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eatthepenOriginally written for Cohost for the prompt 'Mech Pilot who is still standing.'
We Stand Alone or Fall Together
The lounge rang with harmonics from every note of the lively bowed-string melody Fonie was playing. No note in that room was ever truly in tune, there were too many idle instruments lying around to echo it, but the effect was like a sea shore heard from a hundred metres, a pleasant, peaceful rustling under everything. Zek was getting used to it, the sensitivities of his highly-trained ears adjusting to compensate.
Fonie weaved bodily as she played, her instrument held to her shoulder like a violin but with no fingerboard, her fingers shaping the notes by pressing up under the strings. Seated on a round stool beside her, Sganch blew low, sumptuous bass tones from what looked like a small, lap-mounted pipe organ. No noise that deep and rich should have issued from a box so small, but the monitor was doing it anyway. Zek was getting used to that, too, their ability to produce extraordinarily large sounds from whatever they played.
Elra sat behind the drumkit, her sticks down, bobbing her head and shoulders. She had a drummer's restlessness, her hands tapping time and backbeat on her jiggling knees. Kamren stood off to the side, tentacles wrapped around a many-flanged metal rod that they played like comb chimes. Their efforts added uneven, shifting harmonic undertones, that left Zek craving ocean swimming.
Taken as a whole, the music was joyful – the music was always joyful in CHORD Wing's hideout, at least for the handful of weeks since Zek's arrival, even when they played laments for the lost comrade he'd replaced – but never simply so, challenging and questing and asking. It bore the stamp of Fonie's musical leadership. The white-haired pilot had been a demanding instructor, pushing Zek relentlessly in his stumbling efforts to learn the basics of improvisation, but the rewards were worth it.
Tollex held their customary perch on the back of the sofa in front of Zek, slippered feet on the worn cushion. Darate sprawled with his head and arms on Tollex's thigh, crisp-pressed trousers rumpling along the length of the couch. Bochaw sat with one ankle crossed on the other knee, deep in one of the armchairs and holding a tumbler of blue energy drink like it was scotch or brandy.
The warm weight of the chili that Tollex and Fonie had assembled sat comfortably in Zek's gut. He was starting to get used to the routine. Life in the Wing was music, of course, that was what it meant to be a phonist, but after the evening meal they tended to be more playful, more focused on music for the sake of music than as training for the war and the phonistry that powered their Frames.
Zek folded his arms. Of course, he didn't play much in the evenings, not yet. No-one had outright said he wasn't allowed to, but there was no way he could keep up with the kind of musical connection the other pilots delighted in in these jams. He was content to watch for now. They'd invite him to play when they felt he was ready, he was sure.
Fonie played a swirling, unearthly sequence of notes that made piercing discords of all the harmonies, and Zek fought back the reflex to feel intimidated, to feel the hopeless impossibility of unpacking the theory of the harmonics. Listen for the next note, Fonie was always telling him, and a couple of times as she finished the measure he almost felt like he could hear it coming.
The next sequence were easier to follow and he realised that WHISPER's pilot was drawing the jam to a close. There was the progression, Kamren and Sganch shifting upward to cleanly-resolving chords to establish the final cadence. Zek nodded as the phrase topped out and Fonie drew out the final note.
A rustle went around the watchers. They didn't usually applaud into the silence, just a respectful pause followed by shop talk. Fonie lowered her instrument and, before anyone else could speak, looked straight at Zek. "Are you gonna stand there all night?"
Zek flinched, physically, and immediately felt heat spreading out from the middle of his back. He looked down, picking at the fraying upholstery on the top of the couch's back. They were all looking at him.
Tollex reached back, unfolding one of their metre-long arms to plant their hand between Zek's shoulders. Even as piping-high as their voice habitually sat, there was warmth in it as they said, "Come on, stop hiding back there. If you really want to stand, you can, but don't hover."
"Sorry, I just-"
A gentle snare roll cut him off. Teasingly, Elra said, "Aaand time. New record for time before he apologised for nothing?"
"Doesn't count," Fonie said with a chuckle. "We played longer, he didn't have a chance to."
Over Zek's stammering attempts to say something – who knew what – that wasn't an apology, Elra softened her tone and said, "Is something making you uncomfortable? You park yourself there every night, it feels like."
"I just, I don't know…" Zek forced his hands down to his sides, cheeks burning. "It's… I dunno."
"Zek if you don't get over here and at least try one of these armchairs I'm going to come and get you myself." There was more laughter than threat in Darate's voice, but he had pushed himself half up out of Tollex's lap, the stretch pulling his waistcoat tight across his chest.
The second sofa, the one at more or less a right angle to the one where Tollex and Darate sat, was free. Feeling like he might trip over his own toes at each step, Zek walked around and through the gap between the two couches. He lowered himself into the cheap fake leather, shoulders forward and elbows on his knees in almost the same pose as Tollex, except that the Old Shipper towered over him even from a couple of metres away.
"There, was that so hard?" Elra smiled at him through a gap between her cymbals. Then, as Fonie started to say something more cutting, the commander straightened up and rattled off a quick paradiddle on the snare. "Okay, who wants to play with me? Who's feeling brave?"
Darate rose to the challenge, inviting Sganch to join him at the twin synthesiser consoles that dominated the end of the room. Fonie sat on the stool Sganch had vacated, and Zek felt her coal-black irises watching him as Elra struck up a spidery, torturous polyrhythm, effortlessly keeping the volume low on the normally-raucous kit. Zek made himself count. How would you follow this? Where are the emphases? Hear the phrasing, stop trying to be a calculator. Fonie's training mantras lingered.
Kamren lowered their long instrument gently to the carpet, tucking the brush somehow through its central shaft. Steering himself with a gentle rippling of tentacle-tips on the carpet, he drifted over to the couch beside Zek. Buoyant in air, the cnida couldn't exactly sit, but he apparently liked to pile his tentacles in a heap on the cushions. The translucent, iridescent mass was hypnotic to look at, and Zek had already had to learn not to stare. He'd known cnida at the academy, but none closely, and this was his first time ever seeing one relaxed, outside of military discipline.
As the synths burbled to life, prankish and fretful, Kamren shifted two tentacles up under his bell as he had to to form verbal consonants. He would never articulate as intricately as a human could but Zek hadn't had trouble understanding him yet, and the haunting, breathy quality of his voice was always a pleasure. Gently, he said, "Thank you, Zek."
Zek cocked his head, looking into the photoreceptive strips across dome of the cnida's bell. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, thank you for sitting with us. We hope you haven't been uncomfortable."
Which was a fair enough concern for Kamren to have. It wasn't like Zek could pretend he was at ease in the unit yet. If even the Cnida could feel it then he wasn't fooling anyone at all. And he was to be Kamren's wingmate. They had to be extra-closely in tune.
Taking a long, deep breath, Zek straightened his back and reached upturned palms towards the Cnida. Kamren, recognizing the attempt to meet him on his own, tactile terms, wriggled free a couple of tentacles and set them lightly across Zek's fingers. Like a snake's scales, they were always warmer and drier than he expected them to feel, and never quite still.
He had to be careful about how he chose his words. Ambiguous phrasing was always a minefield for interspecies communication. "Please be patient with me." For a moment he hesitated. "Everything here is so different from my training. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I want to be part of the unit so badly- so much it hurts. It feels like I don't deserve it and… and if I take it for granted I'll be punished."
A shudder ran through him, tingling and jangling like Elra's feather-light touch on her cymbals. Kamren felt it, maybe more clearly than Zek himself. He sang a phrase, on-key with the synths, in one of the myriad languages of his kind, then, "We say, 'only internal pressure can burst you'. This pain you feel comes from inside. We will help you release it." He lifted one of his tentacles to Zek's shoulder. "Fonie isn't training you now, even if she believes she is. Sit back."
Zek let himself be pushed gently back into a slouch. Kamren withdrew his tentacle, leaving just one lightly resting in Zek's hand, pulsing with Elra's beat as if it was simple four-time. Breath sounding loud inside his head, Zek closed his eyes. It wasn't quite relaxation, but it was a start.
We Stand Alone or Fall Together
The lounge rang with harmonics from every note of the lively bowed-string melody Fonie was playing. No note in that room was ever truly in tune, there were too many idle instruments lying around to echo it, but the effect was like a sea shore heard from a hundred metres, a pleasant, peaceful rustling under everything. Zek was getting used to it, the sensitivities of his highly-trained ears adjusting to compensate.
Fonie weaved bodily as she played, her instrument held to her shoulder like a violin but with no fingerboard, her fingers shaping the notes by pressing up under the strings. Seated on a round stool beside her, Sganch blew low, sumptuous bass tones from what looked like a small, lap-mounted pipe organ. No noise that deep and rich should have issued from a box so small, but the monitor was doing it anyway. Zek was getting used to that, too, their ability to produce extraordinarily large sounds from whatever they played.
Elra sat behind the drumkit, her sticks down, bobbing her head and shoulders. She had a drummer's restlessness, her hands tapping time and backbeat on her jiggling knees. Kamren stood off to the side, tentacles wrapped around a many-flanged metal rod that they played like comb chimes. Their efforts added uneven, shifting harmonic undertones, that left Zek craving ocean swimming.
Taken as a whole, the music was joyful – the music was always joyful in CHORD Wing's hideout, at least for the handful of weeks since Zek's arrival, even when they played laments for the lost comrade he'd replaced – but never simply so, challenging and questing and asking. It bore the stamp of Fonie's musical leadership. The white-haired pilot had been a demanding instructor, pushing Zek relentlessly in his stumbling efforts to learn the basics of improvisation, but the rewards were worth it.
Tollex held their customary perch on the back of the sofa in front of Zek, slippered feet on the worn cushion. Darate sprawled with his head and arms on Tollex's thigh, crisp-pressed trousers rumpling along the length of the couch. Bochaw sat with one ankle crossed on the other knee, deep in one of the armchairs and holding a tumbler of blue energy drink like it was scotch or brandy.
The warm weight of the chili that Tollex and Fonie had assembled sat comfortably in Zek's gut. He was starting to get used to the routine. Life in the Wing was music, of course, that was what it meant to be a phonist, but after the evening meal they tended to be more playful, more focused on music for the sake of music than as training for the war and the phonistry that powered their Frames.
Zek folded his arms. Of course, he didn't play much in the evenings, not yet. No-one had outright said he wasn't allowed to, but there was no way he could keep up with the kind of musical connection the other pilots delighted in in these jams. He was content to watch for now. They'd invite him to play when they felt he was ready, he was sure.
Fonie played a swirling, unearthly sequence of notes that made piercing discords of all the harmonies, and Zek fought back the reflex to feel intimidated, to feel the hopeless impossibility of unpacking the theory of the harmonics. Listen for the next note, Fonie was always telling him, and a couple of times as she finished the measure he almost felt like he could hear it coming.
The next sequence were easier to follow and he realised that WHISPER's pilot was drawing the jam to a close. There was the progression, Kamren and Sganch shifting upward to cleanly-resolving chords to establish the final cadence. Zek nodded as the phrase topped out and Fonie drew out the final note.
A rustle went around the watchers. They didn't usually applaud into the silence, just a respectful pause followed by shop talk. Fonie lowered her instrument and, before anyone else could speak, looked straight at Zek. "Are you gonna stand there all night?"
Zek flinched, physically, and immediately felt heat spreading out from the middle of his back. He looked down, picking at the fraying upholstery on the top of the couch's back. They were all looking at him.
Tollex reached back, unfolding one of their metre-long arms to plant their hand between Zek's shoulders. Even as piping-high as their voice habitually sat, there was warmth in it as they said, "Come on, stop hiding back there. If you really want to stand, you can, but don't hover."
"Sorry, I just-"
A gentle snare roll cut him off. Teasingly, Elra said, "Aaand time. New record for time before he apologised for nothing?"
"Doesn't count," Fonie said with a chuckle. "We played longer, he didn't have a chance to."
Over Zek's stammering attempts to say something – who knew what – that wasn't an apology, Elra softened her tone and said, "Is something making you uncomfortable? You park yourself there every night, it feels like."
"I just, I don't know…" Zek forced his hands down to his sides, cheeks burning. "It's… I dunno."
"Zek if you don't get over here and at least try one of these armchairs I'm going to come and get you myself." There was more laughter than threat in Darate's voice, but he had pushed himself half up out of Tollex's lap, the stretch pulling his waistcoat tight across his chest.
The second sofa, the one at more or less a right angle to the one where Tollex and Darate sat, was free. Feeling like he might trip over his own toes at each step, Zek walked around and through the gap between the two couches. He lowered himself into the cheap fake leather, shoulders forward and elbows on his knees in almost the same pose as Tollex, except that the Old Shipper towered over him even from a couple of metres away.
"There, was that so hard?" Elra smiled at him through a gap between her cymbals. Then, as Fonie started to say something more cutting, the commander straightened up and rattled off a quick paradiddle on the snare. "Okay, who wants to play with me? Who's feeling brave?"
Darate rose to the challenge, inviting Sganch to join him at the twin synthesiser consoles that dominated the end of the room. Fonie sat on the stool Sganch had vacated, and Zek felt her coal-black irises watching him as Elra struck up a spidery, torturous polyrhythm, effortlessly keeping the volume low on the normally-raucous kit. Zek made himself count. How would you follow this? Where are the emphases? Hear the phrasing, stop trying to be a calculator. Fonie's training mantras lingered.
Kamren lowered their long instrument gently to the carpet, tucking the brush somehow through its central shaft. Steering himself with a gentle rippling of tentacle-tips on the carpet, he drifted over to the couch beside Zek. Buoyant in air, the cnida couldn't exactly sit, but he apparently liked to pile his tentacles in a heap on the cushions. The translucent, iridescent mass was hypnotic to look at, and Zek had already had to learn not to stare. He'd known cnida at the academy, but none closely, and this was his first time ever seeing one relaxed, outside of military discipline.
As the synths burbled to life, prankish and fretful, Kamren shifted two tentacles up under his bell as he had to to form verbal consonants. He would never articulate as intricately as a human could but Zek hadn't had trouble understanding him yet, and the haunting, breathy quality of his voice was always a pleasure. Gently, he said, "Thank you, Zek."
Zek cocked his head, looking into the photoreceptive strips across dome of the cnida's bell. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, thank you for sitting with us. We hope you haven't been uncomfortable."
Which was a fair enough concern for Kamren to have. It wasn't like Zek could pretend he was at ease in the unit yet. If even the Cnida could feel it then he wasn't fooling anyone at all. And he was to be Kamren's wingmate. They had to be extra-closely in tune.
Taking a long, deep breath, Zek straightened his back and reached upturned palms towards the Cnida. Kamren, recognizing the attempt to meet him on his own, tactile terms, wriggled free a couple of tentacles and set them lightly across Zek's fingers. Like a snake's scales, they were always warmer and drier than he expected them to feel, and never quite still.
He had to be careful about how he chose his words. Ambiguous phrasing was always a minefield for interspecies communication. "Please be patient with me." For a moment he hesitated. "Everything here is so different from my training. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I want to be part of the unit so badly- so much it hurts. It feels like I don't deserve it and… and if I take it for granted I'll be punished."
A shudder ran through him, tingling and jangling like Elra's feather-light touch on her cymbals. Kamren felt it, maybe more clearly than Zek himself. He sang a phrase, on-key with the synths, in one of the myriad languages of his kind, then, "We say, 'only internal pressure can burst you'. This pain you feel comes from inside. We will help you release it." He lifted one of his tentacles to Zek's shoulder. "Fonie isn't training you now, even if she believes she is. Sit back."
Zek let himself be pushed gently back into a slouch. Kamren withdrew his tentacle, leaving just one lightly resting in Zek's hand, pulsing with Elra's beat as if it was simple four-time. Breath sounding loud inside his head, Zek closed his eyes. It wasn't quite relaxation, but it was a start.