SSD 5.07 - Warm Fuzzy Feelings

A slightly early offering of your weekly chapter, enjoy.

“The skill of an artist is in this, how well they render in stone, paint, or note, the transitory ephemeral of flesh and feeling. Mere accuracy is the domain of the proficient. Meaning is the domain of the artist.”

- Irakkas Ovajad, prodigy multidisciplinary artist, to a student.

==Caden==

The slogi were in their own section of the stable, sealed off by a sturdy wall. The reason was fairly obvious once I looked at it. Slogi either loved or needed the cold, and while they were cuddled up together, they were also cuddling in a large pile of semi-compacted snow. Looser bits of snow had found their way onto lines of protruding fur, adding a granular outline that made them even less distinct, and feel even fluffier. This section of the stable had a completely solid ceiling, but the walls formed a lattice, allowing the cold wind to blow through.

Brosta trailed behind me, but I could still sense the smile on her face. Admittedly, that smile was likely a reaction my own mad grin at seeing the cuddle puddle.

“They’re adorable,” I said, “who owns them?”

“The adventurer’s guild, ultimately,” she said, “though they were assigned to the scouting team, I think. The stable master is back there somewhere, if you really need to know,” she pointed vaguely to the crowd outside that had warily watched me as I toured the area. “Once all the paperwork is figured out they will probably be reassigned. They are the best mounts for Freeze, hands down, but they are carnivores, so quite expensive to maintain. Fortunately, they can store a large amount of food and then sleep to help conserve it as needed, or the costs would be even more unmanageable. Lots of nobles keep a couple in their stables though, if only for engaging in winter hunts.”

I nodded.

“What about horses, I assume they have trouble with this level of snow?”

“Horses,” she said looking puzzled for a moment…

The language had a word for them… are they just not common?

Her face cleared a moment later. “Oh, you mean the animals that live on the shifting plains. Yes, the nomads their use them as mounts and beasts of burden, but they are too fragile for the cold elsewhere…” She trailed off for a moment. “They have to retreat to a vale when Burn comes, cannot take that heat either, especially in the plains.”

“They get hot?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, Lord Caden, they are on the mid-line of the world.”

Equator?

“Almost all the hottest places are on the mid-line. Even outside a vale some of them are almost pleasant in Freeze. Barely below freezing, if you can imagine, even rising above some days. Of course, they pay for it when Burn comes. Only the coasts and the vales are livable there then.”

I winked at her. “I wouldn’t know, I’m kind of a homebody, can never just seem to muster up the courage to leave my house behind.”

She laughed, the sound loud and clear, carrying both a measure of true joy and an invitation to join in. So I did, laughing with her, more amused than I had expected, and feeling a part of my soul be soothed.

I needed this, a true human connection, and not just the adoration of Zidaun.

Or maybe I just needed a good laugh, or both.

“Yes, I,” she managed, before she had to stop to suppress another laugh, “I imagine that most people don’t have quite so much to pack. And finding a travel chest sized for a mountain would be its own challenge.”

I smiled broadly.

“Guess I’ll need to commission something special. Know anyone who is really good at making luggage?”

“I don’t think I know anyone capable of taking on a project quite so… momentous.”

“Are you calling me fat, madam? I’m shocked, truly shocked.” I said with over-dramatic outrage. “Why, I’ve hardly eaten more than a single mountain all year. I’m just big boned.”

She doubled over laughing again, as I continued. “Sure they are the bones of the earth, but really that shouldn’t make a difference. Judging a gentleman for his size, for shame…”

“Stop,” she gasped, convulsing the laughter, “can’t stop.”

It took a few minutes but she finally finished laughing, wiping at the tears in her eyes. I wasn’t sure if I had actually been that funny, or if the simple absurdity of someone who was both a dungeon, a self proclaimed lord, and a person cracking fat jokes had overwhelmed her ability to reason.

“I’m glad you enjoyed my little jokes,” I said.

I turned back to the slogi, still lightly snoring and apparently as undisturbed by us as the wood of the stable.

“Would it harm them if I touched them, or woke them up?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t hurt them, they are more likely to hurt you by accident, or by attempting to play-”

My mind momentarily blanked as I imagined being pounced on by an over-eager slogi, both from how much I wanted that to happen and how that could easily hurt most people. I wasn’t most people.

“-and, if they are woken up they will burn through quite a bit more food for a while.”

I looked around, seeing some barrels against a nearby wall, and it took no more than a brief relaxation of my awareness to confirm they were filled with chunks of dried meat.

I pointed at the barrels, “Those are filled with meat, is that their food?”

She nodded, “I believe so, Lord Caden, though I’m not in charge of the stable.”

I smiled, “Find out for me, please. Let the stable master know I am waking them up. He is welcome to join us, if he likes. I’ll provide additional food so nothing is lost.”

Probably give him something as well, if he proves helpful.

I could see Brosta looking at me dubiously, though obviously hesitant to say anything.

Why is she… oh. Right. She said it might be dangerous.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “This body is extremely durable, the most they could do is shred my clothes and chip the stone. Even if they broke it entirely this isn’t me, just a vessel for my presence, easily remade.”

And I would be damned surprised if a slogi could break this body.

After it became obvious I was going to need to interact with the public, I had fashioned a fully customized version. The thing about my body, was that it was stone, or at least that was all they had been. However, as far as my powers were concerned, metal could be moved just as easily as stone. Stone was less threatening, to me, than a man of gleaming metal, and with a little preparatory work I could have the best of both worlds.

My new body was marble, polished with a half-luster that echoed the Renaissance statues that seen both in person and in various images. Honestly, my old body had been rendered with the care of a Greek god. I had the same body type too, as long as we were leaning more toward Dionysus than Zeus. I had emphasized the muscles slightly, though I didn’t remove the moderate sheathes of fat embracing the muscles, and aged up my old form slightly, placing me firmly into the “dad bod” category. There was absolutely some vanity to my decision, but since it was literally impossible for me to exercise or grow older, I would need to make any changes myself. In addition, there was some use to having a presence with more gravitas.

I shouldn’t have been able to make it work, not really. My imagination was good, but I didn’t really have the skills needed to properly change my own form into something that was still identifiable as me, but served as a more idealized version. I could create a new statue of someone that looked like this, but it wouldn’t have been me. I’m sure having a perfect replica of my old shape would have let me cobble something together, but it wouldn’t have blended together this well.

I didn’t have the skill for this, or rather, I hadn’t. The art skill I had gained was usually subtle, but working with something so intimately familiar, and changing it, rather than creating from whole cloth, I could see the subtle guidance that it provided. It offered nothing more than a slight guidance, a suggestion of a path to take, but that was more than enough then I could make changes almost instantly, shifting through dozens of variations within a single minute.

That wasn’t the only part of the skill. I was remembering more. Art was everywhere on Earth, and all the examples I had seen throughout my life burned slightly clearer in my memory. With the shear abundance of art, whether in the functional beauty in a glass cup, the advertisements and branding plastered across every accessible inch of our lives, the music that filled up the idle waiting moments, or the videos and movies that we watched, enormous stretches of my memory were clearer than they had ever been.

I had watched countless movies with the family on the creaking leather of the couches, eating popcorn and shushing dad when he couldn’t resist the urge to comment. And all of them were a little clearer. Not just the movies, but the entire experience, because art didn’t end with the product of the artist, but extended into the emotions and experiences that it engendered, making the entire process of experiencing it have greater clarity.

It was an unexpected gift, but one that I treasured. I remembered the talks with Dad and Mom, after a movie, about what we enjoyed, and about the messages they carried. Ultimately, those messaged boiled down to simple things, but simple does not mean petty.

“Groundhog Day” had emphasized the importance of people and connections, illustrating beautifully that infinite time was meaningless without purpose. “Bicentennial Man” had done much the same, though with more focus on what it meant to be human at all, and how we should treat others who may find themselves under our power.

“My Fair Lady,” for all its humor and Broadway dressing, had shown both that strength of character could be learned and grown, that society determined people’s worth most by context, that abuse did not need to be simply endured, and that determination and perseverance could propel you forward, though mistakes and missteps were inevitable.

There was an endless cavalcade of movies, and museums, and art, and music, and the constant presence of my family. My father, more for the movies, and my mother more for the museums and the art, her quiet support and joy in my engagement a more constant lesson in love than the words that were also freely offered.

My family wasn’t particularly religious, other than my parents both emphasizing that love one another was meant to the be the primary commandment. That was, according to the Christians, supposed to be the second most important commandment, with loving god as the first. And yet, Christ had also stated that if you loved him, you should feel his sheep, so both those commandments were really commandments to care for everyone. To be Christian and opposed to feeding and clothing the poor was to embrace hypocrisy of the highest order. They had pointed out, repeatedly, when discussions had turned to current affairs, that religion or not, anyone who tried to put something above the welfare of the normal people usually had an agenda that went in the opposite direction.

I didn’t grieve for leaving Earth behind, that emotion processed in what I now knew was likely some scheme by The System, to prepare me to be here, but I still missed them. I didn’t know what happened to the soul, when we waited between lives, if we waited between lives, but I hadn’t completely given up hope of seeing them again.

All of that had come up as I designed my own body, delving back into the memories of art.

Of course, the artistry of the surface was only part of it. My human form could simply be unvariegated, a solid block of stone save for the emptiness of the lungs, but with a little twist of effort and intent I had made the stone shift, condensing and moving stone until muscles, bones, nerves, veins, and ligaments took the place of solidity. And, from there, I had started replacing things. I could have simply been a block of solid steel, with a thin sheet of stone, but I had wanted to see what it would mean if it was closer to what it had once been.

I had made crysteel, some time before, combining steel and mana crystal in the same way I had previously done with folerth. With the addition of a seed crystal, the same helical structures had woven their way around the steel alloys, creating a version of steel that was both strong and could store mana. And, unlike pure mana crystals, it wouldn’t explode when it reached maximum capacity. Instead, it simply refused to pack any more into it. Even if mana was forced in, it simply flowed right back out again. And it was strong as steel, just as a beginning point. That was important to note, because it didn’t stay that strong. The denser the mana imbued into it, the stronger the material became. Heavy impacts, which would have been enough to damaged an equivalent in steel, instead compressed the helices, which then sprung back as the mana was compressed and pushed back in turn. Some mana was lost as the pressure forced it out in other places, but it still was exceptionally resilient. A hard enough impact could still distort or shatter the material, no matter how much mana it contained, but it was exceptionally durable for any ordinary use.

And it now comprised my bones. Other versions, other variations, of materials mixed with mana crystal had different effects and capabilities, as did simply different proportions of any individual material’s mixtures. The strongest version of steel was used for the bones. A more flexible steel, with both different metals alloying the iron and a different proportion of mana crystal made up my muscles. My ligaments and tendons were comprised of a much more elastic version. Everywhere, throughout my body, different metals and materials had been used. Most of them probably didn’t matter, but I did it just in case they might matter. Gold took the place of my nerves, to carry electrical impulses with the speed of lightning, and my stone brain became a mixture of copper, silver, and gold, each placed in areas of different densities of neuronal structures.

And when I was finished, and stepped into a new body crafted specifically for me, evoking back to more former nature, there were differences. My senses were the same, and the movement of the body remained, but there was a sense of familiarity, to feel the muscles and the bones and the tendons sliding past one another. And my voice still echoed, but the layers of different metals and stone had damped the sound down slightly, making me sound less like an echoing cave and more like someone giving a speech in a particularly resonant building.

After I declared the nature of my body, though without anywhere close to the real details, Brosta had merely hummed slightly, then left to go fulfill my request.

In the meantime, I got to do something truly important, pet the dragon cats. They had no wings, of course, but there was something distinctly draconian about them. I wasn’t sure if it was the pink triangular nostrils at the end of its slightly stub snout, which quivered slightly with each faintly whistling snore, the flat line of a mouth which was quickly buried beneath the encompassing fur to either side, or the vaguely hexagonal shape of its face, the top and sides making planes that met at the snout, where instead of white fur, a slight gray covered the nose and lips, as though it has just dipped them into slightly dirty snow.

Yeah, think it is the shape of the face, how it seems vaguely reptilian.

The six legs, each sporting five razor sharp claws, though they were currently retracted, certainly added to the image.

I reached out, touching the exquisitely soft fur, my hand disappearing from sight entirely beneath the layers of fluff.

So soft.

I pet the slogi in front of me, gently stroking the fur of its face. After a few moments, it stirred, and its mouth opened into a yawn, showing a much wider mouth once it wasn’t hidden by the fur. On a primal level some old human instinct was unnerved by the display of very large and very sharp fangs, but it was handily overwhelmed by the portions of me that were screaming about the giant adorable yawning kitty.

It opened its eyes, its gaze inquisitive, and I could see that in its eyes, at least, it was not much like a cat or dragon at all. They were huge, though not so large as to seems cartoonish, instead merely taking its level of cuteness and raising it to dangerous squeeing and toe curling levels of cute aggression. The pupils were round, forming large deep circles that were surrounded by a blue-purple evoking the late dusk, which extended to cover the entire eye, leaving no sclera visible at all.

Even with all the trouble, and feeling the oncoming presence of the stable master, as the enormous face pressed against my hand seeking more scritches, I had only a single thought: worth it.