Beasts, Not Men [1]

Liam awoke in the morning refreshed. He didn't dream, in fact he couldn't remember the last time he dreamed. It always just felt like he laid his head down, closed his eyes, and woke up to the sun cascading through the boarded shanty window of his cabin.

"Noona, Morning Diagnostic scan. Please," Liam said. He himself didn't realize the polite tone he was giving to the AI in his head, something he had never considered saying to NANO.

<Ooh, we have good numbers here but one slight problem.>

"Huh? What's wrong, I feel fine?"

<Diagnostic scan shows a 40% increase in vasodilation to the perineum. Advising immedi-Damn it let me-!>

Liam smacked his arm, the place that Noona had decided to place herself. He knew where she was going with this line of information about his 'vasodilation'…

"I'm just going to go relieve my bladder. No need for any other nonsense, got it?"

<There is a perfectly good option to 'relieve' yourself camping right outside…> grumbled Noona, clearly upset at having been seen through so easily this morning.

After a quick morning ablation, Liam came back to his cabin and pulled out a small wok that had been so worn it was basically a frying pan.

"Do you think that Huli have a problem with a vegetarian meal? I haven't been able to get any meat in…quite a while." Liam said as he began sautéing a vegetable medley of fresh picked mushrooms, potatoes from his little garden, green onions, and his last couple zucchini.

He used the last bit of his deer fat he had saved for a rainy day in order to give a little savory flavor to the vegetables. It would compliment the mushrooms greatly.

Lastly, he decided to boldly go and collect the water he used in his filter system to cook with. He figured at this point it wouldn't make him sick, and it could be beneficial for Luna.

"Hey Noona, I meant to ask, why is there so much genetic energy in my water source? Is there a contamination from a dark matter gene crystal?"

<Yes actually. I can tell from the quantum entanglement of the crystal currently in your duodenum that the source of this water passes through the bottom of a Turret in the North. Most likely, a few tree roots blocked up the water source causing it to flood the bottom of the turret before continuing the trek to your little open ground spring. >

<The Dark matter contamination looks reminiscent of the biological attacks from years ago, so NANO never corrected the misunderstanding.>

Liam nodded before taking a sip of the water boldly. He felt a surprisingly mild energy flow though his body and noticed that his energy levels seemed to rise a little bit. It was like drinking a cup of fresh coffee.

"Ooh, I could get used to that. Like a shot of espresso." Liam smiled with a grin of satisfaction on his face. NANO kept him from enjoying this for ten thousand years just to save some processing power? Tsk, so stingy.

Liam finished the vegetables and poured them into two small glass bowls. He realized he didn't have but one fork, so he grabbed a piece of cedar and thinned it neatly into two narrow thin rods using Noona's assistance with shaping it.

In only a few seconds he had a dark cherry wood colored pair of chopsticks in his hands. After a moment of thought, he carefully sculpted a little fox with two tails on the rear end of the two sticks before going outside.

Luna hadn't slept well. She had too many thoughts and concerns in the night. She also was contending with her own body trying to betray her dignity. She awoke in the morning to a unique smell she had never smelled before. It made her salivate, and she had no idea what it was.

As Luna freshened herself up, her sensitive ears picked up a disturbance from slightly up the hill from her, Liam had opened the cabin door. She waited for a moment and glanced at her two tails. A determined flash appeared in her eyes and she decided to use some of her restored Glamour.

Her ears appeared to look cute and small, curved like Liam's. Her two tails became no longer visible. This consumed a fair amount of Glamour, but just once she wanted to see how Liam would look at her if she was…pure.

She steeled herself and opened her tent flap and stepped outside into the sunlight. She heard Liam's response before she saw it. He had completely stopped moving. Her heart shook, was she that much more beautiful in his eyes without her ears and tails?

Feeling ashamed of her inferior blood, she mustered her courage and looked up at Liam. When she saw his face filled with concern, she was confused. She was just about to ask him what was wrong before his voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Goddamn it. I knew it. I knew that water had some kind of negative circumstance. Are you ok? Did it hurt? I'll find a way to fix it, just let me talk with Noona a little bit. Don't look at your reflection in the meantime, it's too boring."

'Boring? Negative circumstance?' Luna paused before she realized what Liam thought. 'He thinks it is bad that I don't have my tails and ears? He has already embraced me for who I am?' Luna's eyes briefly shook as a pink tint overtook her gaze and the world seemed perfect. Suddenly, she was dealt a harsh reminder of just who she was talking to.

"How will this affect your Glamour? Do you even still have genetic energy? I didn't mean to reduce your fighting prowess, much less your ability to survive. Don't worry, you were pretty weak to start with, I'll handle whatever comes your way until you learn how to fight without your Glamour." Liam said, completely oblivious to the pink world spreading out around him.

Luna really wanted to hit him. But she held back because she knew he was trying to think with her best interests at heart. Even if it was completely belittling. Luna released her Glamour and her ears and tails reappeared.

<See doofus, she was trying to give you a good impression but instead you made her sound useless. Idiot.> Noona spoke up in perfect timing just as Liam realized what had happened.

"I'm not the idiot, you are! I just wanted to make sure she knew she should feel comfortable being herself around me!" Liam quickly spun his mind to come up with the most 'white knight' thing he could come up with. Looking at the pink rising in Luna's cheeks, it looked like he won his gamble. Before he could say anything else, Luna asked him,

"What is that in your hands?" As she spoke, her nose wiggled, clearly engrossed in the delicious smell.

"Oh this? It's breakfast. Hope you don't mind a vegetarian meal, I'm out of meat." Liam came back to his senses and spoke.

Luna's eyes focused on the bowl in front of her. It was a clear material, like crystal. But it was so smooth and clear it was like no crystal she ever saw. Furthermore, there were two thin smooth sticks in the bowl and she saw that they had beautiful little foxes carved into them. Each fox had two tails. It was obvious Liam had made them in consideration of her.

Luna gently picked up the two sticks and tried stabbing the vegetables in her bowl with them. When she heard Liam laugh, she thought that he was playing a trick on her. Then, Liam took the chopsticks from her and showed her how to use them before he lifted the tiny metal spear in his bowl to eat.

Most of the Fera ate with their hands, and the idea of using a precious Smith's time to make something just for eating, or a fletcher's skills to make such a unique utensil was nonsense.

Luna ate with relish. The vegetables in her bowl were absolutely perfectly cooked with a slight umami taste that made her think the dish had meat in it, even though there clearly wasn't any. After they finished eating, Liam took the dishes and put them away. Luna then heard Liam mutter something strange "Guess I don't have to save this anymore, I can go ahead and indulge any time."

Liam pulled out his pipe and tobacco and after a few seconds and a quick lean over Luna's flaming tail that surprised her, Liam started puffing smoke. He no longer had to ration his tobacco. Turns out that Gold didn't matter when you were an alchemist, and as long as he could reconstitute his tobacco, he would never run out.

Luna watched the bizarre ritual Liam performed, wondering why he made a small sacrificial altar and inhaled the smoke from the offering, but in order to not be rude she didn't interrupt. When Liam finished, she then spoke to him with a feverish tone to her voice.

"Ok, We need to cross the Rolling Mountains and move to the warm Southern lands. After we get to the Southern lands we will run into more Ipili, but it is the shortest path to move west to the Leviathan."

"The Leviathan? What is that?" Liam asked quizzically.

"The Leviathan is the great river that crushes the continent. It is ever expanding in all four directions. Some say it will one day join the South Sea, Rolling Mountains, Five Great Basins, and the western Shattered Peaks." Liam paused for a moment and then asked, "Are the Five Great Basins lake beds and the Shattered Peaks the remnant of a mountain range like the Rolling Mountains."

Luna nodded.

"Ok, well, let's set off and see what we find!" Liam's burning enthusiasm for the journey ahead had a touch of mania. Such was the desire of a man forced into confinement for ten thousand years.