Renee Carter Hall (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
poetigress) wrote2010-12-17 05:10 pm
poetigress) wrote2010-12-17 05:10 pm
Entry tags:
Bingo pieces: "reading aloud"
Another piece for my ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
origfic_bingo card, this one for the prompt "reading aloud."
To give a bit of background, for this piece I went back to characters from a story I wrote a couple years ago, about a small group of bipedal big cats engineered for military use and what happened to them after the war was over. The story never entirely worked, although I still like some of the scenes and setting from it. I decided, though, that it would make more sense if the animals were left as quadrupeds and enhanced from there. This is the first scene I've tried writing from that angle. Not sure what the narrator's name should be yet (I honestly don't remember what it was from the original version of the story, which means it probably wasn't quite the right name anyway).
* * *
Everyone she asked for advice told her not to go in with him. Her college roommate, now in charge of the cats at the Memphis Zoo. The vets who'd assisted with the augmentation surgery, installing the laryngeal implant. Scott, of course, because he still worried about her even though he wasn't supposed to care anymore, and she certainly didn't.
None of them understood, because none of them had been there. They hadn't lured the surrogate from her den, shutting her out. They hadn't held the cub when his fur was still wet and his eyes shut tight. And they hadn't been there as those eyes opened and she saw the light in his gaze that none of his species had ever possessed before.
Yes, he was still a male jaguar, with all the claws and teeth and power it implied, even if he was only half grown. She wasn't blind to that. Any moment, the vortex of instinct could snuff out the flame she was tending, and he could turn those claws and teeth on her.
If he had been a true jaguar, unaltered, wild in his eyes and heart, she would not now be keying in the sequence to open the door. But he was Rio, and she went inside.
He was lying in the corner with his current favorite toy, a red rubber ball with yellow stars on it. He'd chewed a big chunk out of one side, and it didn't bounce well anymore and hardly rolled. It was pacifier and security blanket in one.
The speaker in his enclosure was playing one of the downloads, a news broadcast from the week before. The more speech he heard, the more pathways would form. The recordings worked well enough, but she hated them all the same. He wasn't a machine to be programmed, and even though she knew the interns screened the broadcasts, cutting out anything too violent or inappropriate, it wasn't the same as having real human interaction with touch and inflection, facial expressions and body language. Rio needed to learn those just as much as English.
She turned the speaker off. Rio galloped up to her, his big paws making him look clumsier than he really was. The laryngeal implant buzzed. "Play?"
The voice was still tinny, but they were working on it. By the time Rio was full grown, they'd have the microspeaker fine-tuned enough to do an adult male voice justice. For now, he spoke with a child's voice, high and eager. "Play ball?"
"No, not now, Rio. Later."
He swiped at her ankle, almost making her drop the load of picture books she carried under one arm. "Play ball."
She sighed and dumped the books onto the table at one end of his enclosure. If she didn't let him burn off some energy now, he'd never sit still to listen to stories. "All right. For a little while."
The implant screeched, sounding more like electronic feedback than a child's squeal of joy. They'd have to work on that, too.
"Ball!" Rio batted it to her. She tossed it, and Rio pounced. Later, he would need to learn more intricate games, ones that honed both his natural skills and the ones they'd given him. For now, he was a kitten and a toddler in one, and any kind of chase was enough.
She threw the ball several more times, watching Rio as he chased it. His reflexes were already perfect, to the point where he seemed to be reacting to something an instant before it occurred. His motor skills were progressing nicely, too, much faster than she would have expected of a regular cub.
Speech and language, though, still needed work, and that was what they had to focus on now. "Okay, Rio. Story time."
Rio took the ball in his teeth again. "Ball?" Though his mouth was full, the implant was unaffected, something that would be a big advantage in the field.
"No, not now. Time for reading."
Rio gave a curiously human sigh and padded over to the table. Without dropping the ball, he hauled himself onto the plastic bench, put his front paws on the table, and laid the ball carefully between them.
She opened one of the books, holding it for Rio and turning the thick, yellowed pages as he read. There were other methods she could have used--tablet computers, retina-controlled devices--but there was something tactile and immediate about the worn paper books. It might have just been sentiment, but she told herself the physical objects helped him with spatial relations and the like. A few of the books' covers already had teeth marks where Rio had gnawed thoughtfully while sounding out a word.
They worked their way through Green Eggs and Ham, then The Cat in the Hat. His reading was improving, though he didn't laugh at the stories the way a child might have. He knew most of the words, but she found herself wondering how many of them he really understood as concepts, how much of the story he could grasp. Still, she sat beside him, turning pages, sometimes resting a hand at the base of his neck, which seemed to calm him and help him focus. As she listened, she imagined new pathways being formed, other connections strengthened, everything expanding and entwining. She could almost see the shining golden web of his mind, growing brighter and sharper and more intricate each day.
origfic_bingo card, this one for the prompt "reading aloud." To give a bit of background, for this piece I went back to characters from a story I wrote a couple years ago, about a small group of bipedal big cats engineered for military use and what happened to them after the war was over. The story never entirely worked, although I still like some of the scenes and setting from it. I decided, though, that it would make more sense if the animals were left as quadrupeds and enhanced from there. This is the first scene I've tried writing from that angle. Not sure what the narrator's name should be yet (I honestly don't remember what it was from the original version of the story, which means it probably wasn't quite the right name anyway).
Everyone she asked for advice told her not to go in with him. Her college roommate, now in charge of the cats at the Memphis Zoo. The vets who'd assisted with the augmentation surgery, installing the laryngeal implant. Scott, of course, because he still worried about her even though he wasn't supposed to care anymore, and she certainly didn't.
None of them understood, because none of them had been there. They hadn't lured the surrogate from her den, shutting her out. They hadn't held the cub when his fur was still wet and his eyes shut tight. And they hadn't been there as those eyes opened and she saw the light in his gaze that none of his species had ever possessed before.
Yes, he was still a male jaguar, with all the claws and teeth and power it implied, even if he was only half grown. She wasn't blind to that. Any moment, the vortex of instinct could snuff out the flame she was tending, and he could turn those claws and teeth on her.
If he had been a true jaguar, unaltered, wild in his eyes and heart, she would not now be keying in the sequence to open the door. But he was Rio, and she went inside.
He was lying in the corner with his current favorite toy, a red rubber ball with yellow stars on it. He'd chewed a big chunk out of one side, and it didn't bounce well anymore and hardly rolled. It was pacifier and security blanket in one.
The speaker in his enclosure was playing one of the downloads, a news broadcast from the week before. The more speech he heard, the more pathways would form. The recordings worked well enough, but she hated them all the same. He wasn't a machine to be programmed, and even though she knew the interns screened the broadcasts, cutting out anything too violent or inappropriate, it wasn't the same as having real human interaction with touch and inflection, facial expressions and body language. Rio needed to learn those just as much as English.
She turned the speaker off. Rio galloped up to her, his big paws making him look clumsier than he really was. The laryngeal implant buzzed. "Play?"
The voice was still tinny, but they were working on it. By the time Rio was full grown, they'd have the microspeaker fine-tuned enough to do an adult male voice justice. For now, he spoke with a child's voice, high and eager. "Play ball?"
"No, not now, Rio. Later."
He swiped at her ankle, almost making her drop the load of picture books she carried under one arm. "Play ball."
She sighed and dumped the books onto the table at one end of his enclosure. If she didn't let him burn off some energy now, he'd never sit still to listen to stories. "All right. For a little while."
The implant screeched, sounding more like electronic feedback than a child's squeal of joy. They'd have to work on that, too.
"Ball!" Rio batted it to her. She tossed it, and Rio pounced. Later, he would need to learn more intricate games, ones that honed both his natural skills and the ones they'd given him. For now, he was a kitten and a toddler in one, and any kind of chase was enough.
She threw the ball several more times, watching Rio as he chased it. His reflexes were already perfect, to the point where he seemed to be reacting to something an instant before it occurred. His motor skills were progressing nicely, too, much faster than she would have expected of a regular cub.
Speech and language, though, still needed work, and that was what they had to focus on now. "Okay, Rio. Story time."
Rio took the ball in his teeth again. "Ball?" Though his mouth was full, the implant was unaffected, something that would be a big advantage in the field.
"No, not now. Time for reading."
Rio gave a curiously human sigh and padded over to the table. Without dropping the ball, he hauled himself onto the plastic bench, put his front paws on the table, and laid the ball carefully between them.
She opened one of the books, holding it for Rio and turning the thick, yellowed pages as he read. There were other methods she could have used--tablet computers, retina-controlled devices--but there was something tactile and immediate about the worn paper books. It might have just been sentiment, but she told herself the physical objects helped him with spatial relations and the like. A few of the books' covers already had teeth marks where Rio had gnawed thoughtfully while sounding out a word.
They worked their way through Green Eggs and Ham, then The Cat in the Hat. His reading was improving, though he didn't laugh at the stories the way a child might have. He knew most of the words, but she found herself wondering how many of them he really understood as concepts, how much of the story he could grasp. Still, she sat beside him, turning pages, sometimes resting a hand at the base of his neck, which seemed to calm him and help him focus. As she listened, she imagined new pathways being formed, other connections strengthened, everything expanding and entwining. She could almost see the shining golden web of his mind, growing brighter and sharper and more intricate each day.