#strickando

Dawn arises to a symphony put on by an eclectic gathering of songbirds in the copse of not-quite trees some distance away from the downed spaceship.  Mist drifts lazily around its metal remains, and casually embraces them.  Uncounted years have passed since the shiny, metal beast came to a rest in the (formerly) uninhabited glen.  The world has adjusted to its presence.

A being not of this planet emerges from a hole in the ship’s hull (only those who know how to look are able to recognize the door for what it is).  He holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the morning light.  It remains strange to him how this star, this blue sun, doesn’t affect him like the golden daylight on his home world does.  He examines his fingers, rubs them against each other, but there’s no sign they’re about to be petrified stone.

He rotates both his hands in front of himself, watching as his green skin dims or illuminates, depending on which surface area happens to be facing the sky.

He is a being born in the shadows, yet here he is, welcomed by the light.

“Foolish of me to think you left your vanity on Earth, Stricklander,” a voice purrs behind him.

Strickler frowns.  He turns to face the one shadowed in the shelter of their ship.  “Still fearful of the light, Angor?  You’ve been here long enough.  I should think you’d have learned that this sun won’t harm you by now.”

Angor Rot steps out into the waking day.  His one eye narrows.  “Don’t presume you know what I’m like.”

“I know you better than you think.”  Strickler chuckles.  “I—”

A small, purple blur zooms by Strickler, causing a stir in the air that sweeps his hair.  A second one, bright orange, swiftly follows.  Then a third, green with blue streaks, comes and goes.

Strickler mutters a curse and spreads his wings.  He doesn’t look again at Angor Rot, for he knows Angor is smirking at him.

“You better catch them, Stricklander, or they’ll fly away to the mountains again.”

With a huff, Strickler takes off.

Angor laughs as he watches Strickler take to the sky.  He’ll certainly never admit it, but watching the changeling’s wings beat against the air pleases him.  Strickler’s form, too.  The smoothness of his chest; the elegance of his carved tattoos.  He’s not a displeasing troll to look at.  Then again, Angor’s tastes have always been unusual.

Perhaps, if the past was written differently, there’d be something more between them.  But it is what it is.

Angor observes Strickler a moment longer, and then strides over to his garden.  They don’t eat the strange plants he tends or have any real necessity for them, but he enjoys the act of digging his fingers into the dirt.  He rips up the roots of the ones he’s deemed weeds and casts them aside.  The soil is rich and damp with last night’s rainfall.  Angor inhales deeply.

He will never it admit out loud, but he enjoys this place life has brought him to too.

Up in the air, Strickler grunts as he increases speed.  Despite his larger wingspan working in his favor, he’s slow to catch up with the troll whelps.  The ceaseless energy that comes with youth, he muses.  He’s never sought to curb the whelps’ enthusiasm, but there are occasions, like this one, where he quietly wished they had just a little bit less of it.

Still, they’re alive and, really, that’s all that matters.

...

“I’ve collected the birthstones abandoned in Trollmarket.”  Strickler walks onto the bridge.  He basks in the displays of reverence Morando’s subordinates show him.  There is something utterly intoxicating about being shown proper respect for once.  “There were only three, but we expected that the numbers wouldn’t be high.”  Strickler places the stones on a hovering surface next to his general.

“Very good,” Morando praises his consort.  The corners of his lips twitch up.  He places a firm, but affectionate, hand on Strickler’s shoulder.  “Now, destroy them.”

“What?!”

“Perhaps you did not hear me correctly.”  Morando’s grip tightens uncomfortably on Strickler.  “I said destroy them.  We will build a new empire here on Urrrth.  One that has no place for such lesser beings.”

“But they haven’t even emerged yet.”  Strickler takes on a pacifying tone.  “They can be taught to—”

“Enough!  You may be a fine specimen for your kind, but you are an exception.  My empire will not be marred by the presence of such creatures.  I will not give the order again.  Destroy them, Strickler.”

Strickler disobeys.  The praise Morando gives him and the soft caresses may fill a gaping hole where his heart should be, but he is not the ruthless soldier he was created long ago to be.

He takes the three birthstones and hides them away.  Then, while Morando is distracted by his invasion of Earth, Strickler sneaks them down to the hangar.

Thwack!

The knife wedges itself in the wall a hair ahead of Strickler’s nose.  He freezes.  His eyes dart around until he finds the source of the attack.

“Where do you think you’re going, Stricklander?”  The rumble, familiar and dangerous, sneaks into his ears.

He growls his response, “None of your concern.”

Angor Rot saunters out of the shadows that concealed him.  “Off to destroy birthstones?  Innocent whelps yet to be born?  Even I never stooped so low.”

Strickler glances around.  They’re alone in the hangar.  The strikers, all but for the one he sabotaged so he’d have it for his escape, have been deployed and are likely reigning destruction down on Earth.  “I hardly expect you to believe this, but no.”  Without witnesses, it’s safe enough for him to say.  “They deserve the chance to live.  I’m going to give it to them.”

“You would betray your general?”  The way Angor speaks the title makes it sound like poison.  “After you’ve stood with him?  I have been watching, Stricklander.  I have seen the nightmares you condoned at his side.”

“You of all trolls should know, sometimes things change.”  Strickler marches toward the striker.  “Either attempt to cut me down or get out of my way.  Time is short.”

Angor pulls his knife out from the wall.  He follows Strickler.  “I won’t give you the sweet release of death you so desire.”  He jumps into the ship before Strickler can.  “Nor will I let you slip away so easily.”

There’s no time left for arguing.  They leave Earth together.

...

The first whelp hatched from their stone, the purple one, Oria, dives into a cloud bank as Strickler grabs for their foot.  Oria emerges giggling.  Eyes full of mischief, they spread their wings and swoop down around Strickler.  The changeling knows they’re going for a sneak attack and lets them.

Oria is the most like Strickler of the three.  He believes somewhere in the purple whelp’s ancestry is a link to his own original tribe, a tribe that fell out of existence centuries ago, but remains in small traits, such as ringed horns and bat-like wings, that pop up every now and then every generation.

Oria makes their move.  They slam into Strickler’s back, thrusting the both of them into a thick, chilly cloud.  As they lose momentum, Strickler wraps his arms around Oria.  First one caught.  Two to go.  He maneuvers Oria, who huffs grumpily, under one arm, so he can have the other free.

The bright orange whelp, Cerebi, laughs at their sibling’s ill-fortune at being the first caught.  They lean back as they do, end up going to far, and slip upside down, which only makes them laugh harder.

Cerebi is a rare, natural-born polymorph.  Before they emerged, Strickler hardly believed such a thing existed.  Then, Cerebi shifted for the first time.

There are times when Strickler thinks he sees hints of Otto Scaarbach in the whelp, but he brushes the notion aside.  Firstly, because Otto never was the childrearing type.  Secondly, simply because he’d only known one other polymorph before Cerebi, it doesn’t mean the two necessarily share a connection.

Strickler makes a grab for Cerebi, easily captures the distracted whelp, and maneuvers them under the arm not keeping hold of Oria.

The youngest whelp, the green one with blue streaks, Dilos, is the only one without natural wings.  Theirs is the one thing Strickler and Angor Rot successfully managed to make together.  They’d found old blueprints in the striker’s computer system for what looked like a set of holographic projection-type wings and got to work.  

Not that either Strickler or Angor Rot will ever admit to it, but they’d do anything to prevent their shared children from being sad.  And Dilos, the most sensitive of the three, cried when they realized their siblings could do something they could not.  Thus, Strickler and Angor put aside their various arguments and worked together until they managed to make Dilos a functioning flight apparatus.

Once he sees his siblings are caught, Dilos willingly goes to hover by Strickler.  He doesn’t like to be left out.

When they return to the ship, they find Angor waiting.  As each of the whelps place their feet on the ground, he looks them over.

“I would never let any harm come to them,” Strickler reminds him.

“They’re mischievous.”  Angor turns away from Cerebi to gaze at Strickler.  “And youthful.  Such a combination can be dangerous.”

Upon hearing the word ‘dangerous’ the three whelps each break out in a wide grin.  As a unified force, they tackle Angor Rot to the ground.

“Play with us!”  They shout in his face.

So, as the morning mists dissipate and the day warms, Angor Rot engages in play fighting with Oria, Cerebi, and Dilos.  When the whelps finally exhaust themselves, they collapse down on him.  Their eyelids flutter close and they drift to sleep.