Vanguard could not really encompass what Cronus was. Alchemist, magician, scientist, wizard, sorcerer — he seemed all at once and none at all. All he did know was that his creator possessed an insatiable curiosity, chasing every question that followed every discovery — so unlike his creation, who had long grown accustomed to asking none.
But he had questions now.
His creator’s newest fixation was named Ithil, and she was a little thing, with an ashy nose and weak arms that couldn’t pick a shovel off the ground. Vanguard hadn’t the faintest idea of where she came from, or how his creator had gotten his hands on her, and had even less of an idea of what she was meant to be. All he knew were bits and pieces gleaned from his creator’s idle prattle: that Ithil was the last of her kind, that perhaps she came from an important line of important people, and that he was interested in how she would progress in the future.
Occasionally, Vanguard would watch his creator put her to sleep, cut a line down her abdomen and fiddle with the purplish organs inside of her, adding in some things and taking others out. Sometimes she would lie open like that for hours, while his creator quietly pored over a tome, stained fingers clasping the corner of some formulaic page. Her blood was a dark blue. He wondered if Cronus was looking for something inside her, some kind of secret, or key.
Or perhaps he was not looking for anything at all, and only needed something to pass the time.
When Cronus was not around, away mingling with royalty and artists who did not know of his peculiar hobbies, Vanguard kept to himself, sequestered into his own designated alcove. Clutching a lump of charcoal between his claws, he enjoyed making marks on spare paper. The phenomenon of art was something Vanguard had recently classified as interesting, even if, perhaps, his talons made for crude line quality and constantly snapped whatever stick of material he was holding. But Vanguard was determined to prevail. If he could cut a straight line with a sword, he reasoned, making one with coal was surely within his ability.
If not cultivating his budding artistic talent, there was always some time for patrolling, the true purpose of why he’d been built. Unlike Ithil, Vanguard could leave when and as he chose, but he rarely ventured farther than the forest area the lab was hidden in, and mostly surveyed around the perimeter like the Vanguard he was made to be. He never stayed out too long, just enough to loosen his joints and shake off any dust that had settled on him, but it gave him a great satisfaction to be doing his job so well even without Cronus’ supervision.
On these days of his patrol, Ithil would often follow him up from her cell until he reached The Door, a black, bolted thing that truly required someone of Vandal’s size and strength to heft it open, and watch as he crossed over to the other side. She never once made a move to slip past him, only gazed at him when he left, and she was alwayscurled in the same spot he had left her in when he would return many hours later. This perplexed him, but it wasn’t any business of his what Ithil got up to in her free time, so he never questioned it.
Perhaps more intriguing, on the days he stayed in, as he’d slide into his alcove, and she would be quick to squeeze into any space available, fixated on the pages he brought with him. He didn’t know why she did this. His alcove was crowded enough with him alone in it, and his horns would knock grooves into the ceiling while his elbow would dig into her whenever he moved. And Vanguard was — sharp. Harder and sharper than whatever she was made of, anyways, and she’d shrink away whenever the edges of his elbow would press into her. But she never openly complained and the discomfort never deterred her behaviour — so Vanguard did not either, however peculiar.
Forty-one days after Cronus had last departed, when Vanguard had given up drawing straight lines and began marking his name in giant, sweeping loops on his paper, she tapped his arm.
“Vanguard,” she said, and he froze. After a moment, Vanguard slowly turned his head.
“Can you write my name too?” she asked, in her little voice.
If Vanguard had eyelids, he would have blinked.
“You can read?” he asked.
Ithil repeated “Can you write my name?”
His mind went blank. Of course — of course, she had a name, and he’d read Cronus’s labels for her. But Ithil and physical script were two concepts that had not so much as passed each other in the street of his mind, and before that day, he had almost forgotten Ithil had a name at all. He had never really addressed her before. She had always been “that girl” or “that project.” Even his creator had never really used her name out loud.
Piecing his knowledge of script together required a full minute of processing. But learning and adapting was what Vanguard had proven to excel at, so Vanguard shifted the charcoal in his claws.
“…Do you know how to spell it?” he asked lamely, and Ithil brightened. She crawled under his arm and over his leg to situate herself in between his hands. She tugged the charcoal from between his talons and began scribbling over the paper.
“Ith - il.” she said. “Ithil!”
“Ithil.” he repeated. On the paper, it looked…. shorter than his name. And messier. Taller, which was hilarious, considering he could fit her head in his palm. He snorted.
But then she had then looked up at her with her happy, wide eyes, and he amended himself.
Vanguard snapped his head up. Cronus strolled in, long dark robes trailing behind him. He looked pleased. Whatever gala he was leaving from seemed to have gone well. He held something in his arms. A sack of some sort. It moved viscously.
“Creator,” said Vanguard. He removed himself from the alcove, rising. Ithil tumbled to her feet as well.
“Snug as two bugs in a rug,” he said. He made a gesture at Vanguard, who came forward. “Lovely to see you drawing, Vanguard. Keep it up. Hold out your hand for me.”
He did so. Cronus emptied the contents of the sack in his palm. Something soft and pink rolled out, and upon realization, Vanguard’s shoulders stiffened sharply.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Cronus said. “Meet your new sibling, children. Say hello to Callisto.”
Lovely was not the word Vanguard would have used, as even at first glance, there was something clearly wrong with the creature. It had teeth, for one thing. And it possessed eleven pink eyes.
The baby blinked them slowly.
Ithil stared at them in awe, her eyes aglitter, eagerly trotting forward for a closer look. Vanguard followed, slowly. The baby didn’t seem particularly bothered by its hideous deformities, in any case, as it smiled at her when she moved closer.
“Hello, Callisto.” she said. Callisto burbled affectionately.
As if reminded of her presence, Cronus twisted to face her. Ithil jolted, even as slow as he moved toward her.
“There’s my little girl,” His creator said, holding out his long, bony fingers. “Good timing. Come. Time for a check-up!”
The words were sweet from his mouth, but Ithil sunk her chin into her shoulders, and whatever exuberance she expressed before seemed to have flown right out of her. She scooted closer behind Vanguard’s leg, as if his kneecap could somehow ward Cronus from her.
She seemed to be finding all sorts of new manners to confuse him today. In all the time she had come here, Vanguard had never lifted a finger to prevent her from his creator’s lab tests. Why she thought he could help her now, he could not answer.
“Ithil,” said Cronus, his voice dripping. “Let’s not make a fuss, my darling.”
Ithil trembled. Not for the first time, Vanguard was struck with bewilderment at what her creator could possibly use her for. Vanguard could not fathom a situation where Ithil would somehow be more advantageous at Cronus’ side than a fully armed Vanguard. As bait, perhaps. A very skinny blood bag, maybe. But his creator would never have gone through so much trouble to obtain her for a miscellaneous task like that.
Still. Watching her stumble over her own feet as his creator wrenched her from behind Vanguard’s leg made a strange feeling in his chest. Something he could not identify.
As Cronus dragged Ithil toward the surgical table, Vanguard turned his gaze toward Callisto’s small form, who gazed quietly from his palm. They stuck their stubby pink hand into their mouth and drooled.
“Put them on the table for me, Vanguard,” Cronus called. “This shouldn’t take too long.
Vanguard thought about Ithil sprawled out on that table, blue innards glinting. He remembered when Cronus used to dissect rats on that same table, their pink, shaved flesh, their dark innards. The infernal shrieking.
Vanguard felt something churn in his chest, dark and coiled.
If there was something Vanguard needed to know, then Cronus would usually tell him. That was the law that Vanguard operated on. He did his duty, fulfilled his purpose, and maybe doodled in his spare time. His creator left him predominantly alone, unless his skills were needed and while Vanguard wouldn’t call it trust, per se, it was never a system he had questioned and it had never failed him before.
But Vanguard could feel the barest seeds of trepidation set root as he watched Cronus inject roc poison into Ithil’s taut, twitching arm. Something about building immunity, he had said. Callisto lay a little ways away, on another table, their greying eyes rolling aimlessly in their little sockets. Their skin, normally lively and pink, was turning an odd, greenish grey.
Vanguard was no stranger to pain, but that was what he had been built for, to fight and to guard. Even freshly awakened, weapons came easy to his hand as if he were born with them in his claws, and he lacked any vital organs his enemies could exploit. His plate was already tough to pierce, and in the rare occasion when something did, Vanguard was easily fixed with some mixture of witchfire and dragon scale . He was used to abuse. It was what he was made for.
But these creatures… Ithil, Callisto. They had been here longer than Vanguard had been alive, and they still showed no signs of enduring a fraction of what he could do on a regular basis.
But his creator showed no signs of stopping.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, finally, after Callisto had spent most of the night throwing up, and Ithil lay cold and quiet on her berth, eyes still glassy from whatever his creator did to leave dark sutures down her abdomen. Cronus peeled off his stained gloves with a smack.
“You’ll have to be more specific, Vanguard. Are you showing an interest in science now, as well?”
“They just don’t seem to being doing anything,” said Vanguard. “Why do you keep going?”
“Well, Vanguard,” said his creator. “It helps to always be prepared. I could always use another protector or two.”
“I can protect you,” he said, annoyed. “One of me can do it better than ten of them. They can’t even protect themselves!”
His creator hummed. “Does that bother you, Vanguard? Do you want to protect them, too?”
Vanguard had no answer for that. Cronus walked around where Ithil lay to stop by Vanguard’s side. His creator was not of slight height, but even tipping his chin high to look at him, he barely reached Vanguard’s elbow.
“You are my finest work,” said Cronus. “I remember when you were still only a lump of charcoal in my hand, not yet drafted onto paper. And now, look at you. Alive. Strong. A success!”
He patted his spindly fingers affectionately over his arm. “But making you took a lot of time, Vanguard. A lot of effort, a lot of resources. It makes sense, since you were built from scratch, my first ever Vanguard. And while I am pleased with how you turned out…”
His creator turned back toward where the other two lay, their small, quiet forms barely breathing.
“I just want to try something new,” he said. “Now that I have the bodies available to me, I have to know. How far can I go? How much more can I do? What lengths can I reach? I’ll find out, in time. But I am pleased that you would express concern over your little siblings. What a surprising development! I can’t wait to see where this leads you.”
Cronus noticed Vanguard’s silence, and his lips stretched into a thin smile.
“Don’t worry yourself, Vanguard. I would never let them die. There’s still so much I have yet to know.”
Perhaps he had rushed things a bit. Or maybe he hadn’t thought enough of it through. Making well crafted plans and carrying them through wasn’t exactly what he was built for, but then again, he hadn’t been meant to develop empathy, disobedience or artistic talent either.
As Vanguard made his lumbering way through the trees, he glanced down at his sides, where two pitter pattering forms trailed after him excitedly, skipping enthusiastically to keep up with his strides. He ruminated carefully on their next action. It was a big world out there. He knew little of what went beyond that little lab, and he was unused to the exasperation flittering through him, suddenly surrounded by uncertainty and choice. This had been the first time he had made a choice with no input from his creator.
There was desperation, there was anxiety, maybe even some fear. But… there was also a sense of quietude drifting through his mind. As if somewhere, deep within, something had been cast off, and Vanguard could finally walk free.
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