“Why couldn’t we have just used a car?” Jade complained loudly for the umpteen time, voice raised to be heard over the ATV’s engine. Robin had been spot on when he predicted that Jade would be less than thrilled with his arrangement. Even after cutting part of the pet harness and using Velcro straps to secure it, she had protested against the idea. The fact that it was still relatively early only gave her more reasons to complain in general.
“I told you, because I can’t reach the pedals properly,” Robin called back. He wasn’t sure why he was still answering that question. She asked it before they left the house, after the stop at Walmart, after the stop at the Canadian Tire, after Lowe’s and quite a few times in between them. Rocket and Dax weren’t complaining. In fact, they looked positively enthused to be on the road trip.
Their little trailer was getting rather crowded. Aside from Jade and the dogs, there were the other things he picked up. There was no reason to make a trip out of the house and not load up. Among them; containers of gas, few more bags of dog food, various hardware supplies, more Velcro for his stock, some more long lasting food, Tupperware for the bags of flour, a few more electronics and other useful things. Jade added a sizable pile of video games she picked out. He also collected three boxes of pet care supplies, including but not limited to shampoo, flea collars and pet brushes. They weren’t just for the dogs.
Robin slowly circled the mall and pulled up by one of the lower entrances, parking spitting distance from it. It took about a minute to hop off Sophia and unhook Jade and the dogs. Fingered they may be, his wings were still awkward and he hadn’t mastered using his mouth to manipulate things. It didn’t help that Jade was fidgeting impatiently.
“All right, you remember our game plan?” Robin asked once they were out.
“Pharmacy, post office, electronics store, sears and then the game shop!” Jade put considerably more emphasis on the last one. Conversely, she groaned a little on sears. She wasn’t that keen on the clothes issue; an opinion that originally baffled Robin, but he had to admit; clothes and fur did not mix well. The only thing she really wanted was a set of shoes. Apparently the trip to town had left her hooves sore and aching.
Robin chuckled. “Yes, yes, the game shop last. Technically it’s a free for all.” He himself planned to see if he could get into the system at the bell and cogeco offices, perhaps keep the local cell network running. He didn’t have much hope on that point, but it was a start. “Sears and the electronics store might have stuff you’d want too.”
Between the two of them and the dogs, it didn’t take that long to work through Robin’s list. Medicines, maps, supplies, parts for half formed projects Robin had in mind. They all got piled in the trailer. After that, Robin pulled some meat from the food court for the dogs and let Jade loose to find the things she really wanted. For his part, Robin wandered to the library, pushing his shades out of the way once he was out of the sun. It had been a while since he had actually spent time in one.
When he was a kid, he used to spend at least an hour every day after school in the library, most times reading some story or another, other times pulling encyclopedia down or reading on random topics. He never grew out of his love of reading, but as technology marched on and school got more demanding, he had started doing more of his reading digitally.
Now that the internet took a shot to the 'nads, it was a chance to brush up on his old familiarity. His hoofsteps echoed slightly on the tiled floor as he wandered, stopping here and there to brush a wing over an interesting looking title before he pulled a few books out, his thumb tugging it out before carefully carrying it to a table in his mouth. Personal interest sourced a few novels he never got to finish and set them aside. Professional curiosities lead him to pick out two or three more serious books on biology. Potential prospects added a few on power generation and electricity, including a useful manual on photovoltaic systems. He found two books on fuel as an afterthought.
Robin smiled slightly as the tingling, faintly content warmth he felt. He always did like learning. Not necessarily school learning, but finding out random and potentially unimportant information and exposing himself to related information and just following where it went. It was similar to the wiki-trawl game, but the nostalgia of tracking topics and threads of interest in person in a physical library was there.
“You’re not that old, Robin,” he snorted with amusement. He put his reflections aside and turned towards the issue at hand; research. In a way, libraries like these were even more important now than they would have been. Libraries, schools, office work places, they likely held information that few, if anyone, could teach anymore. All that knowledge, waiting for someone to make use of. Mentally he added ‘ensure libraries remain intact’ to his To-Do List before his attention wandered to his reading again.
Concern for his and Jade's future added a few anatomy and care books for both horses and birds to his pile as well. Figuring it was a good enough place to start, he began flipping through those, skim reading for the most part. He moved on to wing anatomy. That led him to looking up feathers, bats and aeronautics. From there he ended up on jets and military technology. Then back to the solar manual and the horse care books when he banged his hoof on the table. His eccentric journey through the library resources added a book on X-Ray technology to his growing collection, joined by one on radio systems.
At one point he found the shelf of local business information. He spent a couple minutes flipping through the little handbooks that had information on local business places. Those were a big help. It turned out that there were quite a few useful stores in and around town. An Equestrian supply store was on the north side, and they specialized in the fancier newer horse gear and horse care supplies. Near to the mall were both an RV company and a company that specialized in off the grid living. He dropped the more useful ones he found in his pile and started reading.
“You don’t plan on reading all those before we go home, right?” Jade’s hesitant voice broke his concentration. He blinked owlishly at her as she nervously shuffled her hooves on the ground. Rocket pranced over to him and sniffed eagerly him.
“Um…” Robin looked around, finally realizing just how large the pile of books around him had gotten. “Man this got out of hand fast…”
“Hoof.”
“Huh?”
“Hoof. Out of hoof.” Jade waved one at him. “No hands.”
“I… huh?” Robin was momentarily stymied, but he shook it off. “Fine. It got out of hoof. But no, I’m going to take all these home with me to read whenever.” He got up and stretched, surprised at how stiff he was. “Yeesh… how long was I here?”
“About an hour,” Jade supplied as Robin fished his watch out from his pouch. “I think. The electronics section in sears had some consoles set up so I was playing for a while.”
“And we still have other things to do today, places to go,” Robin grumbled, mentally admonishing himself for getting carried away with reading. He nudged his scattered books together. “Alright, let me grab one of those book carts to haul this all back to the trailer and we can head home for lunch.”
“Okay!” Jade sat on her haunches, clearly intending to wait rather than help, but jumped up an instant later. “Hey! How’d you get a tattoo, Nightwing! Oh, can I get one?”
“No, I didn’t get a tattoo.” Robin mad a face and cocked his head to the side. “Why’d you think that anyway? And no, you can’t get a tattoo either.”
“So is it a dye job? Why did you dye your fur?” Jade started twitching her wings in frustration. “When did you dye your fur anyway?”
“Jade… I didn’t dye my fur either,” Robin sighed, a bit on the exasperated side as his wings slumped and a hoof pressed on his nose bridge. “Look, can you just get one of the carts for me?”
“Fine, don’t tell me what it is,” Jade grumbled, but she actually did get up to go for the cart, though she didn’t go without grumbling somewhat and perhaps a bit more stomping than needed.
Robin snickered a little when she apparently stomped a little too hard and hurt herself, hobbling for a few steps before she recovered. To be fair, she had actually got him to considering what dying fur would be like, and it played through his mind as he stacked books. The squeaking wheels heralded her return with the cart and they got to stacking moving the books over to it.
“So what brought this line of questioning on anyway?” Robin asked when they got most of the books loaded.
“The ‘not a tattoo’ you have,” Jade said, sinking a lot of sarcasm into it.
“Jade, you aren’t making an- Yeee! Oi! None of that now!” Robin yelped when a hoof jabbed his flank. He rubbed at the spot, thought it was mostly a reflexive action. “What was that for?”
“Your ‘not a tattoo or dye job,’ duh,” Jade grumbled. She even moved her wings, bringing them around and bending the primaries at the tips in a remarkably good substitution for the ‘quote and quote’ hand motion.
Robin snorted and looked at where Jade poked and his jaw dropped. On his flanks was a picture he never saw before. A wheeled triskelion, the arms orange, yellow and green, with a blue wing, much like his own, stretched out behind it. A quick check found an identical image on the other side. “Jade… I have no idea where this came from…”
----------
Robin tried to make little of the spontaneously forming artwork, brushing it off as just another part of whatever transformed them in the first place. Despite her protests, he hustled her and the books back to the trailer and headed home for the morning, still ignoring the issue. Besides, it was getting later in the morning and he still had things he wanted to do before turning in for his midday nap.
They left most of their acquisitions on the trailer to be unloaded at a later as of yet to be decided time. Jade disappeared into the living room with her games, while Robin loaded his saddlebag with tools and supplies from the hardware store to finish up the project he started earlier. In order to avoid as much of the brighter daylight as he could without neglecting Jade, he had finally decided on sleeping for about four hours around midday and midnight.
He worked on his sustainability projects, like most of the gardening and setting up supply caches in the neighbouring houses, in the morning before Jade woke up. It was also the time he was spending working on the mobility issue. While Sophia was a gift he wasn’t planning on getting rid of, and the powered cart was useful for short runs to other houses and the store, they were all single passenger. He needed a car.
Rocket and Dax’s owners had a SUV, and since he had already kicked the door in, it hadn’t taken him long to find their keys in the house. The last few parts he needed to rig it to comfortably fit himself (or another po-neptin driver) had been picked up on the stop at Canadian Tire. Adding some length to the pedals, making the levers and shift stick more hoof friendly and padding the backrest out a bit.
It wasn’t exactly the prettiest of fixes, but it would work. The hardest part was actually using the tools, but he managed, between his mouth, wings and hooves. Throwing himself into the work, he did his best to distract himself from the mystery of the manifesting image. He was only moderately successful, still casting glances at it as he wrapped up.
“And I was starting to think this couldn’t get any weirder,” he grumbled. At least the SUV was rigged. They could start heading out further on their trips. And maybe get another ATV. More importantly; he wanted to visit that equestrian supply store. Something to do for the evening.
As he mused, something brushed against his hind leg. A jolt of panic flooded his mind and he jumped with a yell, wings and legs all pumping. The hood of the SUV let out a solid bang when his hooves landed on it, and he scrambled to the other side before whirling; body positioned low to the car he stood on, wings flared, and a hiss in his throat.
He didn’t see anything. He held his pose for a moment, his heart pounding and the sun warmed metal beneath him. Something touched him. He hadn’t heard or noticed anything approaching or moving in the area. Already he’d been hit with a mark out of nowhere. Was this the culprit? He stole a glance at his leg, but there was no new change to it.
“Who, or what, is out there!” he called out. “I’ve got hooves and teeth and I’m not afraid to use them!”
For a moment, only silence reigned, but his ears twitched as something started growling softly. Robin’s breath caught in his throat. He considered slipping off the other side and high-tailing it, but part of him refused to leave without at least seeing what it was. Carefully, he crawled over, steeling himself before poking his head out.
Trouble glared at him the moment he crawled into sight, voicing his displeasure with a low yowl. Robin sighed explosively and slumped unto the car, only to hop off shortly after.
“Yeah, that’s hot,” he murmured as he rubbed his underbelly with a hoof, mentally adding ‘hot cars’ to the ‘Possible Reasons to Keep Wearing Clothes’ list. Sadly, the ‘Possible Reasons not to Kep Wearing Clothes’ list was still longer. Trouble batted his leg with a lower growling, bringing his wandering thoughts back. Robin looked at him and snorted, shifting his wings. “Well what did you expect? You scared the… was that a whinny in my yell?”
“Rweor,” Trouble responded.
“Fine, whatever, you scared me, though,” Robin repeated. His hoof wavered in the air. “How did you sneak up on me anyway? Do you know how sensitive my hearing is now?”
“Mya?”
“About as good as yours is,” Robin grumbled. “Jeeze, I know cats are sneaky but damn…”
Trouble rolled over, legs in the air and his belly exposed in an invitation as he squirmed slightly. “Mew?”
“Really?” Robin deadpanned. Trouble wiggled a bit more. “Gah, fine.”
While a hoof wasn’t a hand, he still had a ridiculous, compared to what he expected, amount of dexterity and control with it. Trouble was soon purring contently in response to the hoof treatment, and Robin found himself voicing his woes.
“I have no clue where it came from; it just appeared somewhere between me letting Jade loose in the mall to have her fun and hitting the library. I’m certain I didn’t black out and there was no one else around. Not like you can do a tattoo in that short a time anyway. And it’s identical on both sides! Besides, it’s not a tattoo anyway. My fur colour changed to make it. No clue how that one happened.” He paused him his ministrations and Trouble swatted him.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” Robin said, sitting on his haunches and going back to petting Trouble. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I kind of like it. It’s like pretty cool. Triskelion and a wing? Pretty awesome. And it feels right. You ever got that feeling? You found something that you never realized you were lacking before and when you found it you just knew it was yours?”
Robin paused and looked at the expression Trouble was giving him. “Right… of course you haven’t; you’re a cat.” Robin rubbed his hoof on his nose. “Lovely. I’m talking to the cat. I’m officially going crazy.”
“Reow!” Trouble complained.
“No! You got enough petting!” Robin said. Trouble spat and hissed at him. “Hey! Don’t you take that tone with me Mister! I… am still doing it.” Robin groaned and got up. “Whatever. It’s the good kind of crazy.”
He walked a few slow circles, examining the mark again. Was it supposed to mean something? Wings tended to mean flight or freedom. Escape? Maybe release? Freedom from something? No, that wasn’t right. If you had wings, you can fly. Freedom… of? Yeah. And the triskelion… Those had a lot of meanings. Like growth, progress, though, the three fold nature of an individual’s existence. Okay, that one didn’t feel right. The first ones…
“Aw, whatever. I’ll figure it out later,” he said as a yawn interrupted his reflections. “Jade’s really never going to let the ‘Nightwing’ name go now…”
He packed up his gear and carefully got it on his back. Trouble leapt up as well, taking a perch between his wings. Robin turned his head, which also had surprising flexibility, to glare at him. The cat purred back sweetly. “Trouble… I’ll let you, but if you scratch me, knead me or something worse, never again.”
Trouble nodded and reclined.
“Great,” Robin groaned as he walked back to the house. “Not only am I talking to the cat, but he understands me.” Jade had been doing the same with the dogs. In fact, he was pretty sure the dogs listened to him the first day he met them. “So either we got some sort of animal empathy, or they are getting smarter. And considering how helpful they have been, I think it’s the latter.”
Trouble didn’t give him any issues on the way back, keeping his perch even when he dropped the tools in the garage. Heading into the house proper, briefly wondering if it would be worth it to trade out the knobs for levers. He probably should before winter. They might be torture on the hooves and mouth when they were frozen. He couldn’t head to bed without checking up on Jade, but she wasn’t hard to find. He followed his ears; the sounds of her video games were pretty clear.
He found her lying on the ground before the television. A tray beside her had a few stray baby carrots, lettuce bits and chip crumbs on it, so he could tell she had lunch while he worked. She didn’t have any attention to spare for the remains though. Her tongue was sticking out as she frowned, focused on her game. Robin watched her for a while. It looked scifi, with people in armour talking, more than a few of them being aliens.
“So you done, Nightwing?” Jade asked without looking away.
“Yeah, car’s all rigged. It’s a bit low on gas, but it should have enough for a few days of just going around the city,” Robin said, trying to make sense of the game without knowing what was going on.
“So; we going out?”
“Later,” Robin yawned, just thinking about it making him sleepy again. He took a seat beside her and watched her play. “I need some sleep first. Then we can go to the radio station and some of the stores on that side of town.”
“Don’t we have enough stuff?” Jade whined at the thought of dragging more supplies around. Something in the game exploded, making Robin flinch, ears flicking back.
“It’s better to get everything close faster,” Robin pointed out. “And I want to go to the Equestrian store near the bus terminal. I found a booklet with some information about it. Remember how you said your hooves hurt walking all that way?”
“Augh, don’t remind me,” Jade groaned, pausing the game just long enough to press her face against the ground. “Never again… roads suck!”
“Well, yeah, they aren’t really the best for hooves. Grass and dirt; sure. Asphalt and concrete; not so much,” Robin chuckled slightly as Jade shot an enemy and managed to flip them head over heels with the recoil. “They sell horseboots. The horseshoes you can strap on, not nail on.”
“Okay,” Jade said, not all that excited.
“Hopefully we can find some to fit us,” Robin continued, examining his hoof. He looked up sharply, eyes focused on Jade, her hoof and pastern wrapped around the controller, occasionally aided by her wings. “How are you doing that?”
“It’s easy. You need the omnitool first, then you get the upgrade that gets dropped when you-”
“Not the game, how are you playing the game?” Robin interrupted.
“The controls aren’t that hard,” Jade muttered. “Only the Mako was hard.”
“No! Hooves,” Robin waved his own. “Seriously, how are you playing the game without hands!”
“Um….” Jade looked down, dragging out the syllable for a while. Finally she shrugged. “Dunno. Just am.”
“Whatever…” Robin groaned in frustration, slumping to the ground exhausted. “I need sleep. Wake me up around three or so.”
“Okay,” Jade said as he got up and ambled off to his room to curl up. He paused by the door way.
“I need to remember to stop by one of the schools,” Robin murmured.
“Why a school?” Jade called over.
“So I can get a couple syllabus. I need to make up a schedule for your homeschooling lessons,” Robin yawned, ambling off again.
Jade scurried to her feet and stared at his retreating form. “Homeschooling? Nightwing! Please tell me you’re kidding! Nightwing? Come on!”
Cellie! It’s check-up time!
Guess who got new shoes!
Jade and I hit Greenehawk. It’s a specialty equestrian supply store. A lot of the stuff we didn’t want, like the bits and the saddles and stuff, but there were so many that looked useful. First aid supplies, brushes and other care tools. We even got some proper saddlebags. It was really hard finding stuff in our size, since horses are far larger than we are, but we managed.
Most importantly, we got some boots! They are more like hoof sneakers to be honest. They are pretty awesome. They don’t come up very high, just up to the hoof, leaving the pastern and fetlock free, and they have Velcro straps to secure them. Velcro is one of humanities greatest invention. Thank you guy that noticed spurs had little hooks that caught on fur and fabric. The sneakers themselves feel a bit weird. Like the first time you put on really heavy winter boots, or a goulash, but worse. Made me fell skittish for a while, and I think Jade felt it too. It passed, thankfully.
Having something on our forelegs has a bit awkward for manipulating stuff, but we can still manage. And they are pretty easy to get on and off. The hindleg ones will take a bit more practice, but still. I grabbed a couple boxes. Including the bell types that don’t cover the bottom of our hooves.
Why you may ask? House wear! I’ve been messing around with them, I can attach clips and catches to them with some of the resin I got from Canadian Tire. I tested them out too. With them, I can attach things like utensils and cooking tools and even pens for writing and typing! My tests are working out so far too. With the bell boots around my pastern, I can get decent manipulation of things.
I’m still practicing with my mouth and lips, but having something that lets me use my fetlocks and pasterns for control is great. I still don’t know how Jade was playing video games… She pitched controller between her pastern, fetlock and hoof, using her heel, frog, quarter and even walls to work it somehow.
Yeah, thanks to the books from the library, I’ve been learning the proper terms for everything. Library power!
Oh, I’ve started working on lesson plans for Jade. Just because it’s just us doesn’t mean she gets out of getting an education. I’m not planning on following everything the way it was set up, mostly because I think the system was dumb, but I want her exposed to enough things and to be… learned I suppose. I’m not gonna lock her down or anything, maybe just an hour or two each day. Hey, I’ll be taking the first lessons too. Penmanship.
Hold up Cellie, I’m switching to hunt and peck.
Okay… Ha! The bell boots with two pointers is working great for typing!
But back on topic. I switched because I don’t want Jade to hear this part. I’m not sure what to do with her. There are times she seems fine, most of the time, but sometimes I catch her looking so lost. Like when she saw my family portrait on the wall. She’s strong. She’s so strong I can’t help but be impressed. God know I miss my family. Even if they didn’t live in town anymore and I didn’t see them as often, they were still my parents. To know they are gone with everyone else…
I’m not pretending to think they aren’t. I just hope it didn’t hurt, whatever happened to them.
Jade hasn’t told me much, but I’ve figured out she lived with her uncle and aunt. She doesn’t talk about them. But she’s got to be missing them.
Anyway, I’m not sure how to treat her. From the books on birds, I figured out she needed to preen her wings after five days of just letting them go. She didn’t know what she was going, so I had to help her.
It was awkward. It was so very awkward. And it seems like wings are kinda sensitive.
But it was weird, it needed to be done, but it was awkward. I am so glad I don’t have feathers. Taking care of my wings is so much easier.
Should I treat her like a friend? A guess? A part of me thinks treating her like a kid sister is the best way, but… I’m an only child, I got no idea how siblings are supposed to work. And can I just do it? Do I need paperwork? No, that’s dumb. But I need her to know… I’ll try and ask her tomorrow maybe.
I also plan to get our physicals done. With the SUV, I can make it to the hospital with ease. Find the supplies I need, pressure pumps, Diabetes kits, thermometers, scales, scopes, the works. I’m going to jot down everything I can in terms of vitals and keep it on hand. In case of anything.
Yeah, it’s gonna be so awkward…
Anyway, I think that’s all for today. Trouble seems to like me more. Only fair. The dogs like Jade. They sleep in her room with her. She gets the dogs, I get the cat. So what if I talk to him? She’s got two dogs. Higher Crazy Pet Person rating than me.
Quick recap: shoes, SUV, plans, more plans…
Oh! We set up the radio today. It wasn’t that hard. Every half hour we have a recording going out. I sent them to the Walmart, and I left a walkie talky. I keep the other one with me.
I plan to do some more reading on the power issue. I seriously want to make sure I can keep power going. The windfarm generates so long as the wind is at least 5 MPH, the dams been running for decades… But I just want to make sure we’ll keep swimming in power.
Anyway, I’m off. Going to see how many lights are on nearby and shut them off. Later Cellie.