If your eye offend thee, pluck it out?" My hand offended me in relation to a goal I sought to reach, so I cut it off. It will not regenerate. It does not upset me."

There was no such thing as regret for him, he could not play the piano the way he had before and that was unfortunate, but he did not need to be the best, he merely needed to play.

 

[prolixity]

"A sacrifice," Qarah said, nodding to show that it understood. A point of common ground. The Sage had named this one worthless, and therefore he must be, but he could sacrifice for what he wanted, and that was something Qarah could relate to. He didn't seem to fear it, either, which went contrary to what Qarah had been taught about humans. The Original clearly did fear the horsemen, though, and Qarah wondered which response was more normal. Should it ask? No, that would delineate its ignorance, and it did not want the one in front of it to have that information.

That train of thought reminded it of something else. "The Original requires food and water to be alive," it stated. "Do you require food and water?"  

[Baneful]

"It was a sacrifice of a sort." he agreed, though there was no ultimate goal in the decision other than it had been simple and straightforward at the time.

"Yes." he replied in response to the horseman's question about his nature. "I eat and drink." he said. "I would rather it was not necessary but it is part of proper body maintenance. It makes this particular location rather tedious for me, I lose hydration quickly and there is not a great deal of water to be found." This answered, he addressed his own question. "If you will trade me information in kind, what do you mean by the Original?" he suspected that it might well be Taym. "Is it another human like me? Taller, darker hair? He still lives?"
 

[prolixity]

"The Original that the stupids are modeled after," Qarah clarified. "He will not give a name, so that is what we call him. He lives. She has instructed us not to break him." Whether this one knew who it meant by she was ultimately irrelevant, but Qarah suspected that he did. How else would he have been given a stupid to train?  

[Baneful]

"His name is Taym but I prefer the name that your people have given him." He enjoyed the depersonalizing effect it had, reducing the proud defiant man to merely a deficient prototype. "The stupids as you call them are also considerably preferable to the abrasive sullen airs he presents. I will admit I am not certain what she" and he mimicked the creature's inflection on the word "aims for with the training of this one." he gestured with his good arm. "But i do not need to know the greater ends to do my part." What he stood to gain was far greater than the threat of death, the sensation of vigor from the moths earlier had not faded at all.

 

[prolixity]

"He is very afraid. Not like you," Qarah mused. "I have many questions to ask him still." It nodded briskly, approving, at his assessment of the situation. "She will be pleased, I am sure, when she returns," it allowed. Obedience to one's superiors was admirable; she had referred to this one as worthless, but he was remarkably agreeable, for a human. Qarah felt little desire to hurt him, no more than it felt towards some others of its peers and certainly less than it felt towards certain others that it had left tormenting the Original.

Perhaps it should go and make sure they were not misbehaving. It had no other immediate questions to ask this one. No, one question. "Will you give your name?" it asked, polite enough to offer the option. If he chose to withhold his name, whatever name Qarah came up with instead would likely be unflattering, but this human was nicely cooperative and thus had earned the consideration of having his name used.  

[Baneful]

"I do not know fear." And it was as truthful as he could be, he had no reason after all to wear a persona when dealing with a creature that understood even less what it meant to be human than he did. "I am superior to most humans in that regard" he clarified. "My name is Jan though your mistress calls me Worthless One. It does not offend me. Do send the original my regards next you see him - though I note that I do not think she would wish you to tell him about my allocated task."

He tapped his chin with a delicate finger.

"He has a daughter. Somewhere out there. It is his most sensitive weak spot, should you wish to play with that. He is also rather attached to a female with long red hair named America. Both may aid you and yours in whatever ends you may pursue." He did not bother to smile as he stated this, feeling liberated to an extent by the superfluousness of such human formalities.