Ceramic Mountains

[Victor Lark]

Victor brightened again just as quickly, apparently delighted to learn that she had not taken offense. He ducked with her downcast eyes just as he had before, craning his neck to catch her gaze in his own. Instead of lifting her eyes with a touch, he tried again with only the shrug of his eyebrows. He laughed. “Well you’ve got it, haven’t you?”

He was tired of looking at her eyes, so he let his gaze rise higher, following its natural progression towards the sky. The dreary gloom rolled on, barely lit by the strength of the sun as She passed Her twilight and quietly moving into morning. Victor bet himself that Ionu would hold Its rain all day, until He decided to drop the whole of it onto the city at once. The question was: when? “You don’t need to throw apples to get attention.” Victor went on, pulling his own attention back from its neglect. He brushed a finger for her arm, begging an audience with her hidden hand. “Looking like a human, I bet you turn plenty of heads.”

If it were given to him, he would turn her hand over in his own and tease lightly the edges of her fingers. His were growing rough from days of hard play, despite the supple aristocracy of his face. If the girl dared to try and pull out of his grasp, she would find the task difficult. “What do you do, Palla, when you aren’t throwing apples at strangers?”

[Palla]

Almost absentmindedly, she granted Victor touch of her light hand, watching carefully as he caressed the edges of her thin fingers. The gentle teasing elicited a chilly array of goose bumps on her forearm, causing the hairs to stand straight up on end. She felt her face growing hot, taking on nearly the color of her flaming hair. Clearing her throat, she responded, ”I don’t really do anything. I like to climb, and play, and eat, and – well I’m not like you two-leggeds, obviously. I have different interests than your kind.” It wasn’t until after the words left her mouth that she realized how much it must have sounded like an insult. She backtracked. ”What I mean is, I’m not like – I, uhm… I don’t just – I like,” She paused for a moment. ”Oh, nevermind…” She awkwardly scratched her temple with her free hand as she sighed.

[Victor Lark]

“I know what you mean,” Victor said, shrugging. His finger turned at the nook between her first and second. “Not better...” He whisked up to the soft pad at the end of her forefinger, let it linger there a moment, then lifted it off like a bird from a branch. “Just different.”

He might as well have said lesser.

He had not looked up from her hand until then. When he did, his smile did not match his tone; it seemed made of honey. He laughed at some joke he would not speak, lowering his head without taking his eyes from her. It was too easy, to make those poor brown eyes dip, and to cast a pink glow beneath them. He might have complimented her eyes, but he could not go that far. No amount of bashful endearment could light the spark that was absent in that creature’s so-called eyes.

His thumb bit hard into her wrist as he pulled her close suddenly, sweeping the edge of her hand against his side as her nose came barely an inch from his. Despite the gesture, the smile remained; his breath was warm and stale. “Don’t you have any clothes, or things?” He inquired idly, his tongue weaving between concern and flirtation and... something else. “Today will be cold, I think. I would give you my shirt, but I’m afraid it might be too smelly for your liking. What will you do, if it rains?”

[Palla]

Palla was eyeing the movement of his fingers tracing her own when he gripped her wrist and swiftly jerked her forward towards him. The unexpected pull elicited a yelp from the little woman, her eyes widening. With the jolt, she was practically nose to nose with the stranger, staring him directly – very directly – into his eyes. His smile stuck plastered to his face as he questioned her. Swallowing again with a clearly audible gulp, she answered, ”My fur is my clothes. I like the chill of the moist air, and the rain does not bother me. I don’t like the feeling of being hindered and weighed down by clothing, but if it offends you, I would wear something. It would not be the first time someone offered me something the wear in public amongst the two-leggeds.” Balancing her weight on her knees, she pressed her nose flat against his and sniffed at him, moving her nose up to his forehead and down around his cheeks and lips. The nostrils of her petite nose flared as she took in his scent and she added, ”You’re not smelly. Cougars are smelly. Wolves are smelly. Fire is smelly. You smell… tame.” The tossed the final word around in her head before finally spitting it out. It wasn’t an insult, and yet it wasn’t a compliment. The things she considered ‘smelly’ were those of the likes she didn’t care for. Victor, on the other hand, did smell tame. He smelled of all the things she didn’t understand. The smell didn’t remind her of anything, because it was unlike anything she had ever extensively encountered. He smelled simply like a two-legged, and that was the only way she could think to put it.

[Victor Lark]

Though he obliged her peculiar examination, Victor released his hold on Palla’s arm, if only to draw her attention away from the scent of his face. He laughed at her description, rolled his eyes. “I smell like ale and other men’s blood,” he argued. There had been a death earlier in the night; a man lost a bet for his life and the winner had not bothered to take his payment outside, so Victor had been left to clean up the mess. He had managed to avoid getting any actual blood on himself, as far as his scrutiny could tell, but he figured the smell remained. Perhaps that man had also been tame.

“Clothes aren’t heavy. They hold you together; they tell people about you. But I guess the absence of them can tell a person just as much.” He winked, then unknotted his legs and leaned back against the slope of the roof. He tucked one hand behind his head and with the other, drew a soft line on the inside of her calf.

“I’m not offended,” he added with a smirk. “But you’re right in assuming others would be. Why wouldn’t you want to spend time with people? Half of you has as many legs as I do, two-legged.” His wandering fingertip poked at her leg, apparently for emphasis. It resumed its progress soon after; it might have wandered higher, but instead it skipped over to her arm and trailed upward until he could no longer reach. Once it touched air it dropped, and his eyes swung up to the sky.

[Palla]

Again, the touch of Victor’s fingertips sent chills through her skin. She shivered, her little toes curling tightly at the end of her long, thin legs. She sniffled at him again, reaching to grasp the scents he described. Blood and what? Ale? Her head cocked to the side and her eyes narrowed. She asked, ”What’s an ale?” She felt silly asking all these questions, but at the end of the day, if he answered, she will have learned something new. Clothing, on the other hand. That was a really interesting subject. Victor protested that they told stories, stories about people. She giggled and shook her head. ”I, uhm… I suppose that’s beyond me, then… Victor.” Tacking his name onto the end came more as an afterthought, but she liked the way it sounded. It was a sharp sounding name, much unlike the gentle whistles and clicking of her kind. ”I wore a jacket once!” It seemed like a feat to her, and one that she was proud of no less. ”Here, actually. A while back, when I first came into this city. I met a man with red eyes. He lent me his big coat and taught me what tea was.” The memory brought a little smile to her face. His hospitality was by far unmatched by that of any other two-legged she had met. She ran a slender fingered hand through her tangled mass of hair. The fingers cut through the front, above her forehead and all the way back to the crown of her head. She scrunched it forward towards her face and held it, thinking. ”So, I guess I do like spending time with, uhm, people.” She struggled to avoid the term two-legged, that she knew she overused. ”I’m still here talking with you, and I liked talking to him.” It was after a moment of trailing his glance up to the sky, she added, ”Oh wait, that’s right, his name was Seven.”

[Victor Lark]

Victor started inwardly when Palla mentioned her stranger’s red eyes. He kept his own on the gray haze above him, sucked distractedly on the inside of his lip as he brought his other arm up alongside the other. The mention of them drove his mind to the white-haired half-blood who was probably already waking, on a bed within a bedroom that could be right beneath him or across the city. It almost seemed natural to his ears that Seven’s name lit on the air, but a second later he remembered that it had sparked from this Kelvic’s lips, and he frowned.

His gaze reeled towards her as his expression melted into the same old smile. “Taught you tea, did he? Perhaps I’ll teach you what ale is. I think you’ll like it better.” The last of a smile lingered on the corners of her lips; Victor saw it and he hated it. He sat up with a sudden lurch and, if she jumped, would instantly move a tender hand to grasp her arm and steady her. It was a game of soft and sharp, and her nerves were the object. As soon as it happened, it was over. As if nothing unusual had passed between them, his expression was calm and inquisitive. “But what do you like about talking to people? Surely there are other little rats like you who are as interesting as Seven—or I—could be.”

[Palla]

Palla reflected back on the time she had spent with Seven. His approach had been much different than that of Victor’s, but she assumed that’s how two-leggeds were. They must have a certain way that they liked to do things according to their personalities. Animals had personalities, too, so she understood a little bit about differentiation in preferences. But two-leggeds just seemed much more, well, intelligent. She hated the way she felt when she asked questions. She hated the way they looked at her when she asked something that every two-legged should know. They didn’t understand what it was like to be Kelvic, and probably never would. She looked down at her hands, where a set of black thick-furred paws were supposed to be, mounted with sharp nails. She felt awkward sitting on her bottom without having to worry about her tail. It just wasn’t normal not to have to deal with these things. And at the same time, it wasn’t normal – to her – to have to deal with clothes and appearance and cooking. How complicated the life of a two-legged must be! And yet, she wanted to be accepted. She didn’t like being looked down on for living in trees and walking around nude. She didn’t like the idea of being prejudiced against. With this distaste came a realization – in order to be accepted, she must be willing to accept. It seemed only fair. Perhaps if she were more willing to test and try things that the two-leggeds did (like drink tea) then maybe they would be willing to see things from her standpoint. Little naïve Palla could only hope. At Victor’s viciously quick jolt caused Palla to reel back just as suddenly. Why did he feel the need to jerk and jolt and twitch so? It was threatening to Palla instinctively, like the sudden pounce of a massive cougar, claws extended, mouth salivating, eyes burning into her core. She shook. Victor’s hand gripping her arm would have surely felt the nervous creature’s tremor. Pulling away from his touch slowly, she wrinkled her nose. ”You do that a lot, you know? It makes me nervous.” Admitted she, in hopes that it would not offend him. She could not imagine what he must be seeing; a little twitching mammal skin-changer. Did she appear neurotic? Did he even notice? She continued, ”I liked learning tea, so I think I might much enjoy learning the ale. I’m finding that I like learning things, I think. It’s refreshing, in a strange way.” Palla turned her hard dark eyes on his grey ones. They reminded her of the stale, dark waters of creeks in the night time, or the large rocks that littered the land; Cold. Her own eyes burned with the aversion of being called a rat. Rat? Why, she ate rats like they were tender shoots of grass between rabbit’s teeth! Rats, plants, berries, and the like. Red pandas were in a group of their own; not rodents, but not quite bears. Somewhere in between, and it made her proud to be different among a sea of different creatures. ”What do I like about talking to people? Two-leggeds have different conversations than my kind. We talk about things like, where to find a new blooming bush, or safe places to sleep at night. We discuss where the last predator was spotted, and what it looked like. We ask about the strange looking travelers that pass by in the day and night, what they spoke of, things they did, and how strange and foreign it all is. It’s repetitive, versus walking into a pod of two-leggeds – a city – and partaking in the things they do. I wore a coat, I learned tea, I talked to Seven. I liked it. It was not nearly as ridiculous as some of my kind made it out to be. It has often come across as pretentious to us, but it’s really not so bad at all.” She paused mid-rant to consider another perspective. ”Don’t misunderstand me, though. I have heard of many a Kelvic who have decided to pursue knowledge during their lifetimes. They dig through the paper stacks bound by leather, they make things, they practice a faith. But not all of us acquire this ambition. So yes, some of us are interesting, I suppose. But then again, it is subjective to one’s personal preferences, is it not? I would think so.”

[Victor Lark]

Talk of other animals disinterested Victor; he found his eyes wandering. They seemed perpetually drawn to hers, those dirty auburn circles, before he remembered why he hated them and pulled his attention to other parts of her naked body. He looked her through with that habitual appraisal that flattered some girls and offended others; his smile stiffened only when he heard that name again. Hastily he raised his hand to caress the hair beside her face, twisting his expression to something thoughtful as he tried to distract her from words. “Everyone is different,” he agreed half-heartedly. That word again.

“Come here,” he added, pulling himself up from where he lay against the roof yet again. That startling speed remained in the gesture as his fingers dove through the hairs on the back of her head, but he was gentle as he pulled her down to lie beside him.

“You do a lot of thinking, for a Kelvic,” he mentioned, starving her of his eyes so that he could gaze deliberately at the boring clouds above. They roiled with a murmuring thunder as his hand snaked over her palm and his fingers wove between hers. “What is your preference? Would you like to read a book or make a thing, like people do?” Victor swallowed, glanced at her for an instant from the corner of his eye. “Do you think people are more interesting, like Seven?”

[Palla]

Palla observed Victor as if he were the horizon itself, her sight constantly drifting here, there, and everywhere around him. There was a warm feeling creeping up through her toes, much like the one she had felt for the first time that day. It was the day she had learned tea, and he lent her his coat. I like you too. Came the ghost of Seven’s voice. Are you still hungry? Do you need … anything? She twittered happily, a strange sound coming from this form. It ceased abruptly as Victor’s hand found the side of her face. His constant and unexpected snaps of movement left Palla feeling uneasy, but she assumed that if he were going to hurt her, he would have done it by now. Before she could even begin to protest, he was pulling her down gently to his side. Her stomach churned at the gesture, but she paid it no mind. She had come to expect such behavior from him already. It seemed too soon to be passing judgment, but it was the only way she knew. It was a part of her. Even standing at a distance, listening to the strange creatures, she was passing a sort of judgment on them. Whether for better or for worse, it depended on the topic brought up. Laying at Victor’s side, she felt awkward, to say the very least. This was by far the closest she had ever been to a two-legged, and it just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was her skin? She absentmindedly touched the skin of her arm, the thin hairs going flat under her fingers. His hand took hers, his fingers winding their way between her thin ones. What kind of gesture was this? Was he holding her down with him? So much was happening, and it was starting to make her head reel with confusion. What was she getting herself into? After considering Victor’s plentiful questions, she took a deep breath and replied, ”I suppose I don’t know what my preference is. I just, well, I… Uhmm… Well, what’s a readabook?” She rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up next to Victor. Not being able to see his eyes, however, bothered her. Gently, she angled herself sideways to lean on the section between his chest and stomach, and craned to see his face. ”A readabook might be fun, but I’d like to try and make something too. Something that I can make with my own two hands.” She wiggled her clawed thumbs. ”Do I think people are more interesting? I’m not sure I understand. I mean, I think I like peoples now. Especially more, now that I’ve met you and Seven.” I like you too. The warm, tingly feeling spread up Palla’s toes and into her chest. Everything around her seemed to radiate happily, pristinely, when she thought of him. There was an aching feeling when he wasn’t around. There was something prickly in the back of her mind that urged her to find him, and yet she had been unable to. Curse this crazy city, with its shifting walls and strange streets. Nonsense. Places didn’t morph! Trees could be cut down, and land could be cultivated, but she knew enough about buildings to know they didn’t just sprout paws and pounce away. Something swelled deep in her chest and she sat up with a low whistling sound. ”I-I miss him.” She sputtered. ”I haven’t seen Seven in days, Victor. I don’t know where, or-or-or how to find him. I know he’s here, I feel it. I really, truly feel him here, in this city. But I’ve looked, and climbed trees, and tried, b-but I… I can’t find him anywhere.” Her words were racing as fast as her thoughts were, and she could barely keep up with herself. ”This place, it moves. Not like the wind bending the grass, or branches falling from trees, but like people, and animals. Like birds migrating. Everything moves like it’s… like it’s… it’s doing it on purpose. I don’t know, I don’t understand. I-I just know that I… I need to find Seven.”