It was the final day of Alex and Rixie’s vacation/Business trip to Archavia. They were in the city of Aementos, the capital of Aement, to oversee the opening of Alex’s first Archavian location for Rixie’s.
Or, that is to say, Rixie was there to oversee it- being the owner on paper- and Alex was there to make sure she sounded like she knew what she was talking about.
Fortunately, they also had Renna there to help make things go smoothly.
Everything appeared to be on track for the grand opening in a few days, and with their business taken care of for the day, the two of them had decided to take in a few of the sights around the city. They were walking through the downtown district when Alex suddenly heard a strange sound.
“Shh… did you hear that?” Alex asked, which made Rixie stop short.
“You mean that rustling sound from down that dark alleyway?” Rixie asked, her electronic voice still somehow being able to convey her amused tone.
“Yeah! Let’s go check it out!”
“In what universe is that ever a good idea?” Rixie muttered, even as she turned to head down the alley.
As they entered the alley, they noticed a number of empty boxes and piles of trash stacked up against the walls of the buildings on either side. Rixie’s eyes narrowed and her shoulders squared as she assessed the area for possible threats. She briefly considered taking Alex and slipping him into her pocket for safe keeping.
About halfway into the alley, they saw the source of the commotion. A furry long-tailed animal was digging through the boxes; it’s abnormally lengthy tail twitching excitedly.
“Oh.” Rixie let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Just a shaar. Come on Alex, let’s go.”
She had just turned to leave when suddenly a piercing scream cut the air.
Rixie whirled back around, alarmed.
“That sounded human!” Alex exclaimed.
Swiftly, and only half thinking, Rixie swept Alex into her hand and deposited him into her pocket. Then she rushed forward and seized the animal by the scruff of its neck. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a pawful of cuts across the back of her hand as the animal hissed and spit angrily, trying to get away.
Ignoring the pain, she reached out with her other hand and snagged the creature’s tail, so that it couldn’t whip it at her as shaars were known to do.
She gently lobbed the creature away from her and away from where it had been digging in the garbage. The creature landed on its feet and whirled back around, hissing furiously at her. Rixie stomped her foot at the animal “Get out of here!” She yelled.
The shaar hesitated, and then fled out into the street.
Swiftly, Rixie turned back to the trash pile. Taking Alex out of her pocket, she set him on the ground.
Alex wasted no time. He dove towards the pile, throwing garbage behind him in a frenzy. “Hello?” He cried. “Is anybody in here? Can you hear me?!”
After a second, Rixie knelt down and began clearing away the garbage as well. With her help it didn’t take long before they found what had interested the shaar so much.
Laying on the pavement, her body a mess of cuts and scratches, was a woman. Alex rushed forward and brushed her long dark hair out of her face, lowering his ear to listen for any sounds of breathing. After a few seconds he reached for her neck and, heedless of the blood that flowed onto his hand from her many wounds, tried to feel for a pulse.
He didn’t find one.
His mouth set in a grim line, he looked up at Rixie and shook his head.
Rixie suddenly felt sick. She sat back and put her head in her hands. She was a soldier, she’d seen her share of death… and yet… the sight of that tiny human woman’s broken body… it shook her.
“Oh… Alex… I’m so sorry.” Rixie said sadly.
“Rixie… you did everything you could.” Alex walked forward and placed a hand on her boot, which was the only part of her he could reach. He swallowed the lump in his throat before continuing. “You can’t even really blame the shaar… it was just doing what nature made it to do.”
Rixie opened her mouth to respond, when suddenly there was another rustling from the garbage pile.
Cautiously, Alex crept forward.
“Careful Alex…” Rixie warned. Every muscle in her body was tense and ready to snatch him out of harm’s way.
Alex waved an acknowledgement and then carefully lifted the garbage away from the area the noise was coming from.
He was not expecting what he saw.
There, blinking in the unexpected light was a child. A young boy, who was naked and covered in dirt. Alex guessed he couldn’t be more than a year or two old, although it was hard to tell because of how small and malnourished the child appeared to be.
“Oh my god…” Alex breathed. Cautiously, he squatted down and approached the boy. He expected the child to shy away but to his own and Rixie’s surprise, he practically leaped into Alex’s arms.
Reflexively, Alex wrapped his arms around the boy and lifted him up.
“He’s… He’s shaking like a leaf!” He turned towards Rixie with a panicked look on his face. “What… what do I do?”
Rixie blinked, unsure herself. “Don’t… don’t let him see the body… here.” She lowered her hand and carefully wrapped her fingers around both of the humans. Gently, as if she carried something made of glass, she lifted them both and deposited them in the pouch attached to her belt.
“Just stay there for a bit, okay? Keep the kid calm.” Reaching into her pack, she withdrew a square of clean white cloth that she usually kept with her supplies. Carefully, reverently, she knelt down and wrapped the still form of the woman’s body in the cloth.
She raised herself back up onto her feet and carried the wrapped body out of the alleyway. She walked a few blocks to a small park that they’d past earlier. There Rixie found a nice spot under the shade of a tall strong tree and dug a small hole.
Gently, she lowered the woman’s body into the ground.
She stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say, if anything. She had a strong desire to apologize to the woman. For what, she wasn’t exactly certain. Possibly for failing to stop the shaar in time. Maybe it was the fact that it was her people that had caused the woman to be in that kind of position in the first place. It didn’t matter; Rixie couldn’t seem to find the words anyway.
So instead, she carefully covered the woman with the soil, starting with her feet, then the rest of her body, and finally her head.
Rixie cleared her throat. This didn’t seem like enough. She glanced around and found a flowerbed with small pebbles around each of the plants. She gathered several stones with interesting color patterns and covered the makeshift grave with them.
Rixie stood there, looking down at the grave, wishing she had inspiring or poetic words that she could speak over it. But she was a soldier; she wasn’t very good at that kind of thing.
Instead, she stood and raised her hand into the Archavian Imperial salute. The woman had given her life to protect her child. Rixie could honor that, at least.
After a moment of respectful silence, Rixie sighed and rubbed her face with her hand. She’d done all she could for the mother. It hadn’t been enough, but now it was time to worry about the son.
Wordlessly, she turned and walked away.
After getting a fair distance away from the woman’s grave, she gently placed her hand into her pouch and fished Alex out again. He still had the boy who was clutching tightly to his neck.
“How is he doing?” She asked softly, afraid of frightening the child.
The boy’s head turned at the sound of her voice. Rixie couldn’t read his expression. She wasn’t sure if he was frightened or not.
“What’s your name, little one?” Rixie asked softly. The boy blinked at her, confused and shook his head. Rixie decided to try a different way. “What did they call you?”
The child remained silent, wordlessly staring up at her with large expressive eyes. Rixie noted that he looked more curious than frightened. She hoped that was a good sign.
“If he had a name, I don’t think he knows it Alex.” Rixie sighed. “Or maybe he doesn’t understand what we’re saying. Maybe his mother spoke a different language to him, I don’t know. We can worry about that later though. First let’s find out if there were any other humans around. Maybe he had other family.”
She returned to the mouth of the alley and set Alex down on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked her.
“They might not come out if they see me. Go on… it’ll be okay.”
“But what if they don’t understand me?” Alex took a tentative step into the alleyway.
“Don’t worry, if they see you with the child, they’ll come out… assuming there are any more in the first place.”
Alex set the boy down and took his hand. “Come on, kid.”
The two of them walked a little ways into the alley, with Rixie watching them both nervously.
The small hand was trembling inside Alex’s own, but the boy followed behind him without a word.
“Hello?” Alex called, “Is anybody here?”
There wasn’t any response.
“It’s okay to come out!” Alex tried again. “Nobody is going to hurt you!”
Still, there was only silence.
After waiting a few seconds more, Alex bent down to scoop the child back into his arms and walk back to where Rixie crouched at the entrance to the alleyway.
Alex looked up at the titan. “No dice, Rix.”
Rixie hesitated, but only for a second “Do you have a daddy or any other family?” She asked the little boy slowly.
The child seemed to consider the question, and then shrugged, shaking his head.
“Looks like there’s nothing else for it,” Alex sighed, scratching the back of his head. “We’ll have to take him with us.”
Rixie nodded and lowered her hand for them both to climb on. Alex sat down in the palm of her hand and, much to his surprise, the boy settled down in his lap. Within minutes he was fast asleep.
“What do we do now Rix?”
The titan woman blinked and bit her lip. “Well, obviously we can’t just leave him here…” Rixie muttered hesitantly. “And we certainly aren’t taking him to a Human Owners Society shelter. Really there’s only… I mean… I-I guess we take care of him…”
“He’ll need a name…” Alex responded.
“What?” Rixie muttered, distractedly.
“A name, Rixie.” Alex repeated. “He needs a name. We can’t just keep on calling him ‘the kid’ or something.”
“Oh right. Of course, yes. A name.” Rixie peered off into the distance, as if momentarily lost in thought. “Maybe… maybe you should give him a name from Earth, Alex. A human name. I think that would be fitting.”
“Yeah… Okay… a human name.” Alex muttered, scratching the back of his head as he tried to think. “How about the name Ryan? That was my father’s name.”
Rixie seemed to consider the name.
“Ryan…” She spoke the name before nodding her head in approval. “Ryan Alexander Carey. I like it.”
“We’re giving him my last name?” Alex wondered.
“Of course! The name Tam can’t be inherited. It’s not a ‘family’ name after all.” Rixie explained as if that should have been obvious.
“Oh. Right. Of course.”
A few minutes passed in silence between them.
“Uh… Rixie?”
“Yes?”
“Did… did we just adopt a kid together?”
Rixie stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes scrunched as she paused to consider the question, then they widened in surprise and she looked down at Alex with a terrified look on her face.
She’d suddenly realized that yes; they had in fact just adopted a kid together.
Been meaning to ask this for awhile and its kind of off topic but… What happened to the old short stories you guys used to have on giantessworld like Nonas Favorite Game. Cant seem to find them on this site.
Nonah’s Favorite Game was never added her because of the overtly sexual nature of it. I agree with their reasoning on that story; It just didn’t really fit, thematically, with the rest of Physics.
Their decision to omit the Alex and Rixie short story is one I don’t agree with though. Zhan’s story in Pandemic confirms it happening, and the sexual contents of that story are rather mild. It also has a few good character development moments that I feel were reason enough to make the story worth keeping.
Ya know…I wonder whatever happened to that giant mutant donkey thingy? The one Privani use to ride in on.. I think it was called a dawnstar? Probably don’t need it now.. Buuuut ….
They could use it for pony rides! for Thyllia and maybe Eyrn if she visits. Maybe Ryan could hitch a ride if he desires, but not Zahn for obvious reasons 🙂 🙂 🙂
For some reason I thought he was their biological child. That doesn’t preclude them from having kids of their own (bio kids/hybrid). Probably Titan sized…Now that would be interesting….’big’ brother Ryan with his ‘little’ sibling 🙂
I have no doubt that Rixie would make an awesome mom….
There’s a character arc to be had there, if you start with Rixie being nervous and awkward with children, and end with Rixie being an awesome mother. The end of this story sets that up nicely.
Well, we have a method to our madness Starr. Through long debate and hacking it out, we’ve decided that the type of Hybrid you get, is determined by the mother. You get a Human Hybrid(as I call them) if the mother is a human, and you get a Titan Hybrid if your mother is a titan.
Simple, I had suggested something far more complex, but it didn’t sit well with J.S, D.X and O.H.H. this way is simple enough.
So if Alex and Rixie had a biological child, yes it would be a Titan sized Hybrid.
Interesting to note, Human sized Hybrids and Titan sized hybrids each have a unique set of traits form both sets of parents, and are not just different sized versions of one another.
Part of my thinking was that if you didn’t structure it this way, human female parents of hybrids would have a 50/50 chance of exploding.
That would not do. When you put it that way, it makes sense.
OTOH a titan woman giving birth to a human-sized baby would have no right at all to ever complain about how painful giving birth is.
This was generally my reasoning as well.
And, unlike aging, I wanted this to at least be fairly simple… *cough*
worderful vignette!
You know, every time there is a mention that titans aren’t ready for human emancipation, that the time isn’t right yet, I’m tempted to point out that the Empire’s humans have to pay for every delay with more indignities, suffering and tragedy of the kind that should have no place in a nation that claims righteousness. Look, I know that it makes sense to wait for a more progressive government before attempting to push the human issue through the Legislature. And the stories’ protagonists are probably just as aware as I am, if not more, of what the price of delay is. Still can’t help being frustrated about it all.
Agreed.
I fully agree, yet Humans getting C1 status wouldn’t change the fact that any Titan world is – as Tapp put it – a deathtrap of a planet for humans. Even if Dhan invents some kind of personal shield or the likes (such a development was hinted at), it’s still a huge amount of danger and stress to live in such an hostile environment. Given real choice, who wants to live like that ?
Yeah but thats not the ‘right’ thinking……We all should get along and live together…..peace and harmony? Meh big deal… so what if its a death trap as long as its the ‘right’ thinking – thats what counts
We’ve drawn inspiration for the Titan series from the history of civil rights movements. All one has to do is look at the arc of American history from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and even through to today to see that the granting of basic liberties to an out-group is maddeningly slow. That’s 150 frustrating years. That doesn’t mean that the Titans are moving fast enough — granting freedoms immediately would still not be fast enough, they really need a time machine. But sadly, they’re moving faster than one might expect, based on human history.
Throughout the series it’s always interesting to see how long it takes individual Titans to “get it”. With most Titans not unlike most humans it takes time to accept change regardless of the intellectual skills they possess and it’s not always the smartest ones that figure it out first. The structural changes in Titan society as with Earth culture will require hitting a series of tipping points where enough Titans “get it” and begin taking down legal barriers one by one.
Lets just hope when they do finally acknowledge the Humans as Class 1 the next thing they redefine is the “warp capable” requirement. I am a little surprised that Dr. Freeman hasn’t already pointed out that codifying “reinventing-the-wheel” as a measure of progress doesn’t really make much sense if the objective is to be the best in the galaxy.
I got the feeling, from the Contact chapter, that Ryan was going to be human sized. Rixie’s joke of being overprotective (wrapped up in bubble wrap) pushed me in that direction.
That same joke pushed me in this direction, only you know, titan size.
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7oad/toyota-rav4-child-safety-ft-kaley-cuoco-song-by-skee-lo
well, you could wrap someone titan sized in bubble wrap… you’d just need a lot of it.
Actually, I’m kinda shocked the giveaway wasn’t the fact he’s in the Avalonian military… 😉
To be honest, the fact that Ryan was in the Avalonian military had shot over my head. (Referencing Titan: Contact chapter three: ) I’d forgotten that Alex’s last name was Carey, so when Pryvani mentioned “Chilaearch Carey” it didn’t click that she was talking about Ryan (and thus, that a Chilaearch is an Avalonian military pilot). So I only knew that Ryan was a pilot, not where or what kind. And I had chalked up Rixie’s bubblewrap comment as the result of general titan protectiveness, which they no doubt apply double to their own offspring.
I mentioned once before (when Rixie had Reevah question Daz about Vasha) that I’m not too good with names. This is yet another example. If a last name isn’t mentioned every so often I tend to forget them.
Wait, Chilaearch was a military rank? I thought it was a name, perhaps the name of the current leader.
to be fair, after reading the passage again, I can kinda see how i might be kind of ambiguous
@sketch: Chilaearch was italicized, so it wasn’t a person’s name. And it was followed by “Carey”, making it a title of some sort. Since Ryan is a pilot and Johnny Scribe just commented that he’s a member of Avalon’s military, Chilaearch must be a military rank of some sort.
@Johnny Scribe: Concluding from Titan: Contact chapter three that Ryan is an Avalonian pilot wasn’t impossible. Since Carey is Alex’s last name, it’d make sense that “Chilaearch Carey” refers to Ryan. And since Ryan was mentioned to be a pilot, the most likely conclusion is that Chilaearch is a military rank. And since “Chilaearch Carey” is trusted by Avalon, he’d be much more likely to be a pilot employed by Avalon than one employed by the Empire. But yeah, it wasn’t exactly clear.
Coming to think of it, Chilaearch doesn’t actually need to be a military rank. It could also be a title awarded for heroism. Ugh, gotta remember to avoid jumping to conclusions, like when I assumed that Alex and Rixie’s son was biological, and therefore a titan-sized hybrid.
This whole time I never thought Ryan would be adopted. (If any mixed couple was going to do so I figured Pyrvani/Zahn would.) Well, time to update speculations.
So Ryan became an Avalon pilot I assume. Military? Cause given a few human aging years to catch up, he might be a good match for a certain former assistant you guys married off off-screen in another story.
Who, Kymie?
Hmmm… interesting idea…
Well that sucks, here I was hoping it was their flesh and blood.
What a way to take the wind out of my sails.
er… sorry… I guess?
Awesomely touching. I wish we could watch him grow up… Alex will be a good dad, and Rixie will learn to parent quickly. ;-}
Well, you know it wouldn’t take much to twist Johnny Scribe’s leg. Trust me, he has about a zillion idea’s and stories floating around in that noggin of his about how Ryan grew up.
And he’s OHH, D.X, and I about half of them.
😉
there will be a few moments from Ryan (and others) childhood that I will relate, yes…
Both touching and fitting, seems appropriate that those two would stumble into a kid because Alex felt like doing something stupid. XD.
Also like the reminders of just what it’s like to be an unfortunate human in the empire. After rounds of Tolbot, and fighting for human rights, sometimes we need that punch in the arm to go ‘oh yeah, shit.’
On a lighter note, so Rixie’s is a chain now…not to think too deeply on it, but if that’s a Titan location they can’t be serving chicken wings anymore….*ponders* no that way lies madness…
I’m sure there’s a titan equivalent to chicken, and a titan equivalent to buffalo sauce.
Also, I wonder if they are more… Earth themed. I think it’d be pretty cool to have photos of touristy places of Earth on the walls of a titan bar. Make people wonder just what they are looking at.
which would be better, genetically engineering a giant chicken… or a chicken genocide for every order?
Since most titan food is synthesized by replicator, it should be possible to serve chicken nuggets and such that taste much like the real thing. I have no idea if that’d catch on though. The taste of chicken might be close enough to an Archavian equivalent that it would be cheaper and easier to use the equivalent. Or titans might not like the taste of chicken as much as we humans do. But I can also imagine Rixie’s making chicken products popular.
Artificial chicken?…mmmmm…yum 🙂 *sure it taste just like chicken, just put some more of that purple sauce on it…*
Giant chickens for all…now all we need to complete the picture is: giant potatoes, giant onions, giant breadcrumbs, giant cows for the giant milkskakes (I know they have mek or some sort but I’m on a roll man..) vast vats (say that 10x fast) of cooking oil (now were talking olives, rape seeds, soy, corn…….man) mountains of spices, along with some type of a special brewed Archavian beer……wheh..
Ah , they adopted! I thought Ryan would be their flesh and blood but this will be cool either way!