GOATS

[blackgoat]

"Do you have children?"

The voice seemed to come before the lady, as if the question summoned her, rather than was actually spoken.

Small, demure in appearance, lovely in a way that quickly extended itself into the realm of disquieting. She seemed doll like, unliving and not quite made of flesh.

Little hands resting on a heavily pregnant belly, the woman draped in heavy Victorian dresses of stone grays, off whites and dull sky blues, with that porcelain skin and wild snow white hair, she'd almost look like she was trying to blend into the snow.

"If you do not, do you want them?"

Ah, so it was her speaking, the voice soft and sweet, if... off, in an odd way. A tone that crept up the spine and settled into the neck and base of the skull, like cold fingers pressed against the nape.

Comments

[outpostcook]

"Not yet. Though I'm not sure I can have children, since I am dead, if you wanna get technical about it. I was attacked and eaten by a creature..."

But he's getting ahead of himself. Kinner decides to explain things to the newcomer first.

"I was born in Missouri, but I died in Big Magnet, Antarctica. I was a member of the 1938 Secondary Magnetic Expedition under Commander Garry."

[blackgoat]

"You are dead?" She moves closer, just a touch, and the obvious inhumanity in her gaze is revealed for a moment as she peers into his face.

Opalescent, voidlike, the color was hard to place. Less like eyes, and more like a pair of polished, spherical mirrors.

"What devoured you?"

[outpostcook]

"It didn't have a name. It was a creature from space - we called it the Thing. It could eat animals, including people, and make copies out of them."

Kinner can't help but shudder at the idea of another Kinner in his place.

"You ever come across somethin' like that in your travels, ma'am?" Kinner figures it wouldn't hurt to ask, especially if his guess about this lady's nature is correct.

[blackgoat]

Oh, actually that does sound very familiar to her, in fact-

"Some of my brood boasts similar abilities." But there's so many of them, it's hard to keep track of who's managed to attain that power.

Nothing that concerns her, honestly, too powerful to be worried about one of her lesser young attempting to devour her.

[outpostcook]

“Well,” Kinner says, a little gruffly, “if it’s yours I’d suggest keeping a closer eye on your kids. But that’s just my advice. Know any of ‘em who found their way to Antarctica?”

He doesn’t tell this being he’s planning to kill the Thing, in case it is one of her children. The Thing has killed people, but he isn’t sure whether or not she’d care.

“I’m guessin’ you ain’t human, then. I guessed as much. My creature’s a blue blobby thing with tentacles and three red eyes.”

[blackgoat]

Oh no, she's not overly concerned. She makes them, sometimes she eats them if they can't get away in time, and when they can, they work for her.

If they get killed and she's not on the same planet, well.

They're born as adults. They can take care of themselves.

"A grandchild slumbers not far from there. But if you met him, you would not be here." For... even worse reasons than being eaten, Kinner.

"Only Zhar, perhaps. But he was imprisoned upon Earth. ... Unless you freed him." There's.... a gentle warning in there.

He was imprisoned for a reason.

[outpostcook]

“Thanks for the warning. I’d pass it along if I wasn’t, y’know, dead.”

Kinner swallows hard - he had no idea there were so many monsters lurking in the ice, and he wouldn’t have come if he’d known. Maybe he could pass this information on to Palmer, or Alex, someone who knew more about monsters.

“What does Zhar, uh, look like?” Kinner doesn’t think the Thing is the same creature. “Ours came in a spaceship and was frozen in the ice, so I think they’re different.”

Kinner won’t be returning to his world because he’s dead, and it’s a fair guess Commander Garry has his own issues. However, if he could he would issue a warning to his team.

“You must have a lotta kids,” he says, impressed.

And he thought he had a big family.

[blackgoat]

"Zhar is as his father more than I. A mass of tendrils and eyes, blues and violets and golds." However, the inconsistencies here do make things a bit better. He certainly didn't arrive in a ship, after all, she knew where she put him, and he'd not be seen without his twin, Lloigor.

And there'd been no mention of him.

"A thousand of them." That's not a hyperbole. At best, it's an understatement.

"But Zhar did not arrive on your planet by a craft, for he would need none. None of my children do.

You found, simply, a predator."

[outpostcook]

Kinner's both relieved that he didn't encounter that specific creature and frightened by the revelation that there were worse monsters out there than the Thing. At least the Thing could be killed by humans, with effort. It wasn't immortal, and for all its power it could be stopped, which is why it preferred to work in secret.

"Well, that doesn't sound at all like what we saw. Ours was a shapeshifter, but it did have a form of its own - though it usually only brought it out during dinner time."

Kinner remembers being held in place by the tentacles while the creature forced itself into his head to collect his memories, figuratively and literally. All the better to build a perfect copy. It wasn't a pleasant memory.

"So...are all your kids monsters, for lack of a better word?"

A crude term, but Kinner doesn't know what else to call them.

[blackgoat]

Not one of her children, but certainly a race she knew of. So many little cosmic horrors, drifting about out there, more than just a few of them could shift shape, and certainly preferred meat.

"My children are emissaries, priests and Gods. Their form may be alien to you, but I find them all beautiful, those who slip free of me."

Even Ithaqua, as bitter as he was. That doesn't mean she plans on removing him from the Arctic, but she still found him worthy enough to live.

"Call them monsters if you like, but they surpass humanity in every aspect."

[outpostcook]

"I wouldn't have minded it so much if it hadn't chowed down on the team I was part of," says Kinner. "Everybody's gotta eat, but everybody's got a right to try not to be eaten, superior species or no."

Kinner bites back from asking what would make the Thing better than humans. Its intelligence? Its ruthlessness? Its shapeshifting powers?

The creature's intelligence made him think it could learn better, but it couldn't be bothered to see the Big Magnet team as anything but food. It certainly hadn't bothered to talk to them.

"I figure we humans have a right to fight back, even if they surpass us in every way."

[blackgoat]

Why would it see them as anything other than food? She could see a purpose for humans outside of being edible, but she could fully understand why another race might just view all of humanity as walking, talking breakfast burritos.

"And did they fight? Did you fight? All prey is expected to battle for its life. I do not begrudge any race for wishing to live. But you fought... And you lost. It is as it should be then." Circle of life, Kinner.

[outpostcook]

"It's kinda complicated. Yeah, we did fight when we could, but the Thing wasn't really one for direct confrontation. In my case, it grabbed me in the form of a cow. I didn't have much of a chance to fight back. It could talk and think like us, so...I guess I wonder why it didn't try a different approach. My team thought it was just evil."

Kinner eats fish, so he understands what she's getting at well enough. "Yeah, well, I'm still allowed to be a little bitter about the result, right? Critters I eat are allowed to still be mad at me."

[blackgoat]

"A mouse believe the cat to be evil as well."

This isn't her first time, chatting with prey animals. A few races have reached out to her for protection from natural enemies before, after all.

"Now that you are here, of course, you are free to be as upset as you like. Are you not grateful that you can be?

Most who are dead find little to be bitter about."

[outpostcook]

"Cats can't talk to mice, though. If you can talk to the folks you eat, doesn't that change things a little?"

Kinner wouldn't feel right eating an animal that could talk. It would feel...wrong, if not immoral.

But this stranger's not human, and it's likely her values aren't human.

"I'm definitely happy to be here in some form. It's good to be alive, well, after a fashion."

[blackgoat]

"The ability to speak does not denote intelligence, nor comprehension. The near inarticulate cries of a simple creature would not deter me, even if it were to ape speech." A cold answer, but one that made perfect sense to her.

"Then you are alive? And not undead? You feel warm, child, too warm for a corpse."

[outpostcook]

Kinner wonders a bit if this is how the Thing saw him and his team. It clearly recognized their intelligence, but saw them as food and nothing more. Do the lobsters in Kinner's tank see him that way? He was certainly no vegetarian.

"Yes, I'm alive. At least I think I am, though I don't know how I got here. I'm happy not to be undead, though."