Piers and the Wolf (Bougene Station ATU)

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One of the most common tropes in romances (and the fan fictions thereof) is the Enemies to Lovers trope.

When you can "mobilize consciousness" between bodies ... ... you wind up with this really WEIRD syncretic mix of "Friends IN Enemies become Lovers" ... ... which only gets weirder when you throw cross-species mobilization of consciousness into the mix.

As much as Piers and Roni might WANT to be Friends With Benefits ... accomplishing that with the DNA sequence of an "enemy" really ought to be something of a No No.
"Breeding" with an enemy, just because my "friend is inside" that enemy ... yeah, um ... no ...?

Fair point. That said,, they are both (non-standard) telepathic, so that kind of dissonance is slightly less of an issue -- she knows who he is on the inside. (A related issue was going to -- and may yet, if I can find a less-problematic approach -- be a key point, though.)

Thank you!

 

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Fair point. That said,, they are both (non-standard) telepathic, so that kind of dissonance is slightly less of an issue -- she knows who he is on the inside. (A related issue was going to -- and may yet, if I can find a less-problematic approach -- be a key point, though.)

Thank you!

I think I've found that less-problematic approach, and am working on it -- it shifts some exposition to characters who are better positioned to make it. I'm also adding additional action/interaction to provide agency to characters I'd basically railroaded in the first draft.

I'm calling Christmas Eve as my last-ditch deadline on this piece.

 

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Holiday Sequence 1:

‘T’was the night of Zinterklasch, and all through the starship, not a creature was stirring – most especially not that Red Vargr that pretty much killed my body a few days back; Veronica drugged him into biostasis and he ain’t going nowhere. (Was that supposed to rhyme or something?)

I can’t sleep. Since escaping my dying human body into this empty spare Vargr clone a few days ago, I’ve had chaotic sleep patterns. I think I want eight hours of sleep out of twenty-four, but my body wants frequent power-naps instead. So, I’m standing at the window staring into Jumpspace again. It doesn’t look like we’re moving 170 times faster than light – outside there’s only a bluish swirl of black and white fog with scattered gold patches. Each observer sees it differently, but it’s always been this for me, long before I met the wolf in my bed.

Ronni’s fur looks like Jumpspace does to me: the same swirling blend of black and white and the same gold patches, that color at her muzzle and paws. She’s beautiful, but I’m biased. I’ve got similarly placed gold patches, but I’m mostly plain black with white blazes. It’s a good thing she thinks I look good to her, since I didn’t get any choice with this body.

Now she’s stirring. “Piers,” she asks, sitting up drowsily, “come to Mama.” How can her eyes sparkle when she’s half asleep? But they do.

“Sure thing, puppy-girl,” I grin, settling back into her embrace while noting our affectionate status game. Didn’t do that with her back when I was human; we just shared intimate pet names, not one-updogship. But then, after yesterday night we’re not just partners but mates -- despite the awkwardness about how we got there and between us since. The awkwardness is still there, but it’ll pass.

We’d barely snuggled in for a brief cat-nap (which is odd -- we’re lupine rather than feline, but apparently metaphors are in the list of targets tonight along with rhyme and meter) when out by the main airlock there arose such a clatter, we switched on the security cameras to see what was the matter.

 

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Holiday Sequence 2 (Sequence starts at post #103):

“Rewind,” I tell the computer. It does. First the three figures aren’t in the airlock, then they are. The outer door never opened! “Ronni,” I declare, “that’s the weirdest Vargr boarding party I’ve ever seen.”

They’re a white-pelted COTCO High Priest, a Suzduek barbarian with spikes a-plenty and a horned helmet – or are those horns attached to his head? -- and a small black Irilitok carrying a large sack. He’s flat-faced and large-eyed, with small down-turned ears.

“And," I go on, "we’re in mid-Jump! How in the Hellworld can they even do that?! Or did they just teleport over from the cargo hold – and if so, what’s the point? They could have just walked!”

“No time for words,” she projects to me, “Telepathy’s faster. Those people are the Zhinterklash Pack!”

“Wait, what? The Vargr childrens’ fable?” I mentally reply. “Even if they are real, and here, why us? Even on their own terms, we’re too old for them to be interested!”

“Looks like them,” she responds. “The tall white one is The Kringle, bringer of gifts; the red barbarian is Krampus the Enforcer, and their small misshapen assistant is Black Peter. Krampus enforces the just use of Charisma by leaders, so he does deal with adults. But neither of us are leaders…?”

“The little one, misshapen? I think he’s kind of adorable, like a Terran Pug. Are all Irilitok like that?”

Veronica’s shocked. “No, this is an extreme case. Of course I’d never say it to that man’s face, but damn the Solmani eugenicists who inflicted this on him and them! How can they breathe with muzzles so crushed back? Or even eat!”

“Damn them indeed. Yesterday night when your Scent of Love drew me in, I was really, really glad I wasn’t human. Sadly, I’m kind of glad about it right now too.”

“Piers, it’s ok – you had nothing to do with it. And we Akumgeda and the Roth Thokken only live at the far corners of the Vargr Extents because we fled genocide at the fangs and claws of our fellow Vargr back on Lair. Everyone’s got their historic evil – Vargr, Imperial humans, Aslan, Zhodani, all of us.

“Anyhow, there they are.”

“Ok,” I think at her, “If it’s really them. Then again, if it’s not, then they’re still beings so advanced they can break into our pocket universe within a higher dimension which is going a hundred and seventy times faster than light in normal space, and match vectors like it’s nothing – and they want us to see them as figures from children’s stories. May as well take them at face value either way.”

“Piers, it has to be them. Nothing else makes sense. Even if it doesn’t make sense, everything else makes even less sense!”

 

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Holiday Sequence 3 (Sequence starts at post #103):

We hurriedly finish donning our gaily-colored ship suits (Vargr seldom wear subdued colors -- and besides, Veronica looks good in purple). “Ronni,” I tell her, “the Terran version of this just has the fellow visit and deliver gifts. Maybe they’ll just do that and go away.”

“No such luck. We’re more about the interaction than the action.”

She was, of course, correct. “Vernikerr Ehrgrrrah,” a voice from the main lounge booms out, “come forth. I have business with you.” She immediately jumps up and bolts for the door; I try to stop her, while that call is followed by another, far friendlier one – dare I even say, jolly? – inquiring, “We also seek the young Mr. Starmin -- Piers Starmin. If he’s still sleeping, though, please do not wake him.”

“Piers,” Ronni mentally demands, “Let me go. It's not your place to make him wait.”

“What? Ok, Veronica, but you can at least tidy up your fur before going out there!” I hand her a brush; she reluctantly takes it, briefly brushes her head and collar, then opens the door and briskly steps into the corridor. I follow, still not quite understanding her haste.


Indeed, there they are, waiting. Not impatiently, but waiting. The small black Irilitok announces us. “Kringle, Krampus -- this is Vernikerr, and that’s Piers. And," bowing as he introduces himself, "I’m Black Peter.”

The tall white priest wolf -- Kringle -- addresses me, puzzled yet cheerful. “The records indicate that Piers is a child, and you clearly are not a child. Are you his father?”

“No, sir,” I reply. “I am Piers Starmin, and as far as I know I have no children. If I did have any, they would be human, not Vargr – I am new to this body.”

“Oh ho!” he jovially exclaims. “By The List you are Six, so it is told – but also thirty, and twenty-five, fifteen, and even merely four days old!

“This is amusing,

“Yet confusing --

“For you, what age should we be using?”

I need to elevate my rhyming game, this jolly old wolf’s has put mine to shame!

Veronica looks at me as though I’ve gone insane. She sends the thought, “I’m still reading your mind; we’re not in a child’s story, you don’t need to rhyme. Oh crap, now I’m doing it too – nevermind.”

Black Peter looks down at what’s probably a data pad, and speaks up. “Mister Kringle, those ages are all correct, but there’s an issue with the data. Mr. Starmin was a 30-year-old human, now in what was an empty clone body. That body has existed for six years, but was force-grown to a subjective age of twenty-five. And he has been inside of it for just four days – it’s unclear how the transfer happened though.”

Kringle replies, chuckling, “Heh. Peter, once we’re done with tonight’s work, have your elves get with my elves to standardize how we’re going to handle this in the database. We haven’t had to deal with many cases of transferred personality so far; the technology is new to the Vargr".

 

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Getting there...

Holiday Sequence 4 (Sequence starts at post #103):
With Kringle and Peter done for now, the hulking, horned red barbarian draws himself up and turns his stern attention to Veronica. “Vernikerr Ehrgrrrah,” he orders, “Step forward. Do you know why I am here?”

She complies, trembling. “No sir, I do not. But I must have done something.”

“You,” he states, “abused your Charisma from a position of leadership in enticing this man here,” Krampus points to me, “to ‘cover’ you before he was ready to do so.

I interject. “Krampus – sir – meaning no disrespect, but it wasn’t Charisma she used, it was pheromones. She stopped taking some pill so that her time would come, then she had The Lovescent, then… well, you know. We’re all adults here.

Krampus continues. “No, Piers, that wasn’t when the Charisma abuse happened. That was when it manifested.

“So when did it happen?” I ask him.

“It was when she ignored her respect for you that developed while you were in a human body, and disregarded your concerns about not yet being comfortable with... what you ended up doing.”

Veronica steps in. “We talked about it just after he changed bodies. He did want us to, um, “get together” too, eventually. I just couldn’t see that he was serious about waiting.”

“That’s true,” I agree, “though I didn’t realize she was serious about not waiting until the moment her pheromones got me.”

“Vernikerr, you could have checked how he felt. You have,” Krampus taps his forehead, “abilities. But you did not.”

“Sir, I did not realize that I needed to check, until it was...um, too late for discussion.” She shakes her head, ruefully. “I just assumed that since he was new to this, and I’ve been doing it for – for a while – that I needed to take the lead here.

She hangs her head. “You know, I never expected to discuss my sexual history in front of Kris Kringle!”

The jolly white wolf laughs, remarking, “Ho ho ho! We quietly visit millions of dens all over the world, on thousands of worlds. And yet, for the sake of the children --” he shushes himself with an index claw to his muzzle, “-- I see nothing. You need not worry.”

I add, “Roni, it’s ok. It worked out well – pretty amazing, actually.”

“That only makes it worse,” the horned barbarian remarks. “You do see why that makes it worse, don’t you?"

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Note: I should be able to wrap this by midnight here (Pacific).

Minor edits for word choice and spelling errors complete.

 

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Holiday Sequence 5 (Sequence starts at post #103):

“No,” I respond. “No I do not. Why do you believe it does?”

He’s put off by my attitude. “Believe? It’s self-evident. She’s made you complicit in her taking advantage of you. Your enjoyment of it led you to question your perfectly rational choice to wait, and doubt your own judgment. That may not have been her intent, but that’s the effect. That was pretty clever of her, and if she’d used it in a formal Infighting challenge, I’d tip my hat to her -- if I could tip it; these horns get in the way… In this context though, it’s just compounding her disregard of respect.”

She speaks up. “Piers, he’s got a point. I just thought you’d change your mind after – didn’t mean for you to think you’d been wrong in the first place. But I can see how that’d happen, and I’m sorry.

“Krampus, I know I have it coming – I was leading there, and took advantage of Piers’ impaired Charisma for my own selfish ends. Let’s get this over with.” Veronica steps forward as the red wolf turns to their small black companion and asks for his bundle of staves. As he takes them from his bag – which doesn’t look like there was room in it for them! – I jump in front of her.

“Don’t you lay a paw on her! Or --” I demand of the barbarian.

“You’re bluffing, and even you know it. Just look at yourself!” he responds with a sneer.

Black Peter politely interrupts. “Krampus, sir. He’s not bluffing. Unbelievably foolish -- but deadly serious. It’s just that hr can’t exhibit Charisma properly yet.”

“Be that as it may,” he responds, then turns back to me with an authoritatively-voiced order to “Step aside!”

I’m pretty sure he expected that to work, but I’m not feeling it. “What are you going to do, kill me? I’m already almost dead – go look at what’s left of my body back there in the cryocapsule! At least I’ll go down fighting.”

He responds, “This insubordination will not stand! Do you not know who I AM?” and brandishes the bundle of staves at me. Those could do a lot of damage – but I don’t flinch.

And the black Irilitok speaks up again. “Sir? This fellow doesn’t realize he’s being insubordinate, either. He not only can’t display Charisma, he can’t see it. Literally, he does not know who you are.”

With a head tilt and a step back, Krampus declares, “What? That’s crazy!” And he’s subserviently defending her – so her maneuver did have it’s effect!”

“Krampus,” Kringle gently remarks, “You’re making the same mistake that Vernikerr did. You’re expecting a normal response to Charisma, and Piers there is both mute and blind to it. He’s acting on his own bravado, not under her influence. She simply can’t have done that to him.”

“The same -- ? Oh.” He shakes his head slowly, horns swaying above; he lowers the bundle of sticks to his side, then turns from me to Veronica. “All right. I’ll give you a pass on this, Vernikerr Ehrgrrrah, but just this once. But you’re on notice… ”

She replies -- head down, slouching, ears down, tail tucked. “Sir. Yes sir. Thank you sir.”

I sigh, relieved. He turns to me, no longer outraged. “You too. I hope we do not need to have this discussion again.”

Trying to stay calm, I answer. “No, sir.”

Minutes pass.

“What shall we do with these two then?” asks the white wolf. "Though they are comfortably on the ‘Nice’ list, they aren’t children -- toys seem inappropriate.”

“I’d say sparing Vernikerr was a gift,” says Krampus, to which Kringle responds with emphatic side-eye. “Ok, ok, but hear me out. How about we get Piers properly connected to his body so he can do Charisma and other para-linguistic communication?”

“Ho ho ho!,” Kringle exclaims, “That would be a splendid gift – if he wants it. Peter, can you make that happen?”

The small Irilitok replies, “If I had a suitable personality transfer machine, yes. It would take many hours if we were to adhere to ordinary chronology – but we don’t , do we? Comes down to whether he wants it.” He turns to me and asks, “Do you?”

I was not expecting this. “I think I do. I’ll be in this body for at least a few months while they repair or clone the one over there,” I answer, pointing toward the cargo hold and the cryo-capsule, “so I really ought to get myself settled in.” I look to Veronica. “What do you think?”

She seems delighted for a moment, then thoughtful. “Just for me, I think I’d love it. For you? Two problems. The first is that the ‘you’ that I love comes from a human background; you might lose some of that when you’re better linked to this body. I think we can work around that, and at worst you eventually go back to your old body and we start over.”

That makes sense to me, and I tell her so. “What’s the other one?”

She sighs, and glances briefly at Krampus. “Once you have control of Charisma, it will have control of you, too. And sometimes, it’s not nearly as fun a master as Loveblood and The Lovescent… And yes, it means that Krampus here will have power over you and I’m really not sure that’s a great idea right now.”

“Oh ho!” laughs Kringle. “Krampus gave his word just minutes ago. You can trust him. He is, after all, the arbiter of the just use of leadership ability.

“Peter?” he then asks. Their black, almost human assistant nods.

“All right, I accept.” I ask the little Irilitok, “Where’s this device you mentioned?”

He reaches into his bag, and draws out an improbably large contraption. It goes, “Ping!” with confidence. Peter then announces, “Now I have a machine. Ho ho ho!”

“Let’s do this,” I say. He does.

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I'm not quite done here, but it's a decent stopping point if I can't get the rest finished in the next 30 minutes....

 

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Holiday Sequence 6 (Sequence starts at post #103):

I open my eyes; it seems mere moments have passed. How could I not have been overawed by our visitors before? Kringle embodies joviality and kindness in his mere stance; Krampus inspires both terror and confidence; and Peter, who I think I should pity, requires no pity whatsoever, but instead inspires my awe – quietly, he’s the mind and guiding force behind the others.

And then there’s Verni – beautiful as ever, but now I can see in her eyes her love for me – I knew it was there, but she shines now.

“Piers?” she asks, happily confused. “It’s you – you’re real now! I mean, you were, but you’re more real!” We embrace, then turn to thank the three visitors.

“You’re both quite welcome – Merry Zhinterklasch! And a Happy Holiday too!” their voices echo in the room – but they’re gone as though never there.

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Ok, I'm done for tonight. Merry Christmas to all!

 

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Happy and/or Merry Holiday Of Your Choice! My little seasonal story here is done -- it's 6 posts long, starting at post #103 (the third from the top of this page).

I'll cone back at this with commentary and self-criticism in a bit. Feel free to add you own, and thanks!

 

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And now, the self-critique:
Installment 1:
a. The Vargr that shot Piers and set off the whole body-swap thing is never mentioned again. Notably, from a Vargr perspective, what he did wasn't particularly wrong (piracy is commendable -- though a failed attempt might not be). Right or wrong, I can justify it because any wrongness was not a misuse of Charisma so Krampus would not care, and Kringle generally only deals with childrens' issues.
b. I made a half-hearted attempt to revive the rhyming/genre-awareness in the third installment, then dropped it again.

Installment 2:
a. Not entirely satisfied with how I bridged the initial monlogue (paragraphs 1 and 3) over the second paragraph.
b. Used Veronica's telepathy to get around "talking is a free action". Actually, in the OTU it's not -- Snapshot has a 1-action-point "Expletive" action, mostly for expending otherwise un-useable AP at the end of a turn (such as when waiting for an elevator to arrive).
c. I've slightly diverged from @The Pakkrat 's concept of Vargr Krampus, by giving him an entourage.
d. As with the source folklore I drew on, Black Peter is potentially racially problematic. Making him Irilitok (and a Pug) doesn't help, but having him turn out to be the brains of the operation -- which I hope I got across even before stating it outright in Installment 6 -- hopefully mitigated it somewhat.

Installment 3:
a. Donning gay apparel -- seasonal reference.
b. I don't think I made it sufficiently clear that Veronica is under the influence of Krampus's Charisma while Piers isn't noticing it as such.
c. Again, there's that rhyming/genre awareness thing I tried, then abandoned.
d. I'm happy that I got the database error bit to work here.

Installment 4:
a. "The Lovescent" is of course the mating pheromones from a female in heat. I mention "Loveblood" in Installment 5 without stating that it is the females' estrous hormones -- just couldn't figure out how to drop that expostion in without the dialog grinding to a halt. Understandable in context, I hope?
b. Also talking around sex, because of board standards. Hope that worked...
c. I'm unreasonably pleased with the line, "You know, I never expected to discuss my sexual history in front of Kris Kringle!”

Installment 5:
a. The "...She's made you complicit..." exposition was the core of what drew the demoralizingly poor in-home review. The issue was that I had Veronica (the perpetrator) contextualizing the exploitation for Piers (the victim), which compounded the problem since that was overriding his own understanding of the experience. I hope that shifting the exposition over to Krampus has mitigated this problematic element.
b. I'm railroading Veronica. Granted, she's on the wrong side of a severe Charisma differential, but the best I could manage for her was a dignified acceptance of responsibility.
c. "Minutes pass" should have been "Moments pass'
d. This is where I mention female estrous hormones without explaining the term used.
e. I shoehorned in both a Monty Python reference (the machine that goes, "Ping!") and one to Die Hard because it's the season ("Ho ho ho! Now I have a machine! -- except it's not a machine gun.).

Installment 6:
a. I really rushed this, and it could stand a re-write.
b. The "happily ever after" that follows this includes "furries being naughty" so it stays unwritten.
c. So much left open... How does Piers demonstrate to the authorities that it's him in the Vargr's body? Also, the nominal owner of the body (presumably only a personality recording at this point) is a space pirate. This could be a problem for a few reasons. Then there's them both being psionic...
d. I planned, but decided against, breaking open the fourth wall and having Black Peter resolve all this with a tangible "idiot ball" (tvtropes.com) extracted from Piers's frozen near-corpse (Piers must have been given it, since he should never have been surprised and then shot in the first place -- but none of this narrative would have happened otherwise). By bouncing it off of various actors both onboard and elsewhere, Peter would have prevented people from asking those inconvenient questions that were sure to arise otherwise.

Thank you for your patience in indulging me in this self-indulgent exercise.