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 Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:37 pm
The look Nebilim shot Jabril was made of pure ice, cold and sharp as a thrown dagger. "Perhaps it is in your nature to question; of such things is science made... but step carefully," she said, enunciating every syllable with careful precision.
"And what," she added, refocusing on the promised quarry's den, "do you have to offer that I cannot provide for myself? What is your lineage? Have you mutations in your blood? Your color is not so unusual, your carriage is not odd. I see no abnormalities in your gait. Your blood pressure-" Nebilim sidled over and pressed her paws around his nearest foreleg for a moment. "Is normal, though your pulse rate is somewhat elevated." She raised one eyebrow at that and smiled. "Perhaps it is only the thrill of the chase, hm? The offer is intriguing, but I do not turn my thoughts to experiments I have already conducted unless some new variable presents itself. How can you interest me in that fashion? Tell me." The question actually was sincere, for once.
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:58 pm
Perhaps it was growing up with a father who showed his family how much he loved him by eating their limbs, or perhaps he it was because he'd spent too much time hanging around with violent femmes like Setsu and Swax. Whatever the reason, Jabril outwardly shrugged off Nebilim's arctic tone like water off a duck's back.
Inwardly, his heart plunged as if thrust into ice water. He had to do something manly! Something brilliant and dazzling! And fast! Otherwise his dear project would fly off into the night and find some other, better scientist. One with pants and shorter hair. Jabril could picture that smug b*****d right now. He felt splashing like hitting him in the face with some acid. Yeah! They'd see who was the big male then!
"Isnae a kitsu body a step up from a fox?"
Jabril 'accidentally' flicked his tails, so that they slid against Nebilim's bony upper wings. He wanted to see if the skin felt like regular kitsu hide. Nebilim's paws were surprisingly ... ordinary.
"Ah, but more'n tha', yuir assumin' anythin' special worth studyin' is full o' obvious flash. Wha' sort o' scientist takes surface variables fer all there is to somethin'? Surely na yuirself, Professor Nebilim. Pr'ahps yuir testin' me."
He wanted very much to lay all his secrets bare before this female, that she might judge him worthy. But instead he tried to think of what would string him along. A mystery was surely better fun than a textbook answer.
If only he had brought more organs in jars! She'd liked that. Oh, he'd spend his whole weekend searching out more.
"If ye did some tests, m'sure ye'd figure it out."
Jabril paused by the entrance to the fox warren, and looked about for any separate exits that they'd need to close off.
"Awwww... would ye lookit this! We're all set, yeh?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:12 pm
"Are you that eager to feel my touch and hear my observations on your body, Jabril?" It was the first time she'd used his name, and for a moment her tone sounded almost sultry.
Then the moment was gone, if it had ever been - maybe it was just Jabril's imagination. "I can perform enough tests on myself. Have performed enough tests on myself to understand what makes us tick. Now, the other varieties... sub-species, ah. What I wouldn't give to have an Aqua, to see where the change between lung and gill takes place, get an idea of the evolutionary history... or the true holy grail."
She leaned in and whispered such that her breath tickled the inside of his ear.
"The Spirits of the Mountain."
The thought made her shiver in cold delight. Foxes were nothing compared to them. "Now what would it be like to see what they're made from, hmm? Have you ever imagined it, Jabril? Or are you too taken in by their thrall? Not I. No, not I."
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:00 pm
Jabril shivered at Nebilim's proximity. It was a curious experience for him, and he would have to mull it over when he felt a little less lost. Why should his physiology react this way? The only bit of his mother's power that he'd inherited was an inability to feel the cold.
The calm, detached part of Jabril's mind told him that he ought to be taking advantage of this opportunity to scrutinize Nebilim more closely. It would be valuable to know if those wings weighed her down when she moved, or whether the intricacies of her scent indicated that she did work with chemicals. But she'd shown him such a beautiful dream that for the moment he was lost in thought.
"I met th'm once. Th' spirits." His tone was distant. "They needed 'elp with some daft thing, so I d'cided t'follow, observe 'em. Found a useful testin' subject on th' way, but- they were diff'rn't."
Were all humanoids like that? Tall and spindly, with deformed and grasping paws? Jabril saw no beauty in that. Only a sickening sort of frailty that belied the Spirit's magic.
His eyes narrowed.
"Na' any r'ward fr'm them fer our pains. Like they were entitled t'service, yeh? They doled out information as it suited 'em, while actin' th' daffy innocents. I didnae like it. Who d'they think they're foolin'?"
A low growl rose up in his throat.
"Th's magic o'theirs, t'is naught but a trick o' th'bloodline. If they'd get down off their bloody pedestals an' share, no kit on this mountain would ha' t'fear-"
A bird called, high and shrill, and Jabril's ears flicked upwards with surprise. What was he doing? He was-
The intense look disappeared, a smile snapped into place, and his tails flicked happily back and forth. The manic enthusiasm had returned in full force, driving away his other emotions like the sun burning off a patch of fog.
"Oi, did y'see tha'? Caught sight o' a wee head oe're there. Found their back way in."
The scent of fox was everywhere, so his nose was of no use, and he had to locate the hole on sight alone. This conveniently gave him an excuse to disentangle himself from Nebilim while he investigated. He practically bounced when he stepped.
"All we ha' t'do is smoke 'em out, yeh? This'll be bleedin' brilliant!"
Jabril began working a vial out of the inner pockets of his lab coat. It was a slow process using teeth alone, but he was used to it.
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:51 pm
Nebilim smiled, sweet and slippery, as Jabril told her of the Mountain Spirits. She filed the information away carefully. Useful, very... she had seen the sycophantic attitudes of the other kitsusagi towards the twig-frail Spirits, and steered well clear. The crowds were too much for her. She would find another way.
It seemed she may have just found that way.
The shrill fox-cry jolted her from her thoughts, and she immediately flattened herself, her wings folded tight against her back. "An excellent plan," she breathed. "And I will hunt... do we want them alive?" One of her tails lashed, like a hunting cat's.
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:02 am
Had Nebilim really once been a human? When had she learned to move like she belonged in this place? So many immigrant kitsusagi were so squeamish, huddled up in their little headquarters with their cooked, processed food, clinging to the shreds of a dead way of life. Jabril enjoyed plenty of things from the human world, like beer and stainless-steel scalpels, but he reserved nothing but scorn for those who liked to pretend that they were furry little apes. Evolution had gifted every kind of natural advantage to kitsusagi, aside from their lack of opposable thumbs, and even then-
Oh. Right. Foxes. Focus!
"Well o'course we want 'em livin'."
Jabril shot Nebilim an incredulous look, then quickly thought better of it. He was addressing a lady. Not just any lady, but a lady of Science! He had more female friends than he knew what to do with, so that shouldn't trip him up, but- but- still! He needed to keep her happy. Otherwise he'd have to cease his research when he still had a million things to learn!
That tail, for instance. It was clearly a highly advanced tail that was of great concern to the scholarly community. It was peach. And it moved in a very liquid, tail-like manner. He could do a study.
"If ye start with 'em dead, ye miss all th'fun parts! T'is a waste, yeh. An' they're better left t'gassin' than huntin', if ye want 'em unmarked t'use fer spare parts."
Jabril was far less nervous so long as he was busy, and soaking dead grass with oil before sparking it up with some flint rock took enough concentration that he managed to get through two whole minutes without making a fool out of himself. Soon a steady stream of smoke filtered down into the fox's warren, fanned downwards by his long tri-colored tails.
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:15 pm
"Very good," Nebilim purred, pleased. "One moment..."
A flicker of movement had caught her eye. Barely had she spoken then she was gone, leaping forward in a smooth movement, every inch a predator as she came down with all her weight onto a hapless fox that had tried to be clever. She had its neck broken before it could screel a warning.
"A snack for later," she informed Jabril, setting the kill delicately downwind of the warren before loping back to the other kitsusagi and fanning her own wings out to encourage the vapor further into the warren. "I see you are quiet... civilized. That is a benefit I have not enjoyed for some time, I must admit. The wild state has a certain purity to it, but..." She smiled and flapped her wings harder. "Civilization can do things so neatly when it wants to, and then turn and pretend it didn't do anything at all."
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:16 pm
Jabril blinked, and cursed the way that his ears flicked up with surprise. Professor Nebilim had killed a snack. Probably only for her, but maybe also for him! A femme had never gotten him anything before! He should get her something now. She'd liked the eyeball he put in a jar- perhaps a heart? No, no, too pedestrian. That wouldn't do at all. Jabril would have to talk to his mother. Surely she would know what to procure for a discerning lady of scientific means. Jabril wondered how hard it would be to get his paws on a bezoar.
(Naturally, Jabril's mother had given him many small presents over the course of his life, and his adopted Nightmare had a habit of leaving headless, chewed-up moles at the door to his laboratory. But they weren't really femmes, and therefore didn't count. At the moment Jabril barely remembered that they existed.)
Jabril's maw curved up into a wide grin, and his eyes closed into happy crescents.
"Civilized or primitive- is tha' nae a human distinction? Our kind c'n be wha'er we please. I do'nae see why a male o' science should'nae run equations an' kill 'is self live game in th'same day."
Jabril felt like she should be doing something impressively masculine, like baring his teeth or crouching to strike, but he rather preferred watching Nebilim at her work. It was very, uh, informative. As to her capabilities. Of course. Anyway, she could hardly blame him for paying intimate attention to her methods. The professor had to know how good she was.
"O'course, it helps t'ha a goal. The'one who only live t'breed- they're the ones who're nae better'n animals. Tha's suitable specimen stock. 'Cos they choose it, yeh?. S'brought on 'emselves."
Jabril tossed another paw-ful of dead grass on his smoldering little fire, and watched little furry heads poke out of the burrow's other entrance.
""What would yuir goal be, m'dam pr'fessor, if yuir nae lookin' fer a gate back?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:31 pm
"Knowledge. Amusement. Power. All worthy goals, wouldn't you say?" Nebilim's tails flicked languidly. "Breeders - if only they would do so under my auspices." Another tailflick. "With a steady and guiding hand and an eye to the genetics, perhaps a little manipulation... perhaps we could have our own spirits and challenge those upstarts before too long. Selective breeding can result in wonderful things if properly handled."
She glanced at the vial that Jabril had used. "It would be wonderful to have a laboratory again. As you say, the primitive and the civilized... oh, they can be friends. The one hides behind the other and pretends it doesn't exist until it nips out, lightning-quick, and reminds everyone... of what they really, truly are..."
Nebilim smiled again, broad and toothy, then perked her ears in the direction of the warren. "I believe the specimens have been knocked unconscious by now."
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Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:41 pm
Selective breeding...? It had never crossed Jabril's mind. He was a hands-on sort of scientist. Nothing in his 'laboratory' was particularly high-tech, and he wasn't happy unless he had an odd chemical bubbling on the burners or some tissue to sink a scalpel into. Science with a visceral thing, vibrant and alive, and for all that he liked scrawling equations as much as any academic, he felt that investigating the universe should thrill the senses. No work could be truly great without passion behind it.
"S'funny ye should mention tha'. I mean, I do ha' a space- s'nae what ye'd be used to, m'sure, but m'Mum's in the business as well, so I ha' connections t'get set up with the basics, yeh?" Evidently Jabril was back to babbling again. "That's wha' I like best. None o' this business wit' yuir c'mputers an' yuir robots an' th'like. Ye want t'be a biologist, ye ha' t'get yuir paws dirty, yeh? Tha's life."
He suddenly found something very interesting to look at that was not Nebilim's pretty, fine-boned face. There were lots of trees around here! Good ol' trees. Basic building blocks of the ecosystem. Yes, Jabril sure did find them fascinating, especially when he cheeks started to heat up for some unfathomable physiological reason.
"O'course, I have'nae been a pr'fessor, or th'like. M'mostly self-taught. M'suir ye've seen plenty o' great works, c'mpared t'mine, though I do ha' some chimeras hangin' around, an' this undead tissue tha'- Ah! S'rry."
He rubbed the back is his neck with one paw, and his tails drooped sheepishly.
"I get- well. I'like wha' I do, is all."
He so rarely had anyone to talk to that cared about his experiment that he, uh, well. There was Swax, but she lived all the way over in the Realm, and she was forever caught in some gigantic family drama with her dozens of wizard cousins.
Jabril sprung up onto all four paws, seemingly ready to swing back into manic activity now that he'd said his piece.
"A'ight then! Steady on. We do'nae want t'be digging in th'muck, yeh?" By which he meant that he was too weak and gangly to make much of a dent in the fox burrow on his own, and he certainly wasn't going to ask a professor to do this. "I'll blow th'start o' th'tunnel open. Twillnae be any fuss."
Oh, Nebilim was going to think that this was so cool. Lock was just about the coolest kitsu Jabril knew, and he was blowing things up and dismantling them all the time. Now he, Jabril, would ascend to that rarified level of manliness. He practically crackled with excitement.
Jabril lit a dry twig with the smoldering fire he'd started by the burrow entrance. Then he pulled a vial of dark powder out of his coat, and bounced happily over to the other burrow opening in order to dump out the contents. Soon enough he'd thrown the twig towards the powder, and the tunnel entrance blew upon in a shower of soil and shale.
Unfortunately for Jabril, he miscalculated the blast radius and ended up knocked back into a nearby tree. The explosion missed Nebilim entirely.
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:07 pm
Nebilim raised one eyebrow as Jabril slammed into the nearest tree. She delicately fanned her wings again to blow away the smoke, then took a deep breath and ducked into the large hole the explosion had made.
A moment later, she came out with a comatose fox in her mouth, which she deposited outside before drawing another breath and going back inside. Only when she returned with the second one did she give Jabril a closer look. "Are you well? Pity, it would have been fun to fix you." The grin she gave him was not entirely pleasant. "The others are too far inside; I do not want to be put to sleep as well. Help me bind these in the meantime." She yanked down a vine from the tree Jabril had whacked, and began working it around one of the limp, furry bodies.
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:07 pm
Ugh. The male's head was muzzy and his vision clouded. Thanks to his numerous lab accidents, not to mention all of the violent femmes in his life, Jabril was intimately familiar with all the different species of pain. He would place this somewhere between getting caught in a gas explosion and breathing in concentrated opium fumes.
He'd done it again. And he'd done it in front of- what was that smell, above the scent of matted fur and burning grass? Crisp like ozone and salted with blood? He could almost place- ah, yes. Of course. He'd done it in front of bleedin' Professor Nebilim.
"Nae. Min'r setback. 'Ardly felt it."
Jabril heaved himself up onto his feet with a small groan of dismay. He'd singed his coat, and there were bits of bark stuck in his hair.
The biologist stared dumbly at the vine for a few seconds, then got to work. Maybe if he could change the subject he'd feel less like gassing himself so as to escape humiliation.
"Wha' were ye lookin' fer? On tha' bird? Photons? Ye cannae need t'know more about wings."
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:22 pm
"Fonons," she corrected him, bending down to tug at the vine with her teeth to get the knot tight. "The building blocks of all things from Auldrant. I suppose you would term them elements of magic, though they are more a form of condensed elemental energy in particulate form... they are difficult to read here, but I am convinced they do exist, albeit in a different form. I can still detect them in my own blood."
That fox satisfactorily trussed, she switched to the second one. "One each, do you think, or shall we have more, hm?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:30 pm
"Oh, aye!" Jabril exclaimed, with a rush of enlightenment. "Now I got yeh. Yuir a physicist. Ye should ha' said! Magic- hah. Fer a minute there, ye had m'worried."
Magic was a name that fools and ignoramuses gave to their biological abilities, because they couldn't be bothered to understand anything about their own physiology. The very mention of the word made him want to brew up some acid, gather up ever alleged spell book in a five mile radius, and spend an evening watching the liquid bubble and fizz as he dissolved pages and pages of unmitigated nonsense.
Jabril had very strong views on magic.
"Phonons. A quantized mode o'vibration occurin' along a rigid crystal lattice." He recited from memory, recalling the many mornings he'd spent as a kit in his mother's laboratory. She'd rattled off formulae and equations to Lime and Signal while Jabril chased mice underneath the gurneys and bit off their tails to see if they'd grow back. Ah, he had been gifted with a wonderful boyhood! When his father wasn't trying to eat him, that is.
"They give rise t'sound in solids an' acts as a conduit fer 'eat conduction. Are right fun'dmental t'solid state physics, 'cos all things ha' a normal v'brational mode."
He carefully picked up his fox by the scruff of its neck, then unabashedly mooned over at Nebilim. It didn't take much to snap him back into his usual manic state.
"So yuir sayin' ye can m'nipulate phonons? D'tect 'em so they're nae jus' quant'm theoretics? Oh, tha's- that's brilliant."
If it hadn't been for the fox in his mouth, Nebilim might have seen him blush. he looked like a puppy about to beg for scraps at the table.
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Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:52 pm
"Indeed I can... I am sure there is a more advanced way of classifying the particles than by rough elemental states, as they did on Auldrant. The first through seventh... there was some foolish nattering about the Seventh Fonon gaining - hah - gaining sentience..." Nebilim snorted. "A whole religion around some half-baked prophetess and her insane ramblings. It held the world back centuries. Millennia. Until someone dared to look beyond the pointless laws."
She smiled, mysteriously. "And where are we taking these specimens, hm? Your laboratory? I confess I have none of my own. Not here. Not yet." Then she bent to pick up her fox.
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