A Lullaby for Gods

[Jade Harley]

Accompanying Music: A Lullaby for Gods. Rating for this installment: T. No replies, please!

1. Good Dog, Best Friend.

A streak of something bright and trailing stardust like exhaust smoke darted across the open sky of primordial Earth, erupting in a glowing plume of ejecta and dust that looked akin to a furling, sinuous, bottle-green jellyfish. For a moment, the untamed jungle all around stilled, the dark foliage frozen in time and the animals lurking in the brush going silent and unmoving.

Above, the stars blinked and stuttered, like a thousand-million fairy lights twinkling over a dusky mire in the evening.

Then, there was the world-shattering impact, the sound barrier and all margins of ordinary breached in that single terrifying instant. The universe, a gigantic disc stuffed inside of a sooty case, faltered and scratched, sang raspingly but certainly true.

A tear of green lightning branched across the planet, all-encompassing and brilliantly burning. Reaching down and tearing entire mountains through from the ground up in the process, all the while singing in an ear-piercing drone that was far above the hearing capabilities of most living creatures, the sparking electricity petered out and finally vanished.

In a deep basin that would one day be about an eighth of the size of the crater at Chicxulub, a First Guardian sat upon its haunches and waited for she who would thaw solid flesh and resolve it into a dew.

---

The horizon was a jeweled crown of striking orange and amber-yellow hues mingling pleasantly with a robin’s egg azure, wide-spread and with the sun’s fiery golden eye receding into slumber. Below it, the sea meandered gently, the pinkish fading light of dusk slowly coalescing into a deeper, solemn blue. Little pitter-pattering threads of soft white foam lapped against the shoreline; the breeze smelled strongly of salt and spray.

Far out in the waves of blue-indigo sea, where the ocean glinted like bottle glass and the surf romped about as if it were made up of great white-winged horses, a progeny of the fabled Pegasus itself, the fading wisps of daylight cast across the wooden, barnacle-studded hull of a very tiny ship.

Becquerel snorted as it regarded the distant speck of a vessel on the horizon. It was flickering in and out of sight, swallowed up by rising waves and the sea’s enormous constitution.

The presence of the ship worried it, although it wasn’t quite sure why. It had seen many other ships beforehand, with wide sails flapping about like gulls, but this little boat was particularly significant to it. Perhaps it was the occupants of the boat?

The waves made eagerly for the pebbled shore. In just a moment, the boat would reach the lip of the shore. Becquerel trotted to and fro on the beach, leaving agitated paw prints in the damp sand. When it sees that the boat is slipping slowly into the shallow waters, it ducks under the shade of the jungle and watches from the shadowy tree line, white fur cloaked in verdant green.

Heavy boots slosh into the shallow waves, flecks of seawater and foam clinging to their dark rubbery surface. A tall mustachioed man in an odd cap and a white suit turns around, easily picking up the second figure in the boat and gently placing them on the beach just out of reach of the bitter waves.

Plump little toes wriggle in the sand, attached to a chubby little baby foot and then a chubby little baby altogether. She has long dark hair and wide green eyes, speckled with flecks of refracted sunlight. She chirps delightedly as she takes up a fistful of wet sand, her prominent buckteeth made all the more prominent when she gurgles out a laugh.

“G’pa!” She says, peering after the old man who has gone about tugging their tiny fishing boat under the cover of the tree line. Teal green shadows scatter over his back and pristine white clothing as he stoops down to remove a strand of salty seaweed from the boat’s inside layer.

Becquerel hunkers down under the dark of the long grasses and shrubberies, curiously watching the human pup as she pats her hands into the mud. She is hairless, save for the mop hanging off from the top of her soft head, with squishy stubs of pink fingers and toes. It could probably steal across the beach, grab her, and make off over the dunes with the child’s grandparent none the wiser.

But, then the grandfather has the boat weighted down to the ground with driftwood so as not to let it be taken off by gale force winds, and he has stomped back over to merrily watch over his charge and remark inanely upon the favorable weather. There is not much it can do now but observe.

As the grandfather scoops the child up into his arms, an impossibly large gun strapped securely across his back, Becquerel tracks them silently through the lush underbrush.

---

It isn’t long before a tower begins to take shape on the island, tall and muted white against the soft blue sky in the cloudy daytime. As the sun sinks below the horizon, the whole thing glitters gold, coy oranges and dainty pinks travelling across the white stone like streams of warm water. Grasshoppers sing in the dew-stippled grass, their flimsy exoskeletons coloured a spry yellow-green.

The grandfather crouches by a pond that is flecked with magenta and yellow lilies settled comfortably upon their verdant green pads, hard at work on a strange, human-shaped contraption. It has round lenses, reddish like the bulbous eyes of an insect. A glowing piece of some green material is painstakingly tucked inside its chest cavity along with a whole slew of colored wires. His pant legs are stained brown at the knees from the soil.

A few feet away, the little girl bats an octopus plush around with her diminutive fists, giggling to herself and having what seems to be a grand old time. Becquerel doesn’t understand the meaning of this game, but finds that it would quite like to play it, too. It also suspects that it could play it much better, given the chance.

The large woofbeast crouches down underneath the dewslick leaves of a bush, its paws digging into damp earth that is darker than the mud of the Dead Sea. Its featureless face is turned directly towards the young girl, although no eyes are present to glitter or glint with ill intent. Which, considering the circumstances, is for the better. Becquerel wouldn’t wish anything but kindliness upon this child. It has been waiting for her for a very long time, after all.

Snuffling quietly to itself, the First Guardian of Earth crawls on its belly towards the playing child, tail curved like a white flag of peaceful surrender. As it draws nearer, the girl suddenly stops whatever she is doing and blinks up at Becquerel, her mouth rounded out into a little ‘o’. Then, she reaches fearlessly up with her sap-sticky hands and digs them into the soft fur on either side of his muzzle.

“God-dog!” She exclaims, in the babbling way that small children are wont to do. This does not negate the truth in her words, however clumsily-spoken they may be, and Becquerel’s pointed ears perk smartly up at the precise title.

A young Jade Harley giggles delightedly at the grooved, strangely illumined green tongue that drags across the side of her face in a friendly lick.

The world is pink and sunbright gold; the sea swells and sighs in the distance.

---

Its name becomes Bec, according to the limited dialectal ability of the small child it has come to cherish every gibbering word and sniffle of. It also becomes a ‘he’.

Strange, that. Bec does not particularly mind.

What he does mind, however, is that there is an outlandish, oddly nervous-seeming entity prodding about in his mind. It appeals most strongly to his parental sensibilities in regard to young Jade, but wisely does not broach much further into the torrential flares of green flame that constantly stir within the centermost nucleus of his cognizance. He is quite sure that if this entity were to attempt to do so, they would promptly have their eyes melt out through their ears.

The only time where he lets this entity have complete control is on a sunny morning in the year 2000. Jade is capering about the sloping grassy hillsides, plucking up white-blossomed daisies and attempting to stick them in Bec’s fur. Eventually, when this proves to be ineffectual due to a strange green electricity incinerating the drooping flowers, she wanders off to busy herself with some other exciting pastime.

Unfortunately, this pastime involves dual-wielding a set of flintlock pistols. For a moment, Bec is largely unconcerned by this and continues to laze about and let the breeze and sunlight coast lengthwise through his fur.

Then, the unthinkable happens.

Bang!

In a blaze of green lightning and cycling nebulae, Becquerel has zapped to Jade’s side. He spatially latches onto the bullet that is mere centimetres from her face, liable to kill her instantly if it were to make contact, and flings it halfway across the island to hopefully hit some other, less invaluable object.

Rather unluckily, the bullet ‘pips’ easily through Grandpa Harleys upper body, a short spurt of blood marking the bullet’s passage into his chest cavity. He keels over after his body gives a short jolt, utterly lifeless, body gone slack. A dark stain spreads down his nice dress shirt, seeping into the soft white cotton. A small trickle of scarlet blood slips past his parted lips.

The presence in Bec’s mind loosens its hold, seemingly mollified.

This is exactly why babies should not be allowed to dual-wield flintlock pistols.