'The Fangs of Little Children'

Ch 1.

-------------

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I wrote/revised most of this while on Nyquil. Please don't hurt me.

Hughin and Munin come from Norse mythology, being the two ravens of Odin (Thought and Memory). For Seishin, I attempted to get an approximate word that meant 'spirit' or 'soul'… though I probably muxed that up. Ten points to the person who catches all the additional biblical references.

The time period referenced is during the last of Ido's time with Grahf.

I know that most people don't think of Id/Ido as being a wisea**, but he's got more depth than just 'Ido crush puny Fei!' (Grahf hints at Ido's behavior every now and then). Just because he's dominated by hate doesn't mean he can't feel other emotions too. I'm probably going to get a lot of hate mail for writing this fanfic. >_< (ducks)

-----------------------------

Summertime in free fall…

Gravity… as easily flipped as a toy, sending the ground to arc above. Fall here, and you might sink through the atmosphere right into space… forever descending into the void, forever flying… forever…

…brother…

A soldier's ability to spring into full alertness from sleep--and give no visible sign of it--is valued by any intelligent commander. In Ido's case, he had to have been taught it. But Grahf's little tricks and punishments had worked. Eventually.

Motionless, Ido kept his breathing slow and consistent while he listened to the sway of the air currents through his bedroom. He had pieced this method together after looking for a practical application for learning patience. After discerning that there was nothing directly nearby, he listened to the influx slipping through the archway which joined his room to the hall. It took a bit of time to sort through the noise--his chambers were large enough to make any First-Class citizen envious. And Grahf had forbidden doors.

The angle of sunlight across his bed implied that it was late afternoon--the light, unblocked, streamed through the large bay windows which composed the entirety of one wall of his bedroom. In any other home, it could have been a hindrance to privacy. Here, it was only a simpler way to facilitate observation. What wasn't immediately obvious about those glorious windows was that they couldn't be opened without resorting to breaking them. Solaris didn't believe in the enjoyment of nature.

Which was a shame, in a small way. It was the beginning of the summer season on the ground, and if Ido had been meandering along the fields, he could have been brushed by the light breezes which carried hints of pollen and leaves, and whispered promises of the new year and its potential. The wind was always free. It didn't have guards posted at every intersection in its house to keep an eye on it.

True, the internal sentinels had been his fault. Before, he might have claimed a token privacy--first carefully phasing the cameras out of his attention. But after turning upon technically friendly forces, the Solarian government had gotten a little… edgy.

Ido couldn't care less. Unfortunately, his teacher had a different opinion.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 2.

Ido sat up, and swung his legs off the bed. First coffee, and then perhaps a few hours to stretch out, and then a shower and another fresh cup of caffeine--two of the few things he could get from Solaris that were worth it. With any luck, he would have another day to be left to his own ends. They seemed to be getting rarer and rarer now, although Grahf kept claiming that he'd been getting more free time than ever.

The unified clicking of heels as guards all along the hallway snapped to attention dispelled that notion. Ido heard the swish of Grahf's heavy cloak as the man breezed into his room. For a moment, he thought about not bothering to acknowledge his erstwhile teacher, but years had taught him better. He stood, turned and nodded.

Grahf looked much the same as always--perpetually annoyed, albeit in a bored sort of manner. After Ido had become used to his teacher's dramatic appearance, it had ceased to be intimidating, and he had even been able to discern actual body language. He'd gotten into trouble on a number of occasions from playing a sort of guessing game as to the man's actual expression, lulled into drowsiness from repeating, "Yes sir, destruction is our ultimate goal. Yes sir, we must kill god. Yes sir…"

But the enforced months of inactivity had undoubtedly ground on Grahf's nerves as well, assuming he had any. Despite his best efforts, Ido found himself pondering his teacher's identity again. Perhaps the man was simply an animated puppet-robot, controlled by a renegade among the Ministry who sought--

"Ido! Are you paying attention or not?"

Ido blinked, and concealed his reaction by making a low bow. "Of course, Master. Your words are so enthralling, I was completely caught up by them." Both the gesture and the words were born of sarcasm, but if Grahf had not allowed that habit to exist--and delivered some rather scathing retorts of his own--the two would have come to blows years ago. Ido refused to acknowledge a master in truth of any sort. Grahf refused to let him roam free. The minor jibes each took at the other kept them from each other's throats.

If his teacher had been any more human, Ido would have considered him to be grumpy this morning. He was leaning that way himself--Grahf had arrived before his morning cup of coffee, and appeared not at all interested in continuing his statement, but in sulking in his doorway. Ido finally broke the faceoff by turning away and beginning the search for his boots. "Did you have anything else specific in mind this morning?"

"Just another checkup. As usual, you seem to be doing well."

"A regular bird in a pretty little cage, that's me." Ido kicked his left boot out from under the bed, and frowned at the dustbunnies clinging to the leather. "You'd think that with all the guards here, at least one of them would be a maid of some sort."

"And here I thought you disliked people going through your room." Ido looked up quickly at Grahf's tone. The banter had been delivered out of reflex, but his teacher was clearly distracted, pacing the width of the room while checking the fit of his gloves. "So. Ido. Aren't you ready to go back out yet?"

Ido looked back down as the man turned back to him, pretending to be focused on dressing. "I don't really care. If there's somewhere to go, sure."

Grahf stopped fussing and looked at him sharply. "Aren't you eager to go and lay waste to something? I'd have thought you'd be taking apart the walls by now."

Ido made a noncommittal sound, and finished lacing his right shoe.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 3.

His teacher kept pushing. "But wasn't that last country a delicacy to be savored?"

"… If you say so."

Ido looked for the sense of accomplishment he had had upon first destroying the nation, and found it lacking. The rush was over. Elru was only another name in a long list of those conquered. He shuffled through memories of the carnage, trying to remember the tickle of the sensations created.

Elru. They were victims with the consistency of paper, their features blurring together into a featureless and unimportant mass. Things only existed when he had them in his hands, and when he could make sure they were alive by peeling back their tissues and checking on the flutter of their pulses from the inside. By cutting them open, he could be certain that they had indeed breathed.

You couldn't count on them being real otherwise.

He stood, crossed to his closet, and began pawing through the contents for a change of clothes.

"Your Weltall is still being upgraded. With these new modifications, it will allow you to tap even more of your potential."

Ido ignored him. Grahf always brought trouble when he visited, in one form or the other. Sometimes it was in the form of a conflict he was willing to participate in; other times, it was pointed in his direction. This new conversation had reminded him of the emptiness rumbling around inside--a void composed more of apathy than despair. Momentarily curious, he poked around for possible reasons, but relented under the numbing ennui that had plagued him for the last year.

"The Solarian bureaucrats are still grumbling, but Kahr is recuperating quickly, and will be back on his feet with no permanent damage. Try to control yourself a little better."

"Not my fault. That lily-haired fool provoked me." He cast his teacher a sideways glance. "I would have thought you'd prefer me continually enraged."

"There are hordes of Solarian fools on Drive for that sort of behavior. Sometimes you need to wait to cumulate your victories. This discipline will only help you unlock and control more of your powers."

"It always comes down to my power, doesn't it?"

Grahf met that challenge with an even stare. "And why not?"

Ido tried to find some reasonable defense, and realized that he didn't even care enough about his own worth to try and defend it. It was only in battle that he felt alive, because it was only there that he could feel anything. It didn't even matter that Grahf treated him as no better than a gun, a sword, a Gear--they both knew the statements and nature of their impersonal bond. Neither expected anything more from one another.

Grahf watched him fumble for a response, and then added blandly, "The soldiers tell me you've started singing nursery rhymes in the halls." It was impossible to discern expression behind the mask, but Ido could clearly imagine the face being made. "Do you have any good reason for this? Shall I start assigning you to the Kinder Garten divisions?"

Ido kept his own face as smooth as his teacher's. "A fixed pattern of behavior makes it easy for adversaries to predict your actions." -Nursery rhymes? What sort of joke is this?- "Become incapable of surprise, and you die. Lesson 519, last month."

Grahf's silence spoke volumes. Then, "It's good that you learned that principle. However, that is hardly an appropriate application. Stop it." A longer pause, and then on a note Ido noticed was forcedly casual, Grahf continued, "They also tell me that you have taken up painting. Or would you have any other uses for the rolls of canvas, paint, and brushes you've been ordering by the dozens?"

Ido shrugged.

"Well, get rid of them." Grahf snapped. "Painting has no use anymore. It's an idiotic practice. I will have nothing of the sort around here." He turned to stalk off, and then paused to turn back. "If you continue to do it, you'll find yourself piloting a tin can. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

--------------------------------------------------

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 4.

Deceptively slippery, the pile of reading slates gave way with a clatter, sprawling over the reading table Ido had chosen. He frowned, cursed, and finally ignored any semblance of order, shoving the bulk of them into a pile at one corner. A few chose to commit digital suicide by continuing that velocity, apparently trying to test if the floor was pillowed.

Ido ignored the crashes, chewing on his lip as he jacked the connecting wires from the surviving slates to the main library computer systems. -My reading selections are monitored by Grahf, and it would look a little too suspicious if I started filling out a self-diagnostic questionnaire.- He eyed a few of the jacks with brief curiosity. Misordered, they would have a distraction value of approximately zero. Useless, then, for trying to disguise the actual screen he was paying attention to. Otherwise, by mismatching the input and output value of each slate, he could pretend to be reading up on the inflation values of Kislev housing while actually typing in requests for Solarian weapons arrangements.

-If Grahf catches me, I can just claim that I'm simply educating myself on how the minds of Lambs work. All the better to manipulate them,- he thought dryly. -He'd love that.-

Ido activated a few slates and propped them open on the table, resigning himself to an afternoon wasted trolling through volumes of informational camouflage. A wide array of screens going simultaneously should be sufficient, as long as he didn't touch upon any one slate for too long. With any luck, the sections he needed would surface quickly. His attention began to wander within the first few jargon-laden tomes.

'…the formation of gender identities of young girls requiring…'

sugar and spice and everything nice… that's what little girls are never, -ever- made of…

Quiet, Munin. He'll hear you.

Ido shook his head, reorienting himself to the text. Where had he been? He traced a finger down a screen and found nothing familiar. Flipping the pages back, he found his place five chapters previous.

-I must have drowsed and lost my page.-

'arguably the loss of the appropriate female role model can result in-'

…sugar and spice…

'loss of the appropriate role model--'

Ido shook his head with more force this time. He couldn't seem to focus on anything. The words began to shift and blur on the slate. The screen was too bright. No--the world was too dark.

The voice of the little boy had been joined by another. Ido heard himself muttering something, and felt his own lips rattle on without his control. All he could hear were the words. His arms felt strange from the shoulders down, as if the blood was freezing in its tracks. His hands… where were his hands?

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 5.

Shevat never knew of its spectral twin, given its distorted shape only by fragments of the evening stories brought down to the earth, spoken by a father who had barely enough time to bequeath a few phrases and then depart again. As a result, the hollowed buildings loomed as giants, and stepping stones lurched around near-vertical pathways, all attempts at perspective discarded. The sky was a forced blue, the color painfully pushed to an unnatural brilliance. Below the city was only a void. Above it, the storm.

A young girl kneeled at the pathway's edge. Only six or seven years of age, she showed no fear of the steep drop only a handsbreath away. The wind patted her shoulders, and she leaned into it. On those currents, poised like a spider in the middle of the web, she could hear echoes of what was going on in the entire world. She was pleased that her brother had picked up the trick from her--or was it the other way around?

A ripple. There. Keeping her eyes closed, she snatched at the end of the pathway her brother was sliding down, and redirected it to land a spare foot away. There. The theories would work. The plan would succeed. It had to. There was no room for forgiveness with these kinds of stakes.

-------------------------

…Fall here, and you might sink right into space…

Color that wasn't. Sounds that were felt, rather than heard. Ido blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision--trying to see something that wasn't composed of could-have-beens and maybes. His stomach was trying to clench and drop into ice water at the same time. The sensation was disconcertingly familiar.

His birthday gift when he was fourteen had been the forcible realization that he had shared his childhood with someone else. He still didn't know what had triggered the revelation. But when he had first touched and realized the mental lines between him and the Other, he had clutched the edges of the bed to keep from curling up into a ball. Stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep from howling. That night, he had felt the same loss of equilibrium, closing his eyes to slip away from a world gone mad--only to be confronted by the petulant voice of a child inside his head.

He'd always known that he had holes in his memories, and here they were--the counterparts to his scant recollections endlessly played out on a faded screen. He had only gotten a glimpse of a figure that could have been his mother before being thrown back out to the tangle of his sheets. Further attempts to communicate with the Other part had failed, leaving him with wailing reprimands to stop being a bother. But that part--the coward in him, hiding forever--had never attempted to do anything as long as his mental nook remained undisturbed.

Was this some sort of action by the Coward? Were his lessons with Grahf impinging somehow upon that careful little world? Ido fought the instinct to go fetal. The world began to solidify , and forms began to emerge from among the static. An archway. A path. A figure--a girl.

She was sitting under an overhang, hands resting loosely in her lap. Close enough to touch. An evaluation of space demanded that Ido look around before he sprung, and so he did. Pathways arced across each other like taffy wrought by a weaver gone mad; even to his eye, the structures looked thin enough to snap with a breeze. Like a nightmarish version of Solaris inverted, the sky was composed of a muddy swirl of sulky clouds. From what he could see, they continued down into blackness. There was no horizon line.

The girl, then. She had made no move since his appearance, eyes closed and breathing slow. The curve of her arms was thin, unmuscled--if she posed a threat, it would have to be through Ether. Ido tensed.

Something was off. The balance of his body was lower, his legs shorter. He spared a moment to glance down at himself, and was horrified to find that he was occupying the frame of a child. -Damn. This is definitely going to affect my fighting style.-

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch. 6

"Don't worry." He nearly struck then, ready to unleash a round of punches at her first movement. But the girl only continued, "There is nothing hostile here except for you."

"And I'm to believe you just like that?" Ido narrowed his eyes. There was no telltale crackle of Ether energy being built up. Her clothing was composed of a simple tunic and billowing slacks, the material of both thin and plain. Nowhere to hide a firearm, unless she had an artificial limb. "After all, we've only just met."

A faint smile. "Forgive my rudeness. My name is Seishin. And your chosen name is Ido." Smug as a cat over cream, the look of satisfaction deepened. Ido found himself envisioning attacking her anyway and attributing it later to precaution. Sliding his weight to one foot, he began to calculate the best angle to direct the initial lunge. Once in combat, he was sure he could adjust to the smaller proportions.

"Patience, Ido. You'd like to know why you're here, right?" At least her voice had lost some of its amusement, the words coming faster. "Ever wonder why it is that you can't really feel anything other than hate, rage, and frustration? You can enjoy things, in a muted fashion. But the coward's only claimed those pleasant little memories from when we were young. What about the ones you've gained since then? Wonder where the emotion went? After all," and here she finally turned, opened luminous silvering eyes to meet his own, "Grahf would hate it if you found pleasure in something other than genocide."

Ido did nothing for a moment, startled into immobility. What he said next, he could only attest later to the oddity of the situation. "You look so contrived, it's ridiculous. What kind of idiot holograph artist made you?"

The pupils shivered in the fluxing light, and then Seishin dropped her gaze. In a more normal voice, she replied, "I'm not a computer projection. I have enough control over what I look like internally. Much as you do externally." The tone shifted to clear annoyance. "You're certainly one to speak of vanity. The body was born with brown on brown, not this red, gold and white motif." She switched her loose pants around her, and stood, still looking down. "And my eyes are gray--that metallic tone was a trick of the light." She puffed a sigh. "So much for a dramatic entrance."

"What about this whole 'child's body' routine?" He folded his arms, vexed anew at how short they were. "Is this where I find out that I've really just been a little kid emotionally my entire life, and undergo some sort of cathartic transformation that turns me into a pacifist bunny-hugger? Because it isn't happening."

"Don't make me laugh, Ido. You were never a kid in any aspect except physically. I just thought it would be appropriate. Come on."

Astonished by her casual dismissal, Ido watched as the girl brushed past him. Snaking out a hand at the last moment, he caught a swath of her hair, stopping her with a jerk. "And exactly why should I do that?" He was about to tighten his grip and yank her back by force when he felt a tingling begin in his palms.

Then it flared.

Seishin didn't turn to watch him ball up his fists and curl them across his chest in an attempt to block out the sensation. "Will you please be patient enough to let me talk to you? We don't have all the time in the universe for you to surmount your petty temper tantrums."

Ido opened his mouth to let her know exactly what he thought of that, and then felt his emotional ground give way as the familiar indifference stole over him, coaxing him to give up. -Nothing mattered,- it sneered. -Here or Grahf, it's all the same.- He breathed slowly, and with the restoration of his patience came his clarity of thought. -Very well. I can wait. And learn.-

"Good. Just what I wanted to hear."

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 7.

The door slid open as they approached, perfect mechanical obedience set in a wall of stone. Inside, Ido was astonished to find his own room. Yet there were tiny alterations which changed the environment entirely. No guards. No cameras. The lighting had hints of warm yellows, instead of the cold fluorescents that Solaris preferred. With a bit of annoyance, he noticed that there was no evidence of his usual dishevelment; every aspect of the room was neat and in place, even down to the crisp folds of the bedsheets. His gaze turned to the far wall.

"Yes, brother." Sei answered his unspoken question. She crossed the room. "Just like your room. Only, these windows open."

With a oiled ease that their counterparts never had, the huge bay windows folded outwards. The caress of summer came in. Discovering that his feet had joined with his heart to turn traitor, Ido tried to casually mask the urge to run to admire to the view by taking a wandering path through the room. When he finally reached the other side, he gave in and leaned on the windowsill, allowing just a moment to relax his guard--only a moment, to experience what would never happen in his own room.

Finally, Seishin moved, pointing out the window to a tiny figure on the narrow paths. "See that boy just returning? That's Munin. Loves stories and riddles. Hates vegetables. And, incidentally, he can interfere with conscious memory recall as easily as stacking building blocks."

She turned, crossed to his desk, and tapped the activation button on a viewscreen. The form of a young boy shimmered into being. His brown eyes were wide and soft, untouched by suspicion. "This is Hughin. Unfortunately, you can't meet him. He's busy studying in the library." The image flicked to a pile of reading slates stacked upon a table. A pair of pale hands clicked through the pages with the delicate care of a nanosurgeon, pausing at times to crossreference sections on the other texts. Then a scraping sound, and the camera angled upwards to reveal a soldier approaching the table. The audio pickup crackled with static. "Sir. Grahf sent me to let you know he requests your presence at 1700 hours."

"Certainly. Please let him know that I'll be there." The reply was in a voice that was eerily familiar, but had a whole range of harmonics that lent it a soft musicality. -What a spineless reply.- thought Ido in disgust. -If it was me… wait a minute…-

Sei watched his expression. "No, he can't distinguish the little differences between us. And even though Hughin could speak more openly like himself, and shift the body to lose the red hair in favor of his own black, to do so would be to reveal our hand early."

A disturbing thought crossed Ido's mind, but apparently--although she cocked an eyebrow--Sei was allowing him to officially say it. "If you were to go out… would the body become female?"

Seishin shrugged. "I don't know. I may be talented at this sort of thing, but my sense of my own gender is strong. That's why I stay in here."

A beat.

"So you call him the coward too."

"Of course."

The two remained side by side for another moment, watching the network of faux-Shevat orbit, suspended in chaos like a single note of silver. Ido scratched his nose, sighed, and rubbed at his temples. "So what does this all mean? Are you some sort of distraction made by the coward so he can finally wander around by himself?" He laughed once, a short bark that held nothing of humor in it. "Well, good luck to him for finding indulgence in Solaris."

"Don't you dare connect us to that fool." Seishin's face tightened. "We're no toys of his."

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 8.

Sei turned to face him, lips pressed in a thin line. "You thought you had it rough, constructed from pieces that were unwanted trash? Well, we're the pieces of you that you don't want, or don't take; hand-me-downs of the second generation. I think sometimes that maybe that you want to stay like this--that you like it, never letting yourself care. Never letting yourself be vulnerable. Feeding off your own lust for destruction--"

Ido snarled. "Shut up, Seishin! Shut up now, or I'll--"

"Or you'll what?" Sei's eyes burned into his. "You'll close me away?" She took a step towards him, shifting into sudden fevered malice. "You'll kill me?" Another step. "You don't know anything about how things work in here, brother. While you've been out in front for all these years, you haven't paid attention--and those of us who have had to stay in here and hide have learned." She continued to advance, and incredibly, Ido found himself backing away, keeping the distance between them from closing. "You fool, Ido."

She stopped suddenly. "You are a fool, brother" she repeated, and then slowly, "But you'll learn, won't you? You'll do it out of fury, without understanding the reasons, but you'll pick up the same tricks I've used upon you. And you'll be glad that you did, when we're finally old enough for his purposes."

Ido flashed through his memory banks to pin an identity to Seishin's words, but as soon as he could seize upon the meaning, he found his pattern of thought derailed, the information blocked. Blocked! It was as if he was swaddled in gauze every time he tried to think in that direction. That such a thing could be done to him!

-It's all her fault… I have to get to her somehow.- Feverishly, he lashed out with an open palm strike, only to find it slow and miss by several feet. The space around Seishin rippled and stretched, as if it were a sheet of rubber that had been pulled at will. -Right. Time to try an Ether attack. That might work…-

Sei shook her head. "Oh no, brother. That's not how to take someone apart in here. Do you want to know how?" And then suddenly she was close to him, flesh pressed to his, near enough that her eyelashes brushed the surface of his pupils, the chill of her skin flash-freezing to his own. Ido reeled backwards, and she came with him, joined palm to palm. "You reach in, find the basic patterns of how one of us behaves and believes in things. Take their roots in your hands. And then devour them, make them yours--or crush them under the weight of your own identity." Lidding her eyes once in a slow blink, she spat, "If you want to hurt someone in here, you use the strength and nature of your feelings as a weapon. The actual attack is only a means of expressing them. The coward could have learned how to do this, but he hid away. So I took up the slack. I've done it before. I could shatter you even further."

"Don't do me any favors, sister." Ido growled, focusing on his hatred--his eternal friend and constant strength. Honing the edge, he tried recalling a wave of emotion to throw up a sheen of armor for protection, the heat crisping the link between them. He lifted his arms and shoved her away--sensing, disturbingly, that he only did so because she allowed him to. She bounced back lightly on her toes. He could taste his own bile, bitter at the back of his throat, and leapt. As his hands twitched in anticipation of closing upon her skull, he found himself thrown forward into the bright lights of the library. A harsh sound was echoing around the shelves--and then he realized it was his own voice, roaring aloud.

"Sir?" A sentry poked his head into the room. "Is anything wrong?"

"No! Yes!" Ido spun, a shroud of Ether snapping into place around him. "Leave me alone!"

"Sir, yessir!" The man disappeared. The number of footsteps suddenly pattering away attested to the flight of the rest of the guards. They had all seen what had happened to the last sentry to intrude.

Ido clenched his fists upon Hughin's texts, uncaring of the flickering protest of the viewscreens. -That girl. The whole lot. What am I going to do about them?- And, -could there be more?-

Dimly, he heard laughter filtering down through his mind.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 9.

When setting his wakeup alarm, Ido occasionally wished for there to be a button for 'in event of Grahf'.

This time, his teacher had decided to visit him before dawn. Ido awoke in midair, reflexively twisting to land in a roll. The tangle of his sheets showered down after him, and he began yanking them off with a half-hearted growl.

"Get up." Grahf snapped. "And get dressed. We've no time for you to mess around. The transport leaves in fifteen minutes."

Ido gave up on reordering the sheets and simply threw them in a corner, quickly snatching up his boots and a jumpsuit. He fumbled on the tight clothing, glad yet again for its lack of complicated buckles. "What's the occasion?"

"Wel cleanup." Disdain lay heavy on Grahf's tongue. "But it gets us out of here for a while. Think of the whole thing as a little gift for your fifteenth birthday."

"Huh. So it is." Ido had succeeded in locating his gloves, and putting them on quickly was of a higher priority than considering his age. "All right. Let's go."

He was halfway into the hall and already starting to jog when he realized that his teacher had not followed him. "Grahf? You said that we needed to hurry."

Was it simply imagination, or did Grahf remain in his room for one more moment, gazing around at it as if it would fade? Then he gave a sharp nod and followed in long strides, almost passing by Ido. "Yes. Some things won't wait forever."

 ------------------------------------

Some Solarians never got used to the vertical shift between their world and the surface; such people were destined to fail out of higher posts of military command. In severe cases, they would simply become unable to function as their bodies lost all sense of equilibrium, insisting that they were standing upside down. Immobility was similarly a common result. Each year the Jugend trainers took a measure of wicked glee as they watched their fresh crops of students--many loudly claiming they were mentally superior and therefore prepared--stumble around like drunken idiots, falling down and clutching at each other in tears.

Ido loved the trips down to the surface, especially the times at the dividing line when the transports could not deny the other gravity's presence. Wavering between each paradigm in a fine balance, the shuttle seemed to exist in both and yet give homage to neither. Finally, one world would prevail, and the transport would sigh along its joints and accede to the new dictates of up and down.

Grahf took them both quickly to the site of the disturbance in his Gear, the two disembarking at a distance and taking the last length on foot. The dawn itself stayed obscured--clouds kept the skies dark and grumbling. Although most of the twisted creations proved nothing more than the expected waste of time, a few had enough fire left to actually provide sport.

It was over too soon. Just as Ido had started to actually enjoy himself, the last of the Wels dropped with a whimper. -Such pathetic things. The least they could do would be to put up a fight.- Yet despite his scorn, he still felt the beginnings of a grin. -Maybe I can convince him to take a detour and see if there's anything left in Elru to play with.- He held up a palm to catch a few splashing drops. Rain. Such a luxury. Ground dwellers didn't know how lucky they were.

Ido rolled one arm, feeling the pull of a soon-to-be sore muscle. "I'm getting out of shape." He could hear the rustlings of his teacher's cloak as the man came up behind him. "We should do this again soon, Gra--"

Ido turned in time to pay his respects to his teacher's knuckles as the Ether-backed punch landed. With a twist born of desperation, he diverted it from his face to his shoulder. The force threw him back across the field like a rag doll. Wet grain cushioned part of his fall, but the jolt of landing sent a white blaze of pain to the point where Grahf had struck. -Stupid of me to let myself get out of practice.- Ido thought, grabbing for the shoulder joint in an attempt to assess the damage. He hissed involuntarily as his body quite clearly told him not to bother. -No time for that. If that had connected with my skull, I could be in much worse shape.-

"Grahf!" He shouted over the storm, trying for one last jab of brevity. "If this is about letting you get behind me, I think I've got the lesson down."

"Your schooling is over." A flash of lightning threw the shadows and angles of Grahf's mask into sharp relief as he advanced. The wind had begun to pick up, throwing tiny slaps of icy rain into Ido's face.

-Dramatic as ever.- Ido thought darkly, getting to his feet. No wonder the man had held back during the encounter with the Wels, allowing Ido to waste most of his strength on the fodder. But Grahf was unusually economical with his pawns. It didn't make sense for him to have raised Ido for so long just to kill him outright. "Usually you dispose of things by abandoning them to some conflict." -Keep him talking, keep him talking.- Ido shuffled a step backwards, grateful that he had learned attacks that relied on the legs. He could still fight with one arm temporarily crippled.

"I'm not discarding you." Grahf folded his arms calmly, making no attempt to close the distance. "Quite the opposite. You are invaluable to my plans, and you have been such a good student."

A cowl of Ether rose to embrace Grahf's form, and then the man was moving forwards, his walk suddenly smooth across the pebbled ground. -I must have landed harder than I realized.- Ido blinked, shaking his head once to clear it. -He's… he's duplicated himself?-

As Ido paced to the side in an attempt to maneuver to better ground, a second man was revealed. He held the space where Grahf had stood, head bowed, breath coming fast in the chill of the weather. Ido kept circling, fixing the three of them in a triangular pattern, letting neither of his opponents closer to him than each other.

Blue light flared, and a second shroud wrapped around the stranger. Grahf stopped his strange gliding, head snapping towards the man as if he had been startled.

Ido found himself panting. His entire arm had gone numb, and he let it hang uselessly at his side. The Ether left at his own command crackled in response to the already gathered powers, joining them in casting rippling glows across the landscape. With the detached air that accompanies shock, he reviewed the last few months. -If I had been in prime form, I could hold my ground even with the injury. That punch wouldn't even have hurt me this badly.- The rain pattered, and then broke into a full storm. -Did Grahf deliberately keep me out of practice?-

As if on cue with his thoughts, his teacher turned to face him, narrowing his eyes.

"Let us join together."

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 10.

The stranger finally spoke. "Think again, Grahf." Lifting his head, he revealed features that were only too familiar.

Ido stared. "Father?!"

Kahn looked at him, equally startled by his reaction. "All these years and you didn't know? You were there when the transfer occurred. Don't tell me Munin kept you from remembering that detail!"

As surprise began to give way, the old resentments began to flare. "You've been here the entire time then! I bet you were in on the whole plan with Mother all along, you--"

"Sorry to disrupt the family reunion," cut in the hollow voice of Grahf, "but I've got a new body to assume. We can continue this later." His cloak breezed over the grasses. "Although it might be a little one-sided. 'Hello, Father, Fei here. I'm still annoyed about you and Miang. Doing well, please send money.'" He stopped in front of Ido, who made a weak attempt to bare his teeth. "Oh yes, and 'kindly die, so that Grahf and I can finish our quest to kill God without worrying about loose ends.' Etcetera, etcetera…." He raised his hand. "Ready, boy?"

Thunder rolled.

And then Grahf was inside him, slipping past Ido's confused defenses. His vision was the first to go, dropping him into an endless black. The man's presence in his head was an almost tangible weight, pushing his thoughts down and confusing him through pain. The sound of the rain faded out. Then he couldn't have even noticed if it was raining at all.

From a distance, he heard a girl's voice murmuring. "Greetings, Grahf-san. As you can see, we have prepared a little something for you."

With a satisfaction that could have belonged to him, or to someone else--or all of them combined--he sensed Grahf's surprise shift into fear.

Something inside gathered and sprung, not to keep his former teacher away, but to drag him deeper in. Even from his sheltered position, Ido could feel the shockwaves as the man randomly lashed out, seeking desperately to get away from the teeth that had fastened on him, the voices mewing 'more, more'. He thought he felt Seishin wink, as devilish as ever, but whether it had been directed at him or at Grahf was unknown.

That such a ravenous thirst for vengeance existed among the others was unnerving even to Ido. They had hidden it so well that--excepting Seishin--he had assumed them to be all cowards after a fashion. But as a pack, they had turned deadly. Each continually shifting the pattern of their attack, and themselves turning mental cartwheels across locational points, they provided no absolute target for Grahf to retaliate against.

On the outskirts, Ido picked up flashes of random images with a distinctly Munin feel to their assortment--paired with a fluid mixing of sounds from Hughin, and an emotional cluster from Seishin that made him want to laugh and scream all at once--that dragged his attention back and forth, uncertain as to the true heart of the attack. -Sei was taking it easy on me.- he marveled, his automatic resentment at being belittled giving way to fascination. -There are all sorts of methods in here that she never even mentioned. Visual shuffling to provoke a response, and then to leap upon the weakness revealed. Section off each of those parts as they are bared, and then go for the identity as its shell is shattered…-

Grahf finally howled--the sound muffled and dim by the time it reached Ido--and pulled away entirely, his mental image shredded from claws that had sunk deep. Ido took a deep breath as the heaviness was lifted. He could feel the others near, hovering just by the surface, disappointed that their victim had wriggled free. But he was the one still out, still in control of the body. Time for him to pay attention to it.

Ido shook his head, fighting through the blurriness of his vision. When next he could see, Grahf had taken up his former position, keeping a clear range of space away from him and his father.

Kahn looked pleased as Grahf clutched his cloak around him, the instinctive defense revealing just how wounded the man had become. "I never thought we'd meet again like this. It must be fate." He looked towards his former possessor, savoring every word. "How ironic."

Grahf slitted his eyes.

"But," Kahn continued, gesturing with his chin towards his son, "I'll never let you have him."

Ido felt amusement bubble up from them all, and only smirked.

His father acknowledged the action by bowing his head for a moment. Then he turned back to Grahf. "Even if it kills me!"

Then, as out of place as a weed in a Solarian garden, Ido heard the clear tone of a digitized voice.

Message incoming please hold

He blinked. Neither Grahf nor his father appeared to have noticed it, but were continuing their faceoff. The strength of their Ether forces was beginning to make the air ripple outwards, making it hard to focus on their forms.

Behind his eyes, the crackle of a viewscreen unrolled. The static rustled out of shape, and presented the face of a young girl. "Good morning, brother." She brushed down the dishevelment of her hair, eyes bright and smiling. "Whew, what a nice workout. Shame he got away."

"Seishin," Ido thought furiously, "what is this about? Can't you see I'm busy?" Mentally he reached out and tried to collapse the screen. Distractions at this point could be deadly.

The girl wagged a finger, and then stepped out of the monitor. "Your fight there is being taken care of already. What you should be worrying about is all in here." With a wave, she pulled back the swirls of unformed imagination to reveal the city inside. Lighting flashed on both sides--internally and externally dazzling Ido's vision.

Seishin met his eyes and slowly grinned.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 11.

The arching pathways of Shevat's twin rolled into each other before writhing into a labyrinth that Solaris's bureaucrats would have been proud to birth. The doorway to his room hollowed out and rose to the height of a cathedral, transforming itself into an open gateway. Dwarfed by the looming arch, Seishin walked backwards into its shadows, her words echoing out to him. "Come on in, Ido."

"Grahf will--"

"Grahf will do nothing. If he tries it again, we will take him in and dissect him down into basic neural functions. And he knows it." Her smile was composed of nothing but sunbeams and bitter glory. For a moment, she looked like his sister in truth. "Father used all his strength to keep Grahf from noticing what he was hiding. So Grahf didn't know there was more than one mind in here. He won't try again until he knows there's less resistance in here against him… and since the coward won't take the stage, you have nothing to lose by ignoring them for a time. And all of us," her gesture encompassed herself, her maze, the entirety of the world inside, "to gain. Do you dare? Find me. Just try to take us all."

Ido felt the sting of rain upon his skin fade away. With an ease that had become reflex after his long struggle with Seishin, he submerged himself fully into the wilderness of his mind--of their minds.

There was the entrance. A single step, and it swallowed him too.

--------------------------

There was no ceiling but the sky.

At the first fork, he paused, leaning down and brushing two fingers along the ground. No stirring of dust, but trails of thought and feeling had been left as each of them had passed by. As a group, he doubted that he could match them. But from what he could tell, they had scattered, bereft of each other's support. Some must be weakened from the emotional effort of repulsing Grahf. Were they trying to hide? Ido frowned, and reached out hesitantly with his mind, trying to brush out a trap. Nothing. Time to call Seishin's bluff.

The trail was so clear that ever if he was bereft of his assassin's skills, he could have followed it blind. His first quarry hadn't gotten far. The child's stumbling was loud enough to not even require Ido to seek it out mentally. It wasn't Sei, then; caution could be dispensed with. Despite the shortness of his legs, he could catch up easily if he moved quickly and directly.

Ido rounded the corner, easily following the panic of the child's thoughts. As he got within sight range, the question of identity was resolved--it was Hughin, dark hair and politeness askew. He could taste his fear already; Hughin's essence was dissolving into panic. Ido barreled down the corridor and took down the boy like a wolf embracing an elk.

Words flooded into his mind, the concepts and theories that Hughin had learned during his stolen time in the Solarian libraries: dissociation, fragmentation, internalization, integration. Ido found the full meaning of his name glinting among the words 'superego' and 'ego' like a jewel--he slowed down the process of shattering and devouring Hughin's mind, holding the boy's tears at bay while he savored the definition. And then Hughin was gone, sounding one last cry of fear before his mind dissolved into Ido's own.

Opening his eyes, Ido felt as if he had been bathed in snow. Every line of his palms had been etched there by acid. Hughin had known more than he thought--nestled in the little bits of trivia that the boy had picked up were the basics of internal projection and presentation. The time spent in a child's body could be over, simply through force of self-assurance.

Ido smiled to himself, eager to test this new skill out. First, he frowned at the size of his limbs. Ridiculous. The body should be taller, mirroring him externally. There. Until he learned how to bind his emotions into a direct attack as well as Seishin could, he had to rely on a form that would support throwing a mental punch by being up to date with his training. Hughin's information agreed with that; covering his inexperience with sheer force of statement would even the odds between them.

He shook out his hair, reveling in the restoration of its length. Red, lovely red. The skin was back to being pale. Apparently his subconscious had continued the pattern by automatically shifting his clothing to his jumpsuit. Good. He flexed his fingers inside their gloves, and set off.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 12.

---------------

"Are you sure he needs this, Seishin?"

"Afraid?"

"No. Yes. We'll die. I don't care what Hughin said. We won't be us anymore if he takes us. That's as good as death."

"… Yes. But Father said it is necessary for us all to survive in the future. And, if nothing else, we are survivors. Even if we have to gnaw our own legs off to get out of this trap."

A thin scream--distorted from its own pain--rose above the labyrinth and dissipated into the storm above. The little boy shivered. "That was Munin."

"Stay strong. He'll be here soon." 

-----------------

Ido crouched at the next intersection. Never had he felt so alive! Even the sharpest victories had never been this glorious. The look of fear in a person's eyes was infinitely more deep, more delectable once you could taste the terror rampant in their hearts as well. The most tantalizing arch of his fingers into and around physical internal organs had been nothing compared to being able to burrow into the minds of these people who had been able to violate his own most treasured of privacies. The positions were reversed--they were his to toy with now.

If only he could perform this same trick externally on others. Such a shame that Grahf might not try again for years! And Miang could certainly use a round of this…

He paused before continuing on, smirking down at the spot where Munin fell. "No more rhymes for you." 

-----------------

The bends of the path were becoming increasingly sharper, each segment more brief. Ido increased his speed. Ahead, he could see where the corridor took a turn to the right. Shadows played across the wall opposite, cast there by whoever was moving in the space beyond.

That must be the heart of this maze. Ido could feel the movements of two minds ahead, neither of which seemed to be actively preparing an attack--or defense. Good. He shifted back and forth on his toes--it felt so good to be back in a form he was used to. Although he had gotten to the point where he didn't mind the younger body, it was poor in terms of combat ability.

The tunnel opened up once he had taken the corner, ending its twists at a large central square. A worn fountain dominated the heart of the room--coated in dust and withered vines, it was a testament to the powers of time and decay. Large cracks ran the length of the stones, splitting them entirely in places. Any statue that might once have spouted fluid had passed into memory long ago.

Ido didn't care for the aesthetic value of the moment; his last two targets were directly ahead. There, sitting on the edge of the fountain's railing, was Seishin. The girl had traded in her youth as he had, shifting her body to that of a teenager. Kicking her heels idly, Sei's attention was focused on the toddler in front of her. Taking careful, waddling steps, he was plucking gravel from the ground and clutching the pieces in one chubby hand.

Only a heartbeat to cross the distance, and then Ido had lifted up the child, holding each of his arms easily in his hands. The boy's eyes were wide, and he had just begun to draw breath--to plead? To cry? No matter--Ido had learned his parental values from the very best. He swung up the toddler as high as he could, and then reversed the speed downwards with a snap. At the bottom of the arc, he simply let go.

The flagstones in Seishin's maze had not been designed, apparently, to be childproof.

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch. 13

The boy's crumpled body shivered into dissolving black dust.

Ido kept watching the dissipating shadow curiously, even after he had absorbed the last shreds of substance. "I didn't catch his name."

"He didn't have one." Sei stepped down from the fountain's edge and squatted across from him, and then traced one finger into the eddies, dispersing the rest of the swirling specks. "He was too young to choose one for himself. And we never demanded one of him."

Ido looked up at the same time as she. Their gazes met a few scant inches away from each other. Seishin didn't move to strike him--and what Ido saw in her eyes was that she had no intention to. There was only a great weariness and acknowledgment there.

He didn't survive this long by taking chances, however. So he called up his emotions--just as she had so carefully taught him--and punched Seishin in the gut, taking a bit of brief satisfaction from the flicker that crossed her face right before she doubled over onto the ground. Ido knelt over her. "Grahf always said I was a quick learner. Not so sure of yourself now, are you, Sei?"

Seishin looked up, smiled, and drove her fingers into his chest.

Ido gasped in reflex, feeling the tickle of spectral digits pawing through his flesh. But, unlike the number of Lambs he had performed this trick upon, such an action would not kill in the playing field of the mind. Such a distinction was pointless, however--the incapacitation was still very real. Pain sung along each nerve as he felt something rip away, the reverberations of each broken connection driving deep into his spine.

Seishin crooked her wrist and slipped her hand free from his ribcage, bringing with her a pulsing knot of simmering reds. "Ah… how very pretty, brother. Such strong resentment." She rolled the ball across her knuckles like a street magician, flicked it off her thumb, and the ball soared up into the clouds and was lost.

"Give… that back… you little… whore…" Ido tried to call up his anger, the strength that had always served him, and found it blocked. Nullified. He fumbled for anything else that could bolster him, and only found his indifference--his own identity was softening in the confusion. -Is this how it felt for the others?- The first wave of panic burgeoned, and he clamped down on it, keeping it from overwhelming him. The internal discipline drilled into him by Grahf was ironically keeping him alive by enabling him to hold onto control. A roll off the knees, and he had struggled upright. -There.- A flicker deep inside, siphoned and limited, true, but there nonetheless. He grabbed for it.

"Language, brother. No, I think it's rather fitting where it's being held right now." Sei stretched shaking fingers towards the sky, and the storm parted its clouds. Larger than any face had a right to be stretched the curve of a cheek and lid of an eye across the horizon. "Do you see that, Ido? You've missed one!"

Ido looked up and grasped for the snare of this stranger's mind with the new instincts he had seized from the nameless toddler. But his mental fingers skidded across a barrier of glass, a field of mist. There was nothing to find. Nothing to sense.

"I gave him enough of myself to protect him. And a fair amount of other reserves as well." Sei began to laugh. "He's not awake yet. You have to be careful with him--he's just been born." Ido curled his lip, ignited what remained of his rage, and spun his leg in a high arc towards her face. She absorbed the brunt of it off her raised arms, but was unprepared for the low snap kick that connected with the joints of her kneecaps. She fell.

Ido kicked her in the ribs, and was gratified to feel them snap. Blood began to bubble in a froth from her mouth, but she only kept laughing. "Do you feel a little trapped, brother? While you were taking your time strolling into here, I was busy closing those doors behind you."

The Fangs of Little Children

Cheshire Court

Ch 14.

"Then you sacrificed the others as bait?"

"And myself. That boy up there--a simple copy of the core child, only a front--is going to take over for all of us now." Leaning forward, she lurched to her feet, balancing on splintered knees. "You'll take my tricks. But by the time you learn the ins and outs of them well enough to be able to slip free of this place--if ever--he'll be stronger. Maybe he'll be more than just a fragment by then. Such a shame that you draw your mental energies from a limited well. That little ball was your anger, brother. This new boy is between you and it now. Anything that filters down to you must be whatever he can't handle. Why the long face? After all, we're both used to getting the dregs."

Ido backhanded his sister in a fury--an anger so weak, so pitiful compared to what it had been before--but she continued to stand. "What have you done, Seishin? After Grahf repossesses Father, he'll be able to overpower that weakling and swallow me while I'm defenseless! He won't have to worry about us to stop him. You've only destroyed us!"

Sei flashed the ruins of her teeth through a bloody smile. "Grahf has other business to worry about. Father and I have been planning this when he wasn't looking, brother Ido. This paper front has none of the power that Grahf desires, and so he'll not seize you. And besides, he'll have to struggle against Father in the bargain."

"Why… why are you doing this? Why did you choose to take your own strength apart? You could have stood up against me if you hadn't," Ido whispered, lips barely moving. "Even in a child's body."

"Because sometimes," she replied, "sacrifices must be made." Blood trickled from the cuts on her forehead, painting her eyelashes and following the trails down her cheeks. They were almost tears.

Held by her gaze, Ido felt his anger fading suddenly under a flash of understanding. The images and emotions seeping from Sei into their surroundings were more telling than any simple words could express. But rather than feel weakened by the sudden wave of compassion, he only felt sad. The sudden melancholia disturbed him.

"What you're feeling is something called 'understanding'. You took the others seeking only their skills and their termination, but you acquired pesky things like their values as well. Their abilities to care and to find the little joys in this strange, harsh world that Solaris has made for us--those are yours now. Remember Munin's music box?"

Ido blinked. Of course he remembered that paltry little toy that Father had brought them from Shevat. The melody played was a traditional lullaby from the sky city--generic and childish. He'd had no use for the thing. But now… thinking back upon the pattern of those notes, he could almost see the box in his hands. The alabaster angel, spinning eternally. The sweetness of those sounds--so easily they comforted. How silly of him to have sentimental value for such a tune. And yet… for one moment to hold it again…

Sei watched him balance, watched his uncertainty. "Don't worry. They'll fade under your own value system if you work at it--and I know you will. Can't stand any weakness, after all." Sei shook her head and finally slumped to the ground. The locks of her hair swung like pendulums, matted and clotted together into heavy clumps by the drying blood. "Be gentle with the new Fei, brother. After all… he is family."

Ido kneeled with her, cradling her carefully in his arms. "Make him able to create. Make him an artist." Her eyes were clouding, becoming a dull slate gray as she lost the energy to describe any radiance. Ido scornfully discarded the color, taking his own strength and changing them into a radiant silver that Seishin had never dared to pretend to.

"Already done. He has our painting skills. He balances you out." The last word came out in a rasp, and she coughed. "Here's my last lesson to you, Ido." Her smile trembled. "You can love someone, and still be able to kill them."

Ido nodded. "Thank you… sister." Then he pinched the remains of her throat with one hand, feeling the delicate windpipe crush and crackle between his thumb and fingers. He leaned over her and watched the shine in her eyes fade, and tasted her soft resignation as her body--only a mental construct after all, hardly connected to the essence of who she was, but that was fading too--melted away into smoke.

The scent of her last breath reminded him of summertime.

In free fall.