//------------------------------// // The two sides of Athena // Story: A world with no giants // by TheSexyMenhir //------------------------------// In a world with no giant’s Ch.11 “The two side of Athena” “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” The two creatures screamed. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” Angelo screamed. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” The creatures screamed. “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Angelo screamed. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!” The creatures screamed. “AAAAAAAAAA-unfh” Angelo tried to scream when a hoof buried itself into his face. The hit was a thing of beauty, perfectly executed; the cream coloured creature turned on it’s forelegs preserving as much momentum as possible, rearing up it’s hindlegs, coiling them up until the last second, when they suddenly exploded outwards, with a little bit of torque. All of this Angelo noticed with a kind of serene detachment as he felt a few of his teeth giving way. Then the world turned black. ... When he came to, he was tied to a tree. Or at least he suspected that he was tied to a tree. The feeling of bark against his back, and the fact that his hand couldn’t move would indicate so, but his eyes only showed him darkness and the slightest hint of movements as if he had been blindfolded with a piece of cloth. When his ears finally caught up with the rest of his body and started reporting their findings to the brain, he was treated to a symphony of strange noises. He could hear a sound almost like a stalling car, well, a stalling car that had been submerged in cooking oil. The sound came again and Angelo remedied his assessment, it sounded more like a sharp cry which rose and faded in tone. As he gathered his faculties, a second sound peeled out of audiosensational mist that surrounded him. This one sounded like someone was flicking his tongue but with a strangely rhythmic quality to it. More and more sounds assaulted his ears, each of them sounded foreign and yet strangely familiar, as if he already knew them but was failing to make a proper connection. He tried to recall what he had done prior to blacking out... There had been a picnic basket! And then he had waited until... Until what? As much as he struggled he couldn’t remember anything after he had sat down in the grass. Seeing how this train of thought didn’t lead nowhere, he concentrated on the noises in his surroundings again. He could still hear the wind, and the birds that had grown so familiar to him, so at least he hadn’t been taken far, by whoever captured him. More and more it became clear that the “screams” and the clicking noises didn’t come from one creature, or if so, that the creature had quite an impressive range of voice. Was he listening to a conversation? Given the fact that he currently was tied up and blindfolded, it was safe to assume that he had stumbled across intelligent beings. What should he do? Should he keep still and pretend to not be awake? Should he try to get their attention? But what would he do then? They choice was taken from him when the blindfold was suddenly lifted away, and he found himself blinking at the bright light before him. For a moment he believed himself to be stuck in some kind of cheesy detective movie, a spotlight shining into his face, but only moments later he realized that it was only the evening sun that had temporarily robbed him of his sight. Frantically he tried to analyze his situation. Before him stood two creatures, both of which at first reminded him of dogs. Their heads were large with short snouts, and pointed ears that stood above their round faces. Their bodies were stout and, just like the head, covered in brightly coloured fur, that while short hid all the skin underneath; One was mint green, the other was cream coloured. Their legs showed the typical combination of straight forelegs and swayed hindlegs that was so common among the digitrades of earth. When he spotted the hooves at the ends of their legs, for some reason a shiver ran down his spine. Then he looked at the blindfold, and all thoughts stopped. … “Is that blindfold flying?!” he asked out loud, earning confused looks from his captors. For a moment his captors, the strange world around him, and even the pain in his mouth were forgotten as he stared at the physics defying piece of cloth. “Okay, just keep calm. You already know that this world has it’s own set of rules, so you really shouldn’t be that surprised,” his voice of reason whispered. “Yeah, you’re probably ri....FOR FUCKS SAKE THE STUPID BLINDFOLD IS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR!!!” the rest of his brain replied. Slowly the blindfold levitated over to the mint coloured being. Only now he noticed the horn on her head which was surrounded by a golden aura, which was barely visible in the light of the evening sun. Only when he squinted he could see the same aura around the cloth piece. His inner scientist screamed bloody murder at this sight, but another part of his brain, that part which had once motivated a young Angelo to spend all of his allowance on the newest Perry Rhodan novels, was jubilating at what could only be a manifestation of psychic powers. Angelos eyes followed the piece of cloth as the creature waved it left and right. He shook his head, at the same time shaking his reverie and once again focussing on the creatures before him, this time trying to actively analyze them. Their faces while weirdly shaped, but still had all the normal elements one would expect from a mammal; two eyes, that while slightly to the side of the head, still allowed frontal vision; a nose, or snout as was more appropriate in this case; two ears that flicked around like tiny radar dishes, and a mouth that at the moment was slightly opened. He felt tempted to just assign human emotions to the those features, especially since a lot of the creatures reactions seemed to match those of humans, but even back on earth it was a, at times fatal, mistake to do so. What was a smile for human, could very well be bared teeth to another race. His eyes still wandered between the two creatures, who seemed content to watch him for the moment. “First, stop seeming like you’re panicked.” Angelo reprimanded himself. He took a deep breath and forced his muscles to relax, with mixed results. Just as he calmed himself down, one of the creatures opened it’s mouth and let out another chain of tones. Angelo watched it’s mouth as it articulated what he believed, no, hoped to be words. Quite frankly it was a dazzling display to see the lips contort in ways that would have been impossible for humans, forming tones which were wide outside the realm of human capability. Not that all this did anything to make him understand them better. “Come on Angelo, this might be your only chance to meet some sapient beings in this place, how can you show that you understand them?” he asked himself, while he looked around searching for anything that could serve as a means of communication. Of course! If he had a free hand he would have facepalmed. How could he have forgotten about something so simple. He tapped his foot against the ground, not threatening, but strong enough to get the creatures attention. Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. The mint coloured creature cocked its head, the cream coloured one took a step backwards, it’s ears pressed flat against it’s head. Angelo started once again. Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. He hesitated for a moment, furrowing his brow in concentration. It had been quite a while since he had to do this. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. The cream coloured creature gave of a sound like a flick of tongue, slightly shaking her head, but the mint coloured creature stepped between it and Angelo, giving of a few sounds at it, before turning back to Angelo. He started again. Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap. Expectantly he stared at the creature before him. Slowly it raised it’s hoof and brought it down on the ground. Clop.Clop.Clop.Clop.Clop. Angelo was ecstatic, only barely managing to suppress a smile. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Angelo nodded furiously, and started again. Two taps from him. Three taps from it. Five taps from him. Seven taps from it. Eleven from him. Thirteen from it. Seventeen from him. Nineteen. Twentythree. Twentynine. Thirtyone. Angelo had to laugh loudly, obviously scaring the creatures but he just couldn’t suppress his glee anymore. The creatures knew what prime numbers were. --- It had been quite some time since their little exchange, but Angelo was still tied to a tree, much to his annoyance. The two creatures had stepped away from him and begun what seemed to be a heated discussion. While he didn’t understand what they were talking about, in his mind it was relatively clear what they were discussing. He had done everything he could do, and right now his life was in the hands, erh hooves of those two beings. In order to fight the sense of helplessness and his growing impatience he once again scanned his captors. The only thing he could add to his prior assessment was that both of them had tattoos on their backsides, depicting a Lyre and Bonbon’s wrapped in colorful papers respectively. “More parallels to earth...” Angelo mused. Or maybe it was just a case of parallel evolution? Weren’t there a lot of cases were several scientist developed the same inventions at the same time, simply because of similar outside factors? Or maybe he was just associating his own memories to objects that actually had a different purpose altogether, for all he knew that could’ve been religious symbols that had been tattooed onto their sides. “Argh, I had enough difficulties finding out the relative density of the minerals around here, I think I’m gonna go crazy trying to figure out all this stuff,” he moaned internally, only a sigh breaking through to the outside world. The two creatures shortly interrupted their discussion to look at him, but when he showed no further signs of movement they quickly returned to their conversation. Before Angelo could fall back into contemplation however he felt something touching his hand. It was the warm and wet sensation, of something squirming against his palm. For a short moment Angelo panicked, squirming and twisting his neck, trying to see around the tree. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught a glimpse of white fur. Quickly he calmed himself and stared straight ahead. The two creatures were once again looking at him. Suspiciously? Maybe... he hoped not. “Quick, chew through the ropes!” Angelo whispered through clenched teeth, hoping that the hare would understand what he wanted from her. The hint of white disappeared from his vision. He gave his two captors a grin, remembering that he hadn’t done so before just a second too late. The mint coloured creature trotted over to him with a look that he assumed to be curiosity. Maybe, if Empress hurried with the ropes they could still make it. The white hare shot past him, and tackled the foreign being. Terrified he looked at the spectacle that was unfolding before him. It was brutal. Never had he deemed a being capable of such cruelty, and sheer destructive power. After only a few seconds the fight was over, and the mint coloured creature screamed in pain, as Empress held her tightly in an arm-lock (foreleg-lock?). At least until the cream coloured being trotted over, rolled its eyes and picked Empress up at the neck. The white hare flailed powerlessly, as the creature with the Lyre tattoo got back up again, tears and fear still visible in its eyes. Somehow Angelo didn’t believe that he would be untied soon... --- After Empress had been secured in a makeshift cage (aka the picnic basket) and the turquoise creature had calmed down, it once again sat down in front of Angelo. It raised one of it’s hoofs until Angelo showed that he had noticed by following it with his eyes. It brought it’s hoof to the ground, but stopped before actually hitting it. Then it raised it again, only to bring it down once more. It raised its hoof and let it fall to the ground two more times. After that came four times. “Square numbers,” Angelo deducted. “Maybe it wants to test if the first time wasn’t just a fluke.” Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap.Tap. Angelo continued the row. Once again the mint coloured creature raised its hoof until Angelo payed attention to it. One tap. Two taps. Three taps. Five Taps. “Let’s see one, one plus one, one plus two, two plus three... er... three plus five.” he quickly analyzed the sequence. Now that he knew what was coming, it was relatively easy to recognize the patterns. Eight taps, and then thirteen taps answered the clopps of the creatures hoof. The man and the creature stared at each other. They both were intelligent, and they knew that the other was too, but it was up to the creature to decide what happened now...