"... I only wish I'd come to Earth a long time ago. I found everything I wanted here and had it for so little. I guess no matter what, I could've asked for no more." Ko said, slowly smiling.
"The truth is, Cauren, is that I'm ready for this. I don't know if it's my mindset or it's because of how I'm made, but I'm ready to become the sword of Entropy I was forged to be. This upcoming year, the kobbers will need every bit of strength they have. There are plenty of new enemies waiting in the wings- I myself have a Graveknight about to come after me." She grumbled.
"I need to become stronger. I have to be able to be someone that every Kobber can depend on, because otherwise it doesn't work. We all know we can depend on each other to get the job done, and that's the point I need to get to, now. Someone who can always do what needs to be done."
Ko punched her fist into her hand and grinned; She really looked happy, to have a tangible goal in front of her like that. "First thing when I get back, I'm going to talk to Jumpropeman about training- Fite Your Mates might have some equipment the Hotel just doesn't have access to. After that, I'm throwing myself into the crush, because it's the only way I'm going to get better. If you can help me get stronger, that's all I need. You've done a lot for me already, after all."
Ko considered her, and tilted her head. "You know, you've always been there before I needed you. You always seemed to know when I would need your help, and you'd just be there, ready to go. I can't tell you how much that means to me, Cauren." She looked away. "I'll try not to drag trouble to your door in the upcoming summer. I mean it, you deserve some peace and quiet. I'll write, and I'll certainly visit, but I promise I'll keep you safe and out of anything that happens out there."
Cauren wiped her eyes and pulled the other lady over for a very tight hug. "I- I wish I could still do more. I don't know if I'm going to be a very good mother, Ko. I don't know if I have a maternal bone in my body and I already feel like running at your heels to help more than... sitting down and suckling. I want to be a good parent terribly bad, but I, I don't think I've changed, not enough to turn into one. I'm already a terrible sister or Ceneric would be saved, already."
"If I could be a decent friend to you, then, at least I've done something. I hope the Jumpropeman can make you stronger. I really do. I'll be here when you return, if you do, when you do. If there's anyone that could make those little things strong and staunch hearted, I daresay it's you."
Letting go, she got up and wandered for the bridge again after motioning at Ko. "Planet's upcoming. We may want to brace for landing. Or land right this time."
Ko nodded and braced herself for impact, not sure if the Tardis would just phase into being or literally crash into the planet. She made a mental note to visit Cauren a few more times than she'd planned during the year, because maybe it was her turn to be there before she was needed.
Focusing herself, she held a hand close to Non and waited to hit, not wanting to draw the sword quite until they were on ground.
Do you think we'll find him? She asked Non.
He is the only man on the entire world. We will be able to see him from miles away.
Ko smiled grimly and looked back over at Cauren, bowing her head once and then looking determined. "Don't worry, we'll get him off this rock as soon as we can. And anything that gets in our way won't be there for long." She promised, grinning and holding out a mithril fist.
Cauren bumped the fist back with reassured enthusiasm and not a terrible amount of restraint, given it was Ko and she was fairly sure her friend would not be bowled over or hurt the way most folks that size might be by a non-delicate punch of her own size. She stood again after briefly looking at a rather curious application program from Earth called 'Skype' that permitted visual and vocal calls from astonishing distances in much the same way as holotech but cheaper, and briefly running the fingers of her other hand over the screen. "I'll tell Carol when we're done, I think. She's still asleep right now if I have my maths right..."
Hearing querying calls from deeper in the ship, Cauren hurried to scribble a note and offer it to Fluff. "Take it to her, girl. We'd better step lively, Ko, I think Sine's out and about."
The simple thing read 'Balrog dead, picked up friends, see you soon. Love and kisses'. So on. The pleasantries of an affectionate silly young mind trying very hard to get on with something without worrying the partner overly.
"How did that saying go, it is easier at times to seek forgiveness than permission?"
As the TARDIS warped into realspace, she set about rushing to the control panel and actually performing a controlled landing this time, nudging the ground gently as she did. The machine itself, from the trees to the pipes, performed an odd sort of music as she worked, each item on the star charts emitting a series of tones and cadences that overlapping together formed a very literal music of the spheres. A beautiful, if occasionally dischordant, overture of existence; but perhaps not entirely benignly played on the living ship's part.
Non may have been being, for some intents and purposes, mocked by the device she rightly accused of disliking her. All time and all things come to an end, and Nothing is absolute, true; but TARDIS was herself a celebration of the possibilities of things and times meeting together.
"Y'know, I'd say going for results first, forgiveness second is an excellent way to look at this mission. Especially if the hounds out here are willing to surrender their new two-legged friend peacefully." Ko said, smiling at the departing Fluff and watching Cauren work.
Her sword made another low groan in her head, and she turned to look back at the hilt with a raised eyebrow.
Something wrong?
Her machine sees fit to laugh and diminish me. I do not enjoy the feeling.
Oh. Uh... Do you want me to ask Her to be quiet? She thought back, trying not to show her amusement on her face. Non could feel it, but still.
No. Much as children poke large, slumbering predators with sticks, so is it between us two. Were I not a sword, I would attempt to argue certain realities, but I will bite my tongue and let It have It's joy of me.
Well, I appreciate you being the bigger metaphysical intelligence, here. Ko grinned, before turning back and watching the lights and devices of the ship's control room do their work. She glanced over at Cauren with a small smile- Ko knew there was no way in all of Hack that she'd have been able to pilot this thing, even with years of study; but Cauren made it look easy, if a little tiring.
"Alright! So, what are you thinking? Head to his last known location, follow the only set of humanoid footprints out there, throw a blanket over his shoulders and bundle him back double time, go out like a light and get home in time for a dinner or two?" Ko asked, cracking her neck and putting one hand back on her sword.
"That's fairly well it exactly, except with bringing along a biosphere metrics scanner to find any bipedals that wouldn't normally be on a dog world," Cauren nodded. "Tracking is a wonderful thing and we might very well accomplish it with just that, but there's been months he might have been moving about with them. This will make it a tad bit faster."
No sooner had she opened the door than TARDIS' song was cut off by a wild pack of brays, growls, howls, yaps, yips, and fairly every other sound imaginable as reaction, with one Chihuahua even confused enough about its size and power to bravely charge in and start worrying at Ko's boots. The more sober Dobermans outside sat in place like aldermen in a village, and the vast majority of the pups and grown fluffy things simply sat and sounded off and watched the portal. Outside, it became rapidly apparent that this was a funny sort of a place. Most of the vegetation that wasn't of varieties canids could eat safely were dogwood trees, and other such puns.
Cauren pointed past a small group of arctic wolves to a hillop with a tent and armor on a stake. "That's where he was last. He was washing that at the river when..."
Ko gingerly stepped out of the TARDIS, careful not to accidentally step on the little attacker's paws while she looked around at all the sitting dogs with a big, silly grin. She bent down and picked the Chihuahua up, holding it out at arm's length. It paddled at the air, whined, and gave her a reproachful look.
"Go on, badi." She said, setting it back down and determinedly ignoring it as it went right back to biting her boots and greaves. She surveyed the horizon and then focused back on the tent.
"Sounds well and good to me, then! I'd take scanning for him and moving out over the two of us spending a week walking this world to meet and the middle and turn up empty handed." She said, putting a hand to her brow and squinting at the staked armor.
She didn't draw Non, in case the dogs saw it as a hostile gesture, but she did immediately fall into formation. In front of Cauren and to the side, ready to interpose herself if anything bigger and deadlier than her little adversary showed it's face. She pushed the Chihuahua away with her toe before nodding to Cauren. "Seems a good place to start, anyway. I'll take point, if you don't mind... Wonder what this world smells like when it rains." She laughed, marching forward, doing her utmost not to tromp on any tails.
"I'll gladly follow you most anywhere, Ko," chirped the one doing so, appreciative for the laughter making the whole mood rather lighter, and gingerly brushed aside the ones silly enough not to move for giant feet. Most seemed to sensibly reconsider playing chicken with a multiton mom, though, and trotted to wary if respectful distances. She tried not to make too much noise to raise their howls as she trundled after the lithe armored tank of a woman. "I do hope it doesn't rain like cats and dogs here. ... I will deserve it if that actually happens, I suppose."
She picked up the pieces of green armor on arriving and looked over the place. "I don't think he's been here for some time."
"Can you find any tracks or anything? ... I wonder what these pups eat here."
A dogfish flopped up out of the river and wiggled as her eyes narrowed to slits and she strained not to snort.
"A few... They're clear, but If I had to guess, they're from foraging and day to day tasks." Ko said, kneeling and sifting through the ashes of the campfire with her hand. "I think you're right: Ceneric hasn't been here for a fair while. These ashes are white dust, and there's almost no food scraps I can see around this location. No way to haul water, either...." She said, standing up and peeking into the tent itself.
"I don't see any signs of a struggle, or evidence of other presences here that weren't our badis." Ko said, waving around at the assembled dogs. A border collie started panting. "So I'd guess he left under his own power and choice... Still, I can't see your little brother abandoning his armor without a good reason."
"We know he'd been eating at least, foodstuffs either brought to him or caught by him-" she glanced at the chihuahua in the crowd. "Hmm. Well, I'd guess he either followed the river or took one of these two trails." She said, pointing at both sets of tracks. She couldn't tell which one was fresher, only that both were the least old of all the footprints and neither looped back to the campsite.
"Well, Cauren, I think this is a dog eat dog world-" Ko grinned reassuringly. "So the sooner we hunt him down, the better. Which way does the scanner say he went?"
Cauren fiddled about with it and stuck her tongue out at the machine, then gently banged it once with a metal finger. "Come on, you."
It made a noise rather akin to C3-PO gargling mixed with an old fashioned Ethernet dialup modem sounding off before going flat entirely, and she made a very severely embarrassed face. "There aren't any satellites for it to get biosphere data from. There's no trails within about a good two mile of location though."
"Maybe Sine or Carol would know enough to reroute it to use the TARDIS' systems instead. I'm still learning. It seemed like a good option."
She made a disappointed face at it and then looked to the dogs. "I suppose we could try to ask them, if we spoke dog or if they understand. Or I could try diffusing my armor as a cloud of nanomachines and send it ahead of us in a completely insubstantial fog and try using that to ping with the scanner."
"Or both, I suppose. If you have a thought, Ko, it'd be welcome."
Ko shrugged at the scanner and looked around at the dogs once more. She was taking it in stride- no plan would ever be 100% able to cover everything. She'd had a rough idea of how to go about this, because it was always easier to fill in the blanks than have no blanks at all.
The important thing was to keep going.
"... We could find the highest possible point we can and create some kind of signal. Something obviously man-made, and that he'd recognize as friendly, but that relies on him seeing it from the first..." She muttered to herself, stroking her chin.
"... No, damn. Other than Hasting ourselves and starting a foot search, both your ideas sound like the best plans of action. I'll try to make contact with any dogs who will speak with me- let me know if I can help you or Ensemble." She said, nodding once to Cauren before heading over to a larger group of Collies, Huskies, and two pugs with her hands open at her sides and a smile on her face.
"Hello! My name is Ko." She said, bowing her head and only feeling a little ridiculous. Lying Cat and Fluff could understand her, why couldn't these dogs? "I'm speaking universal common. If you can understand me-" she pointed from her mouth to her ear. "-please bark twice. I am friendly and mean no harm. We are looking for this man." She pointed at herself, and then Cauren, before gesturing to Ceneric's camp and his armor.
The dogs looked between themselves almost guiltily for a long moment before an older husky Huskie that looked quite as though he might have been Fluff's father if he weren't half her size and build cleared his throat and peered up at her with bright blue eyes. "I suppose we really should help to get him home, shouldn't we? It's been fun for the pups to play, but this is not where the man child belongs."
He smiled a long sharp thin smile with some small amusement and sadness. "I'm sure you've met other speaking animals in your time at the bar, even if they were insects with particular powers. It's been a very long time since someone asked nicely enough to make me try common back, though, miss Friendly."
His tail began to wag slowly. "I can run you to him, if you follow closely enough. Please don't disturb the bones though. It makes them very angry."
Off faster than his gray would suggest, the dog sped. Cauren looked back at Ko and shrugged with a bemused bewilderment. "I didn't know they could?"
Ko started laughing as she ran after the two, catching up to Cauren and matching her pace as she looked up. "I expected a bark back, but sometimes things just work out!"
Ko loved running, and as she moved to the drogue of the Husky, behind and to the side, she focused ahead with happy eyes. It made her feel alive like nothing else but fighting did, because as long as you could take one more step, you didn't have to stop... And the secret was that you could always take one more step. Always.
The land flew from her- she wanted to follow the pack leader, but not close enough that she'd bump into him, so she stayed in good order with Cauren to stick together. The blooming dogweed and the sight of some other dogs excitedly running with them got her to smile a little.
She gave Cauren a thumb's up while keeping her eyes peeled for anything that looked like bones in her way, There was a patch of large rocks in front of her- Ko leapt almost deer like across them, near sprinting, before her feet crunched into solid ground again. She laughed with delight.
Although fairly clearly enjoying the chance to see and smell a new place again and to work a sweat up with a dear friend, it wasn't terribly long as double time marches go before, unfortunately for Ko's lively chase, before her running partner had to slow for breath and to balance on her knees. A fair amount of displeased kicking and the weight of the belly holding it stole the white haired woman's ability to keep any particular manner of speed. To her credit, the former knight did endure until a good half hour had passed before she had to rest after all, and a dead sprint for that long might well kill many exercising individuals -not- in her condition; but so it went.
She looked at Ko fairly guiltily as she cradled her stomach and trundled along rather more slowly after them. "You can go on, you know. I'll follow with the scanner. I don't want to keep you from having fun."
The leading dog looked back and circled to a stop to wait the black haired swordmaster's thoughts, although a Rottweiler nudged her forward with a wet nose.
Ko slowed down and then stopped, patting the Rottweiler's flank and turning to Cauren. She ran a hand through her hair and had on a rueful look of her own. "Er, sorry, Cauren. It's been a fair while since I could speed through a place that isn't the Plane of Shadows, I may have been a little distracted..."
"In any case, I don't fully trust the scanner, and I'd rather we stick together than get separated, especially since this is Our mission." She grinned and gestured to the both of them with a thumb, taking a couple of deep bracing breaths. "OUR mission. No man- or woman- left behind!" She love-tapped Cauren in the shoulder, before she started walking over to their guide. Before she reached the husky Huskie, she looked over her shoulder at her. Her grin wasn't as big, but it was just as sincere. "Besides- I'm having a damned lot of fun out here with you, running or not!"
When she reached the point-dog, she bowed her head and said "My apologies for the stop- metal ankles and distance don't mix." She fibbed, tapping her shin with her foot. "Thank you for helping us, by the by. We both appreciate it a great deal. Do you happen to know how much further it is?"
"Thanks are not needed, but the thought is," the husky wagged his tail as though he were trained, somewhat less eloquent, and being complimented as a good boy like a dog of show on Earth. "They are within one sunrise distance. Their mothers like to keep an eye on them, and both when they can be spared. We may have use of that 'haste' of yours you mention if you wish to go faster than a day's run, miss Friendly. Metal legs, hmm?"
He gave a sympathetic look at the both of them, although he looked as though half tempted to wink at Ko's fib. Perhaps he had previous experience with laden mothers and their friends attempting to keep a small amount of dignity or just found it hard to be terribly disagreeable. "Yes, metal legs, that would do it. We may go quite as fast at a slower actual pace, if that is what I believe it to be."
Cauren silently mouthed her thanks and thumped back as they continued, until her attention was again caught by the dog querying, "Where is Firemane, miss Friendly? The way she acted at first, we thought she held the pack for the Snowlock big pups. We did not see her. Might have called you Nighthair if you didn't introduce yourself so kindly."
She eyed a strand of her own growing out hair critically and decided that for poetic license it might as well be snowy locks, although it made her roll her eyes and snort a littlee bit. "Er, 'Firemane' is, ah, tending the cave. Miss Friendly is helping our pack. She's from another one, though we're happy to have her. Always."
"Ah. Well, off across the ice floe it is. Beware the sea wolves."
Ko mouthed "Nighthair." at Cauren with a cheeky little smile, before the air around her right hand wavered like a heat mirage as she Hasted herself, Cauren, and their guide. The world around her seemed to slow down just a little, even though at their new pace they were almost blurring the landscape at their sides.
The air was getting clear and crisp, and Ko could see the field of Ice approaching. It looked solid, but the white lines of sun that shone into her eyes suggested a whole lot of individual pieces floating out there. The sight heartened her- pups or not, the colder it got the more likely Ceneric would be around, or so she hoped.
Wary of Sea Wolves bursting from beneath their feet, she almost didn't see the huge chunk of ice breach the water and get itself stuck in her path. Almost. Still running, she drew Non and put her strength into a one-motion swing that shattered the block into chips and sent a cloud of diamond dust to her right. She shook her sword off once before re-sheathing it, careful throughout to mind her footing.
Over the squeak and crackle of ice running together, Ko laughed out loud again, happy to be moving, happy to have a goal in front of her. She glanced over at Cauren again with an appraising look before she said "Y'know, this might sound flippant, but I'm more and more glad that Balrog found it's way into the TARDIS. I know sooner or later I won't be seeing you... Well, quite as much, if at all, but at least the two of us got to go on our OWN damn vacation before then!"
"... Although next time, I'm picking were we go, Definitely somewhere that hasn't gone to the dogs." She joked. The Rottweiler groaned and looked up at Ko reproachfully.
"That's not a bad idea. ... Vacationing any you picking where to go, I mean. It might just perk up Carol's taste for adventure and whet Sine's a bit if we found a fun one," nodded the other, not quite cluing in on it being mainly a jest. "Oh, dear. I do hope she understands that the kissing business was all in good intent. She can fume sometimes."
"I'll just be thinking of a way to talk to her reasonably and get her in a good mood when we tell them all this, I suppo- whoa!"
She had stepped not on ice, but unnoticing, on an orca whale. The creature, extremely startled to have such an occurrence happen mid hunt by something of its own length, made a very high pitched squeak of reproach and tossed her before beelining at the ice. She landed entirely less clumsily than she'd chanced to walk and backpeddled for dry land. "Sea wolves?"
"Sea wolves," the guide noted. "They eat the sea lions. They are not usually so close to coast."
"If she didn't try to punch me that one night we all ended up in my hotel room in different states of unarmored and undressed, we should be fine." Ko chuckled, watching the disgruntled Orca head back into it's own watery realm. "Besides, what's a little something between friends and comrades?" She winked, privately grateful that the cold and the wind would keep the flush out of her cheeks.
"... I've been putting real thought into going back to Escorth, for a few days or maybe a week. I know you can't go home again, and I'm sure it won't be the same place I left, but I'd like to visit it. One last time, just in case..." She trailed off to pick up a chunk of ice and crush it to powder in her hand. "Well, just in case, I suppose. When I do, you all are of course invited! Even if we stick to the North, and mainly my home city, there's still some beautiful things I think you'd appreciate and I wouldn't mind seeing again."
"Sea wolves, huh? I was expecting, well, literal wolves with flippers, but that makes more sense." She said to their guide, watching to see if the Orca would re-surface. "... You have a nice home. I like it here. I'd never want to be marooned here, but I can see the appeal." She said appreciatively, looking back at the sun glinting off blocks of ice in the dark blue water.
"I thank you. It usually is 'nice', yes. Very much prettier than some of the places that we fared before. Oh, yes, there are dogs here that have... I am ashamed to say it, but lead lives of such unfortunate nature that 'living a dog's life' and 'dogs of the military' have become phrases your own peoples use as quips and metaphors. This is a haven where dogs have their own lives and freedoms, and we are grateful for it," the Huskie intoned with much more sobriety than the dancing blue eyes indicated he was capable of. "We did not wholly expect when Firemane brought menfolk back into our lives, though you have been welcome guests as yet. We might well have welcomed the younger Snowlock to stay longer still if you had not returned for him."
The Orca whale did resurface, but at the far end of the stretch of frozen over water, and just long enough to puff out a plume of water and stick a long tongue out with a yawp like a dolphin. Then it sailed on, apparently deciding that the smell of crushed ice and the size of the crusher's companion made bad inclinations for lunch in this area. Ko's Rottweiler companion picked a tracing trail through the areas without much chance of letting them sink through, and into a very large cave set with odd stone formations that reflected the sky above in refracted lights and colors throughout the chamber.
On the floor, a writhing mass of puppies and a very large, very barely visible hand wrestled until the parent dogs barked, and then a terribly surprised eye peered out of the blanket of fur at them. "Ko? How did you get here? What in goodness-? Oh, are those pants?"
Ever pragmatic, he clad himself as soon as his sibling tossed him the doffed articles and showed himself as soon as that was done, perhaps a little embarrassed. "I haven't talked to someone in so long, it's so good to see you!"
The hug might have crushed someone that wasn't Ko.
"I'm so sorry, little brother-" Cauren began, but the other, and the horde of tiny fuzzballs, simply tided over the large woman. One that has never been licked thirty thousand times in a minute has not lived 'forgiven' quite so much.
Ko grinned and hugged back tightly as well, eventually pounding Ceneric on the back and stepping away to bow her head. "I'm damned glad to see you as well, Ceneric! I'd hoped you would be alive and not too worse off for wear, but until I saw it with my own eyes I was almost expecting the worse. I have to say, I like the beard- makes you look fierce!"
Ko hunkered down and patted some of the puppy herd; she even let them confusedly smell her hands and jump to her for attention, but when she stood back up and looked at Ceneric, she shook her head.
"I'm sorry as well, Ceneric. Even if this rock hasn't been all bad for you, this shouldn't have come to pass. I would have come sooner, but I just didn't know... Cauren is probably sick to death of hearing it, but No Man Left Behind is one of my personal oaths, and I feel I left you behind, knowingly or not. Please forgive me for failing you. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again." She promised, kneeling and bowing her head once more.
When she looked and had gotten back up, the ghost of her earlier smile had appeared. "Are you about ready to get the Frag out of here? I've got a fair lot to tell you on the way back to the ship, and I'm sure Cauren does as well. That and any survivor stories you've got, I'd love to hear them!... You have been eating, right? If not I'm going to go turn the tables so hard on a Sea Wolf the whole thing will split down the middle!"
Cauren chewed her fingernail and shook her head. "I'm sure not a one of us will ever be tired of hearing that oath. It's a very worthy one."
Ceneric, on the other hand, simply lit up several degrees further. "FOOD? Real food? I'll follow you anywhere."
"I hope not! Although in the best kind of universe you'd never hear it again, but, well..." Ko raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders. Her stymied expression disappeared once Ceneric spoke, though. It changed to chagrin when her own stomach grumbled.
"Well, first things first, let's see about getting one of those whales out of it's fat and into the fire, and THEN I'll catch one for the both of you, too!" She laughed, drawing Non and pausing to pet a few more puppies. Before she advanced back out of the glimmering cave, she looked back to the Husky.
"It won't be a problem if we cull one of the Sea Wolves, would it? I wouldn't want to offend your people, especially after all you've done for us. What's your name? If you ever happen to need a sword arm, I won't forget the favor."
"It will not be any great disturbance to lose one, if only one. It may even honor you if you best it," contemplated the dog calmly. "My name is ... oh goodness, what was it. I seem to have mislaid it somewhere. No! I lent it to a young pup that went venturing out to make people feel better, nigh on two years back. It used to be Tiberius. Now I'm Old Dog, I suppose. Did you have one you preferred, Miss Friendly?"
"The truth is, Cauren, is that I'm ready for this. I don't know if it's my mindset or it's because of how I'm made, but I'm ready to become the sword of Entropy I was forged to be. This upcoming year, the kobbers will need every bit of strength they have. There are plenty of new enemies waiting in the wings- I myself have a Graveknight about to come after me." She grumbled.
"I need to become stronger. I have to be able to be someone that every Kobber can depend on, because otherwise it doesn't work. We all know we can depend on each other to get the job done, and that's the point I need to get to, now. Someone who can always do what needs to be done."
Ko punched her fist into her hand and grinned; She really looked happy, to have a tangible goal in front of her like that. "First thing when I get back, I'm going to talk to Jumpropeman about training- Fite Your Mates might have some equipment the Hotel just doesn't have access to. After that, I'm throwing myself into the crush, because it's the only way I'm going to get better. If you can help me get stronger, that's all I need. You've done a lot for me already, after all."
Ko considered her, and tilted her head. "You know, you've always been there before I needed you. You always seemed to know when I would need your help, and you'd just be there, ready to go. I can't tell you how much that means to me, Cauren." She looked away. "I'll try not to drag trouble to your door in the upcoming summer. I mean it, you deserve some peace and quiet. I'll write, and I'll certainly visit, but I promise I'll keep you safe and out of anything that happens out there."
Cauren wiped her eyes and pulled the other lady over for a very tight hug. "I- I wish I could still do more. I don't know if I'm going to be a very good mother, Ko. I don't know if I have a maternal bone in my body and I already feel like running at your heels to help more than... sitting down and suckling. I want to be a good parent terribly bad, but I, I don't think I've changed, not enough to turn into one. I'm already a terrible sister or Ceneric would be saved, already."
"If I could be a decent friend to you, then, at least I've done something. I hope the Jumpropeman can make you stronger. I really do. I'll be here when you return, if you do, when you do. If there's anyone that could make those little things strong and staunch hearted, I daresay it's you."
Letting go, she got up and wandered for the bridge again after motioning at Ko. "Planet's upcoming. We may want to brace for landing. Or land right this time."
Ko nodded and braced herself for impact, not sure if the Tardis would just phase into being or literally crash into the planet. She made a mental note to visit Cauren a few more times than she'd planned during the year, because maybe it was her turn to be there before she was needed.
Focusing herself, she held a hand close to Non and waited to hit, not wanting to draw the sword quite until they were on ground.
Do you think we'll find him? She asked Non.
He is the only man on the entire world. We will be able to see him from miles away.
Ko smiled grimly and looked back over at Cauren, bowing her head once and then looking determined. "Don't worry, we'll get him off this rock as soon as we can. And anything that gets in our way won't be there for long." She promised, grinning and holding out a mithril fist.
Cauren bumped the fist back with reassured enthusiasm and not a terrible amount of restraint, given it was Ko and she was fairly sure her friend would not be bowled over or hurt the way most folks that size might be by a non-delicate punch of her own size. She stood again after briefly looking at a rather curious application program from Earth called 'Skype' that permitted visual and vocal calls from astonishing distances in much the same way as holotech but cheaper, and briefly running the fingers of her other hand over the screen. "I'll tell Carol when we're done, I think. She's still asleep right now if I have my maths right..."
Hearing querying calls from deeper in the ship, Cauren hurried to scribble a note and offer it to Fluff. "Take it to her, girl. We'd better step lively, Ko, I think Sine's out and about."
The simple thing read 'Balrog dead, picked up friends, see you soon. Love and kisses'. So on. The pleasantries of an affectionate silly young mind trying very hard to get on with something without worrying the partner overly.
"How did that saying go, it is easier at times to seek forgiveness than permission?"
As the TARDIS warped into realspace, she set about rushing to the control panel and actually performing a controlled landing this time, nudging the ground gently as she did. The machine itself, from the trees to the pipes, performed an odd sort of music as she worked, each item on the star charts emitting a series of tones and cadences that overlapping together formed a very literal music of the spheres. A beautiful, if occasionally dischordant, overture of existence; but perhaps not entirely benignly played on the living ship's part.
Non may have been being, for some intents and purposes, mocked by the device she rightly accused of disliking her. All time and all things come to an end, and Nothing is absolute, true; but TARDIS was herself a celebration of the possibilities of things and times meeting together.
"Y'know, I'd say going for results first, forgiveness second is an excellent way to look at this mission. Especially if the hounds out here are willing to surrender their new two-legged friend peacefully." Ko said, smiling at the departing Fluff and watching Cauren work.
Her sword made another low groan in her head, and she turned to look back at the hilt with a raised eyebrow.
Something wrong?
Her machine sees fit to laugh and diminish me. I do not enjoy the feeling.
Oh. Uh... Do you want me to ask Her to be quiet? She thought back, trying not to show her amusement on her face. Non could feel it, but still.
No. Much as children poke large, slumbering predators with sticks, so is it between us two. Were I not a sword, I would attempt to argue certain realities, but I will bite my tongue and let It have It's joy of me.
Well, I appreciate you being the bigger metaphysical intelligence, here. Ko grinned, before turning back and watching the lights and devices of the ship's control room do their work. She glanced over at Cauren with a small smile- Ko knew there was no way in all of Hack that she'd have been able to pilot this thing, even with years of study; but Cauren made it look easy, if a little tiring.
"Alright! So, what are you thinking? Head to his last known location, follow the only set of humanoid footprints out there, throw a blanket over his shoulders and bundle him back double time, go out like a light and get home in time for a dinner or two?" Ko asked, cracking her neck and putting one hand back on her sword.
"That's fairly well it exactly, except with bringing along a biosphere metrics scanner to find any bipedals that wouldn't normally be on a dog world," Cauren nodded. "Tracking is a wonderful thing and we might very well accomplish it with just that, but there's been months he might have been moving about with them. This will make it a tad bit faster."
No sooner had she opened the door than TARDIS' song was cut off by a wild pack of brays, growls, howls, yaps, yips, and fairly every other sound imaginable as reaction, with one Chihuahua even confused enough about its size and power to bravely charge in and start worrying at Ko's boots. The more sober Dobermans outside sat in place like aldermen in a village, and the vast majority of the pups and grown fluffy things simply sat and sounded off and watched the portal. Outside, it became rapidly apparent that this was a funny sort of a place. Most of the vegetation that wasn't of varieties canids could eat safely were dogwood trees, and other such puns.
Cauren pointed past a small group of arctic wolves to a hillop with a tent and armor on a stake. "That's where he was last. He was washing that at the river when..."
Ko gingerly stepped out of the TARDIS, careful not to accidentally step on the little attacker's paws while she looked around at all the sitting dogs with a big, silly grin. She bent down and picked the Chihuahua up, holding it out at arm's length. It paddled at the air, whined, and gave her a reproachful look.
"Go on, badi." She said, setting it back down and determinedly ignoring it as it went right back to biting her boots and greaves. She surveyed the horizon and then focused back on the tent.
"Sounds well and good to me, then! I'd take scanning for him and moving out over the two of us spending a week walking this world to meet and the middle and turn up empty handed." She said, putting a hand to her brow and squinting at the staked armor.
She didn't draw Non, in case the dogs saw it as a hostile gesture, but she did immediately fall into formation. In front of Cauren and to the side, ready to interpose herself if anything bigger and deadlier than her little adversary showed it's face. She pushed the Chihuahua away with her toe before nodding to Cauren. "Seems a good place to start, anyway. I'll take point, if you don't mind... Wonder what this world smells like when it rains." She laughed, marching forward, doing her utmost not to tromp on any tails.
"I'll gladly follow you most anywhere, Ko," chirped the one doing so, appreciative for the laughter making the whole mood rather lighter, and gingerly brushed aside the ones silly enough not to move for giant feet. Most seemed to sensibly reconsider playing chicken with a multiton mom, though, and trotted to wary if respectful distances. She tried not to make too much noise to raise their howls as she trundled after the lithe armored tank of a woman. "I do hope it doesn't rain like cats and dogs here. ... I will deserve it if that actually happens, I suppose."
She picked up the pieces of green armor on arriving and looked over the place. "I don't think he's been here for some time."
"Can you find any tracks or anything? ... I wonder what these pups eat here."
A dogfish flopped up out of the river and wiggled as her eyes narrowed to slits and she strained not to snort.
"A few... They're clear, but If I had to guess, they're from foraging and day to day tasks." Ko said, kneeling and sifting through the ashes of the campfire with her hand. "I think you're right: Ceneric hasn't been here for a fair while. These ashes are white dust, and there's almost no food scraps I can see around this location. No way to haul water, either...." She said, standing up and peeking into the tent itself.
"I don't see any signs of a struggle, or evidence of other presences here that weren't our badis." Ko said, waving around at the assembled dogs. A border collie started panting. "So I'd guess he left under his own power and choice... Still, I can't see your little brother abandoning his armor without a good reason."
"We know he'd been eating at least, foodstuffs either brought to him or caught by him-" she glanced at the chihuahua in the crowd. "Hmm. Well, I'd guess he either followed the river or took one of these two trails." She said, pointing at both sets of tracks. She couldn't tell which one was fresher, only that both were the least old of all the footprints and neither looped back to the campsite.
"Well, Cauren, I think this is a dog eat dog world-" Ko grinned reassuringly. "So the sooner we hunt him down, the better. Which way does the scanner say he went?"
Cauren fiddled about with it and stuck her tongue out at the machine, then gently banged it once with a metal finger. "Come on, you."
It made a noise rather akin to C3-PO gargling mixed with an old fashioned Ethernet dialup modem sounding off before going flat entirely, and she made a very severely embarrassed face. "There aren't any satellites for it to get biosphere data from. There's no trails within about a good two mile of location though."
"Maybe Sine or Carol would know enough to reroute it to use the TARDIS' systems instead. I'm still learning. It seemed like a good option."
She made a disappointed face at it and then looked to the dogs. "I suppose we could try to ask them, if we spoke dog or if they understand. Or I could try diffusing my armor as a cloud of nanomachines and send it ahead of us in a completely insubstantial fog and try using that to ping with the scanner."
"Or both, I suppose. If you have a thought, Ko, it'd be welcome."
Ko shrugged at the scanner and looked around at the dogs once more. She was taking it in stride- no plan would ever be 100% able to cover everything. She'd had a rough idea of how to go about this, because it was always easier to fill in the blanks than have no blanks at all.
The important thing was to keep going.
"... We could find the highest possible point we can and create some kind of signal. Something obviously man-made, and that he'd recognize as friendly, but that relies on him seeing it from the first..." She muttered to herself, stroking her chin.
"... No, damn. Other than Hasting ourselves and starting a foot search, both your ideas sound like the best plans of action. I'll try to make contact with any dogs who will speak with me- let me know if I can help you or Ensemble." She said, nodding once to Cauren before heading over to a larger group of Collies, Huskies, and two pugs with her hands open at her sides and a smile on her face.
"Hello! My name is Ko." She said, bowing her head and only feeling a little ridiculous. Lying Cat and Fluff could understand her, why couldn't these dogs? "I'm speaking universal common. If you can understand me-" she pointed from her mouth to her ear. "-please bark twice. I am friendly and mean no harm. We are looking for this man." She pointed at herself, and then Cauren, before gesturing to Ceneric's camp and his armor.
The dogs looked between themselves almost guiltily for a long moment before an older husky Huskie that looked quite as though he might have been Fluff's father if he weren't half her size and build cleared his throat and peered up at her with bright blue eyes. "I suppose we really should help to get him home, shouldn't we? It's been fun for the pups to play, but this is not where the man child belongs."
He smiled a long sharp thin smile with some small amusement and sadness. "I'm sure you've met other speaking animals in your time at the bar, even if they were insects with particular powers. It's been a very long time since someone asked nicely enough to make me try common back, though, miss Friendly."
His tail began to wag slowly. "I can run you to him, if you follow closely enough. Please don't disturb the bones though. It makes them very angry."
Off faster than his gray would suggest, the dog sped. Cauren looked back at Ko and shrugged with a bemused bewilderment. "I didn't know they could?"
Ko started laughing as she ran after the two, catching up to Cauren and matching her pace as she looked up. "I expected a bark back, but sometimes things just work out!"
Ko loved running, and as she moved to the drogue of the Husky, behind and to the side, she focused ahead with happy eyes. It made her feel alive like nothing else but fighting did, because as long as you could take one more step, you didn't have to stop... And the secret was that you could always take one more step. Always.
The land flew from her- she wanted to follow the pack leader, but not close enough that she'd bump into him, so she stayed in good order with Cauren to stick together. The blooming dogweed and the sight of some other dogs excitedly running with them got her to smile a little.
She gave Cauren a thumb's up while keeping her eyes peeled for anything that looked like bones in her way, There was a patch of large rocks in front of her- Ko leapt almost deer like across them, near sprinting, before her feet crunched into solid ground again. She laughed with delight.
Although fairly clearly enjoying the chance to see and smell a new place again and to work a sweat up with a dear friend, it wasn't terribly long as double time marches go before, unfortunately for Ko's lively chase, before her running partner had to slow for breath and to balance on her knees. A fair amount of displeased kicking and the weight of the belly holding it stole the white haired woman's ability to keep any particular manner of speed. To her credit, the former knight did endure until a good half hour had passed before she had to rest after all, and a dead sprint for that long might well kill many exercising individuals -not- in her condition; but so it went.
She looked at Ko fairly guiltily as she cradled her stomach and trundled along rather more slowly after them. "You can go on, you know. I'll follow with the scanner. I don't want to keep you from having fun."
The leading dog looked back and circled to a stop to wait the black haired swordmaster's thoughts, although a Rottweiler nudged her forward with a wet nose.
Ko slowed down and then stopped, patting the Rottweiler's flank and turning to Cauren. She ran a hand through her hair and had on a rueful look of her own. "Er, sorry, Cauren. It's been a fair while since I could speed through a place that isn't the Plane of Shadows, I may have been a little distracted..."
"In any case, I don't fully trust the scanner, and I'd rather we stick together than get separated, especially since this is Our mission." She grinned and gestured to the both of them with a thumb, taking a couple of deep bracing breaths. "OUR mission. No man- or woman- left behind!" She love-tapped Cauren in the shoulder, before she started walking over to their guide. Before she reached the husky Huskie, she looked over her shoulder at her. Her grin wasn't as big, but it was just as sincere. "Besides- I'm having a damned lot of fun out here with you, running or not!"
When she reached the point-dog, she bowed her head and said "My apologies for the stop- metal ankles and distance don't mix." She fibbed, tapping her shin with her foot. "Thank you for helping us, by the by. We both appreciate it a great deal. Do you happen to know how much further it is?"
"Thanks are not needed, but the thought is," the husky wagged his tail as though he were trained, somewhat less eloquent, and being complimented as a good boy like a dog of show on Earth. "They are within one sunrise distance. Their mothers like to keep an eye on them, and both when they can be spared. We may have use of that 'haste' of yours you mention if you wish to go faster than a day's run, miss Friendly. Metal legs, hmm?"
He gave a sympathetic look at the both of them, although he looked as though half tempted to wink at Ko's fib. Perhaps he had previous experience with laden mothers and their friends attempting to keep a small amount of dignity or just found it hard to be terribly disagreeable. "Yes, metal legs, that would do it. We may go quite as fast at a slower actual pace, if that is what I believe it to be."
Cauren silently mouthed her thanks and thumped back as they continued, until her attention was again caught by the dog querying, "Where is Firemane, miss Friendly? The way she acted at first, we thought she held the pack for the Snowlock big pups. We did not see her. Might have called you Nighthair if you didn't introduce yourself so kindly."
She eyed a strand of her own growing out hair critically and decided that for poetic license it might as well be snowy locks, although it made her roll her eyes and snort a littlee bit. "Er, 'Firemane' is, ah, tending the cave. Miss Friendly is helping our pack. She's from another one, though we're happy to have her. Always."
"Ah. Well, off across the ice floe it is. Beware the sea wolves."
Ko mouthed "Nighthair." at Cauren with a cheeky little smile, before the air around her right hand wavered like a heat mirage as she Hasted herself, Cauren, and their guide. The world around her seemed to slow down just a little, even though at their new pace they were almost blurring the landscape at their sides.
The air was getting clear and crisp, and Ko could see the field of Ice approaching. It looked solid, but the white lines of sun that shone into her eyes suggested a whole lot of individual pieces floating out there. The sight heartened her- pups or not, the colder it got the more likely Ceneric would be around, or so she hoped.
Wary of Sea Wolves bursting from beneath their feet, she almost didn't see the huge chunk of ice breach the water and get itself stuck in her path. Almost. Still running, she drew Non and put her strength into a one-motion swing that shattered the block into chips and sent a cloud of diamond dust to her right. She shook her sword off once before re-sheathing it, careful throughout to mind her footing.
Over the squeak and crackle of ice running together, Ko laughed out loud again, happy to be moving, happy to have a goal in front of her. She glanced over at Cauren again with an appraising look before she said "Y'know, this might sound flippant, but I'm more and more glad that Balrog found it's way into the TARDIS. I know sooner or later I won't be seeing you... Well, quite as much, if at all, but at least the two of us got to go on our OWN damn vacation before then!"
"... Although next time, I'm picking were we go, Definitely somewhere that hasn't gone to the dogs." She joked. The Rottweiler groaned and looked up at Ko reproachfully.
"That's not a bad idea. ... Vacationing any you picking where to go, I mean. It might just perk up Carol's taste for adventure and whet Sine's a bit if we found a fun one," nodded the other, not quite cluing in on it being mainly a jest. "Oh, dear. I do hope she understands that the kissing business was all in good intent. She can fume sometimes."
"I'll just be thinking of a way to talk to her reasonably and get her in a good mood when we tell them all this, I suppo- whoa!"
She had stepped not on ice, but unnoticing, on an orca whale. The creature, extremely startled to have such an occurrence happen mid hunt by something of its own length, made a very high pitched squeak of reproach and tossed her before beelining at the ice. She landed entirely less clumsily than she'd chanced to walk and backpeddled for dry land. "Sea wolves?"
"Sea wolves," the guide noted. "They eat the sea lions. They are not usually so close to coast."
"If she didn't try to punch me that one night we all ended up in my hotel room in different states of unarmored and undressed, we should be fine." Ko chuckled, watching the disgruntled Orca head back into it's own watery realm. "Besides, what's a little something between friends and comrades?" She winked, privately grateful that the cold and the wind would keep the flush out of her cheeks.
"... I've been putting real thought into going back to Escorth, for a few days or maybe a week. I know you can't go home again, and I'm sure it won't be the same place I left, but I'd like to visit it. One last time, just in case..." She trailed off to pick up a chunk of ice and crush it to powder in her hand. "Well, just in case, I suppose. When I do, you all are of course invited! Even if we stick to the North, and mainly my home city, there's still some beautiful things I think you'd appreciate and I wouldn't mind seeing again."
"Sea wolves, huh? I was expecting, well, literal wolves with flippers, but that makes more sense." She said to their guide, watching to see if the Orca would re-surface. "... You have a nice home. I like it here. I'd never want to be marooned here, but I can see the appeal." She said appreciatively, looking back at the sun glinting off blocks of ice in the dark blue water.
"I thank you. It usually is 'nice', yes. Very much prettier than some of the places that we fared before. Oh, yes, there are dogs here that have... I am ashamed to say it, but lead lives of such unfortunate nature that 'living a dog's life' and 'dogs of the military' have become phrases your own peoples use as quips and metaphors. This is a haven where dogs have their own lives and freedoms, and we are grateful for it," the Huskie intoned with much more sobriety than the dancing blue eyes indicated he was capable of. "We did not wholly expect when Firemane brought menfolk back into our lives, though you have been welcome guests as yet. We might well have welcomed the younger Snowlock to stay longer still if you had not returned for him."
The Orca whale did resurface, but at the far end of the stretch of frozen over water, and just long enough to puff out a plume of water and stick a long tongue out with a yawp like a dolphin. Then it sailed on, apparently deciding that the smell of crushed ice and the size of the crusher's companion made bad inclinations for lunch in this area. Ko's Rottweiler companion picked a tracing trail through the areas without much chance of letting them sink through, and into a very large cave set with odd stone formations that reflected the sky above in refracted lights and colors throughout the chamber.
On the floor, a writhing mass of puppies and a very large, very barely visible hand wrestled until the parent dogs barked, and then a terribly surprised eye peered out of the blanket of fur at them. "Ko? How did you get here? What in goodness-? Oh, are those pants?"
Ever pragmatic, he clad himself as soon as his sibling tossed him the doffed articles and showed himself as soon as that was done, perhaps a little embarrassed. "I haven't talked to someone in so long, it's so good to see you!"
The hug might have crushed someone that wasn't Ko.
"I'm so sorry, little brother-" Cauren began, but the other, and the horde of tiny fuzzballs, simply tided over the large woman. One that has never been licked thirty thousand times in a minute has not lived 'forgiven' quite so much.
Ko grinned and hugged back tightly as well, eventually pounding Ceneric on the back and stepping away to bow her head. "I'm damned glad to see you as well, Ceneric! I'd hoped you would be alive and not too worse off for wear, but until I saw it with my own eyes I was almost expecting the worse. I have to say, I like the beard- makes you look fierce!"
Ko hunkered down and patted some of the puppy herd; she even let them confusedly smell her hands and jump to her for attention, but when she stood back up and looked at Ceneric, she shook her head.
"I'm sorry as well, Ceneric. Even if this rock hasn't been all bad for you, this shouldn't have come to pass. I would have come sooner, but I just didn't know... Cauren is probably sick to death of hearing it, but No Man Left Behind is one of my personal oaths, and I feel I left you behind, knowingly or not. Please forgive me for failing you. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again." She promised, kneeling and bowing her head once more.
When she looked and had gotten back up, the ghost of her earlier smile had appeared. "Are you about ready to get the Frag out of here? I've got a fair lot to tell you on the way back to the ship, and I'm sure Cauren does as well. That and any survivor stories you've got, I'd love to hear them!... You have been eating, right? If not I'm going to go turn the tables so hard on a Sea Wolf the whole thing will split down the middle!"
Cauren chewed her fingernail and shook her head. "I'm sure not a one of us will ever be tired of hearing that oath. It's a very worthy one."
Ceneric, on the other hand, simply lit up several degrees further. "FOOD? Real food? I'll follow you anywhere."
"I hope not! Although in the best kind of universe you'd never hear it again, but, well..." Ko raised her hands and shrugged her shoulders. Her stymied expression disappeared once Ceneric spoke, though. It changed to chagrin when her own stomach grumbled.
"Well, first things first, let's see about getting one of those whales out of it's fat and into the fire, and THEN I'll catch one for the both of you, too!" She laughed, drawing Non and pausing to pet a few more puppies. Before she advanced back out of the glimmering cave, she looked back to the Husky.
"It won't be a problem if we cull one of the Sea Wolves, would it? I wouldn't want to offend your people, especially after all you've done for us. What's your name? If you ever happen to need a sword arm, I won't forget the favor."
"It will not be any great disturbance to lose one, if only one. It may even honor you if you best it," contemplated the dog calmly. "My name is ... oh goodness, what was it. I seem to have mislaid it somewhere. No! I lent it to a young pup that went venturing out to make people feel better, nigh on two years back. It used to be Tiberius. Now I'm Old Dog, I suppose. Did you have one you preferred, Miss Friendly?"
This blogpost in a nutshell: http://www.omfgdogs.com/
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